Colleen’s fingertips touched his arm.
That morning, Jian had insisted Tristan dress incognito, so he was wearing ironed khakis and a crisp white dress shirt with the collar open instead of the suits Jian had put him in lately. Tristan really liked the fact that this young woman had just touched the thin cotton shirt over his bare skin. Her fingertips ran a gentle spark through him like a tickle of electricity.
She whispered to him, “Please don’t.”
Tristan gritted his teeth and didn’t look away from the balding cocksplat who was leaning to one side and glaring up at him. A faded blue tattoo crawled up the side of the man’s neck, and more blurry tatts stained his arms. Tristan said to Colleen, “Maybe I’ll buy this place and fire him.”
She rolled her big brown eyes. “Dude. Be real.” She turned back to the manager, who was seething at the end of the aisle and clenching his hands into fists. “Mr. Miller, I’d be happy to stay and finish those up on my own time. Our customer was just leaving, anyway.”
Her glance at Tristan told him to quit making it worse and get the hell out of her store.
Tristan told the manager, “That’s no way to treat people. You’re lucky she hasn’t reported you to HR.”
The manager laughed and spat into the air. “HR? Ha! HR doesn’t care about employees. The only thing I hear about from corporate is about how much money I spend on payroll and utilities. Now get back to work, Colleen!”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Miller.” She started to walk away.
Miller’s behavior was reprehensible. No one should abuse their employees that way. If Tristan was going to lose every penny he owned in eight short weeks, he could certainly blow a wad of it on this GameShack franchise and fire this cockwomble as he so richly deserved.
He advanced on the manager. “You can’t talk to her like that.”
Miller had turned to follow Colleen, but he stopped and swiveled his head back. “Who the hell do you think you are that you can tell me how to talk to anybody?”
Tristan drew himself up to his full height of six feet and four inches of heavy, strong muscle and smiled. He kept his tone light and good-neighbor Midwestern. “Just because your father told you that you wouldn’t amount to anything in your entire life and refused to cater to your delusions of grandeur about how you were going to be a star YouTuber with your uninformed, asinine political rants doesn’t mean you can vent your rancor on anyone you have power over.”
Miller was gaping when Tristan finished speaking, and then his face twisted into a gargoyle’s snarl. “Get the hell out of my store.”
Tristan bent slightly so that he was closer to the man’s face. “Hit a nerve, did I? Let me guess. All your diatribes started with ‘Why should I have to pay for those people’s,’ and then you’d chunder your gormless, hateful rhetoric about people who had it worse than you did, didn’t they? But no one watched your videos, and they kept getting taken down for hate speech, am I correct? Did you stop before or after your father threw you out of his house for being high all the time?”
Miller’s snarl had bloated into a red mask of rage. “Get the hell out of my store! Colleen Frost, you’re goddamn fired. You get the hell out of my store and take your boyfriend with you! You can’t set someone up to talk to me like that and get away with it.”
Dammit, Tristan hadn’t meant to get the girl fired. He’d just wanted to wind the old chap up until he had a stroke.
When he glanced over at Colleen, the look of stricken horror on her face felt like ice water pouring through his collar.
He turned back to the old man. “You can’t fire her. I’m not this woman’s boyfriend. I’d never met her before ten minutes ago. Anyone could see that you’re abusing your employees, and anyone should have stood up to you to make you stop. That’s why Sylvie quit this morning, isn’t it? How many of your employees have quit because of your rubbish behavior?”
Miller launched himself at Tristan, his hands outstretched and fingers clawing rather than pulling back for a punch.
Tristan batted the old guy away, and he flopped against the shelf, making a huge racket and shoving boxes of merchandise off the shelves in his tantrum. “I said for both of you to get out of here or else I’ll call the cops!”
Colleen pressed both her hands over her mouth, and her gaze darted between Tristan and that absolute prat propped up against the display shelves.
Tristan held out his hand to her. “Come on. You don’t need this guy.”
When Colleen looked at him, she looked more terrified than anything else. “Yeah, but I need this job!”
An evil glint entered Miller’s pale eyes.
Tristan took two steps toward Colleen so that he was standing right in front of her, and he carefully peeled one hand away from her mouth to hold it. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“You heard your boyfriend.” Miller’s sneer held a note of triumph. “Both of you get out of here, and don’t you come crawling back to me for this job, Colleen. You’re out, and I won’t give you a recommendation, either!”
She seemed to be frozen, so Tristan tugged on her hand. “Let’s go.”
He led the way, and Colleen stumbled out behind him, muttering, “I’ll go back when he’s had time to cool off. He can’t fire me. We’re understaffed as it is. With Sylvie gone, there’s no one to open the store on Wednesday or Sunday. He’ll cool down in an hour. I’ll go back then.”
When they were outside standing on the blazing hot sidewalk and the door clanged closed behind them, Tristan said, “Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”
