He shrugged. “Seems to me that you did.”
“Why are you even doing this?”
“I can’t have this kind of disarray right in front of my restaurant.”
I glared at him as hard as I could manage. “The bait shop was all kinds of abandoned disarray for years. You didn’t have any problem with that?”
“It was rustic, charming disarray.” He tipped his chin toward the patio. “That is not charming. It’s also another liability, and since you’re not doing anything about it, I stepped in to get things done.”
“I never once suggested I needed you to call up a crew to pick glass off my patio with tweezers. I came over here because I suspected you had something to do with this after last week’s stunt.” I crossed my arms over my chest. He glanced at my shirt and then away, frowning at the cove. Of course he’d hate our branding. “I am capable of running my business without your interference and I’d really like to go a full week without having to remind you of that.”
He glanced back at me, a slight smile tugging at his lips. It was like his features had been written in a stately, serif font. The smooth expanse of his forehead bisected by a pair of deep, even grooves between his brows. The crisp, high fullness of his cheekbones and the aristocratic square of his jaw. The brackets at the corners of his lips that made every expression a bit more polished—and a bit more severe.
Leaning in close to me, he said, “I think what you’re trying to say is thank you.”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth. He tucked some hair behind my ear. A single, pounding heartbeat passed, and then—“Would it be so bad?”
Without any forethought at all, I blurted out, “You’re not my type.”
Beckett laughed and took a decisive step back. He slipped his hands into his pockets and pulled on the cool, stoic expression he enjoyed so much. “That’s an odd way to say thank you but probably what I should expect from a storm cloud.”
He turned and walked into the oyster company without another word.
That bubble gum bubble popped all over my face.
* * *
Meara slungan arm around my shoulder and hummed to herself as we watched Beckett’s maintenance crew rehabilitate our patio once again. “Is this okay?” she asked after a moment. “You’ll tell me if you need to be in your body bubble, right?”
I nodded. “I’m fine.”
“You’re sure? You’re feeling a little rigid.”
“It’s nothing. I know how to ask for space when I need it.” Another nod. On my other side, Muffy shoved her hands in her apron pockets with a sighing laugh. Bethany held up her phone to snap a selfie of us. Something about this being the perfect girl band album cover.
“It’s nice that you have a rich boyfriend,” Meara said over the hum of shop-vacs. “It’s really convenient to have someone who can snap their fingers and produce minions.”
“And pay for them too,” Muffy added.
I laughed so hard, I cried. “Definitely not my boyfriend.”
“Your admirer,” Bethany said.
“Can we really call him that when he’s a complete pest?” I asked. “Seriously? This isn’t second grade and he isn’t pulling my pigtails.”
“A pest in finely tailored Dior,” Meara said. “It’s happened before and it will happen again.”
“Let me think about that.” I tapped a finger to my lips as I pretended to consider whether Beckett was anything other than an infuriating, egotistical thorn in my side. “Yeah, no.”
“You know, he’s done a lot for us, Sunny,” Beth said.
“He’s fixed our problems on the damn spot twice now,” Muffy said. “If we look past the whole drama of him trying to buy the building out from under us and probably putting us out of business, I can see the appeal.”
I turned to face her. Her box braids were twisted up in a bun, her glasses sat low on her nose, and she had seven markers clipped on the bib of her apron. She looked entirely serious, not even a touch of her bone-dry humor sparkling in her eyes. “You cansee the appeal? You find approximately no one attractive but you can see the appeal of Beckett Loew, the guy who wants to buy our building and get rid of us because he’s annoyed about sharing aparkinglot?”
Muffy waved a hand. “I will acknowledge that he comes on strong—”
