“Goddammit,” I muttered and rubbed at the tension setting up shop between my brows.
I glanced around, finding the culprit of this mayhem standing at a table near the front of the bar, earbuds in, head bopping to some beat only he could hear. Brooks moved to the rhythm as he set up the chairs and wiped down tables. Blissfully unaware of the chaos he’d just caused.
I dragged a hand down my face, exhaling hard.
Of course. Ofcoursethis was what happened the one time I let someone help.
Now, instead of staying on schedule and knocking out the rest of my deliveries on time, I was stuck hauling three-quarters of the inventory back to the truck, reorganizing everything in reverse order, and losing time I didn’t have to give.
Twenty minutes later, I hoisted the final fuck-up crate into the truck with a grunt and turned toward the back door, only to come face-to-face with Lincoln.
His grin dropped the second he slid his gaze over me, clocking the crate I’d just shoved into the back of the truck. “Um, I gave express instructions that you weren’t supposed to unload the truck.”
“I didn’t unload it,” I said with an eye roll. “I’mreloading it.”
“Why the fuck are you doing that?”
“Because your helper helped a little too much,” I said, hands on my hips. “And now I need to get the orders reorganized and ready for the rest of my deliveries.”
“If Brooks fucked up, then you tell him he fucked up and get him to unfuck his fuckup.”
“Or I just do it myself and make sure it gets done right. Like I should’ve done in the first place. Besides, it was just a little bit of hauling.”
His jaw ticked, drawing my attention to the thick layer of stubble he hadn’t shaved off this morning. “Right. I didn’t realize alittle bitof hauling was okay for your back.”
“Well, it is.”
Lincoln didn’t respond. Instead, he just stared. Not in a way that made heat lick over my skin like it had been doing, but in a way that made me feel cracked open and vulnerable. Like he saw more than I wanted him to, adding up everything from the slight pinch between my brows to the stiff way I was moving and coming to the conclusion I was in pain.
News flash: I was always in pain.
“Uh-huh,” he said flatly. “And how’s your back doing now that you’ve done all this unfucking?”
“It’s fine.”
“Right.”
I took a deep inhale, praying for patience I knew wouldn’t come. No amount of breathing exercises could ease the constant friction between Lincoln and me.
“I’mfine,” I bit out. “I’ve done these deliveries every week foryears. And I haven’t had Brooks with me to help with a single fucking one of them. I’ve handled it, and I’ve handled it fine. The deliveries get done and done right, and guess what? That all happens thanks to this one-woman show. So maybe stop acting like I need rescuing every time I lift something heavier than a coffee cup, and—are you evenlisteningto me?”
Instead of responding, he turned around and strode back inside, walked behind the bar, and grabbed a piece of paper and a thick black Sharpie like I hadn’t said a word. Then he started scrawling something so aggressively I was surprised the marker tip didn’t snap off.
“Are you seriously writing a to-do list right now? What thefuck?”
It was only then that he met my gaze as he capped the marker, then tore off a piece of painter’s tape. With his eyes still locked on mine, he slapped the paper to the back wall, rubbing his finger over the tape to make sure it stuck.
“I wasn’t writing a to-do list,” he said.
“Well, you sure as hell weren’t listening to me.”
“Oh, I was listening. I just don’t believe the parts where you insist you’re fine.”
I shifted my gaze to the sign he’d taped to the wall. In thick black marker and underlined three extremely aggressive times, it read:
WILLA LIFTING BAN
IN EFFECT UNTIL FOREVER
