I twisted back in my seat and picked up half of my sandwich. “There something going on with you two?
“Who?” he asked, brows drawn. “Me and Luna? No, why?”
I took a large bite, taking out a third of it in a single go and ignoring the sudden wash of relief that swept over me. Shrugging, as if the answer didn’t bother me one way or another, I said, “You know her order…”
Beck’s eyebrows flew up his forehead, nearly to the bottom of his backward baseball cap. “I know everyone’s orders. Kind of goes with the territory.” He gestured to the tuna salad on wheat in front of me. “I know yours, Luna’s, Jon’s, Everly’s… Does that mean I’m into them, too?”
“You go out of your way for Luna.”
“I cook for her. It’s literally my job. How is that going out of my way?”
“You’re stocking all kinds of disgusting shit in here now, all because she asked you to.”
“No, shesuggestedsome varied offerings that would appeal to a broader range of customers while also allowing us to keep our supplies local.” He braced himself on the counter in front of me. “There’s a big difference between going out of my way for someone and taking their suggestions into consideration because it makes good business sense.”
I stuffed the last of my sandwich into my mouth and studied him, looking for any kind of tell but coming up empty. “So…nothing?”
“Not even a little. Why, you into her?”
I’d just taken a drink and promptly choked on my water, coughing and sputtering as I glared at him. I swiped the back of my hand over my mouth. “Of course not. She’s impossible. She’s too cheerful. Too unpredictable. Too…
“Unencumbered by rules?”
“Exactly. She drives me up a wall. I want to strangle her half the time.”
“And the other half?”
I snapped my jaw shut, even as he stared at me with a knowing glint in his eye. Like he knew the other half was fantasies of handcuffing her to my bed and giving her mouth something else to do besides running a mile a minute and driving me crazy.
Beck knocked twice on the counter before grabbing the pitcher of water and refilling my glass. “Yep, that checks.”
“What checks?”
He stared at me for a long moment before shaking his head. “You seriously don’t get what’s going on here? It’s a classic case of opposites attract.”
“Of what?”
“Opposites attract,” he enunciated. “You know, where, on paper, two people couldn’t be less of a match, but in person—” he brought his hands up, miming an explosion “—sparks fly.
“Are you drunk right now?”
“No, I’m not fucking drunk. And don’t act likeI’mthe idiot out of the two of us. Maybe you should read more. It’s a very popular romance novel trope.”
“A…romance novel trope,” I said slowly. “Is that what you’ve been doing in here?”
“Whatever. Everly reads, like, two a week. Can’t get enough of ’em. She left one here, and I had to know what the appeal was. It was the off-season, and I was bored. What do you do when you’re bored?”
“Set some speed traps. At least my boredom brings valuable dollars into the town.”
Beck rolled his eyes. “All I’m saying is one of us is right. And one of us is about to fall for his complete opposite, if it hasn’t happened already.”
“You didn’t tell me you were going to ask out Everly.”
He snorted. “Nice try. Opposites as she and I may be, there’s no friends-to-lovers in our future, but there definitely could be some enemies-to-lovers in yours.”
“You’re really starting to worry me. Do I need to stage an intervention?”
Beck snatched my empty plate and tossed it into the bin below the counter, fixing me with a hard stare. “Make jokes all you want, but don’t come crying to me when you need help with a grand gesture.”
