Chapter One
Danny leaned on his register, watching a middle-aged guy in a uniform shirt walk past the window. “I should commit a petty crime just to feel Officer Biceps pat me down.”
The steady beep-beep-beep of his scanner punctuated the ancient power ballad crackling from overhead speakers. Two lanes down, Isaac was bagging what looked like a doomsday prepper’s soup collection for a woman with frizzy gray hair.
“County lockup isn’t a dating app.” Isaac stacked the cans with surgical precision around a carton of eggs. “Your cellmate will be some guy named Skull with prison tats and halitosis.”
“Thanks for killing the fantasy.” Danny rolled his eyes. “God forbid I escape this fluorescent purgatory for five seconds.”
Four soup cans broke free and rolled toward the edge of the belt. Isaac’s hand shot out, snatching each one mid-tumble without even looking down. “Just so we’re clear, I’m only posting bail with fantasy money. And don’t even think of asking if Skull can move in.”
“He only knocked over that liquor store to buy cat food for his five kittens. Cut Skull some slack.” Danny swiped a box of tampons and a candy bar for the next lady in line. “Credit or debit?”
“Credit.” Mrs. Blevins, with her Elvis-blue hair, rooted inside her creaky bamboo purse like she was hunting for truffles.
He passed Mrs. Blevins her receipt, watching her slow exit as her cart zigzagged with each revolution of its defective wheel. Mid-morning light filtered through the front windows, sunrays highlighting clusters of dust drifting between the breakfast aisle and the organic cookie display offering fifty cents back with a mail-in coupon.
Pointing a lazy finger upward, Danny nailed the predictable timing of the produce misters kicking on with a serpentine hiss, releasing that petrichor scent his brain had filtered out sometime around his third month on register.
He nailed the timing of the deli counter lights flickering on then flicked his finger seconds before Hatai walked from the back to start her day making sushi. The predicably was mind-numbing in a way that felt lobotomizing. Danny aimed the scanner at his temple and pulled the trigger with an explosion noise, frowning when the beep sounded a little too cheerful.
“Become sentient and find out just how fast I can run,” he warned the device just as the automatic doors slid open with a whoosh.
Danny blinked once, then twice, and possibly a few hundred more times, his fingers cramping from the stranglehold on his bloodthirsty scanner.
In walked a fantasy who moved like he owned gravity itself. Six-foot-something wall of muscles, broad shoulders filling out a flannel shirt like he’d been poured into it. Dark hair, a full beard that would tickle bare skin, and arms that suggested he wrestled bears and split firewood for fun.
Danny’s brain glitched somewhere between pat me down and don’t be weird.
Then it completely malfunctioned. Stop eye-banging him!
Mountain Man grabbed a cart and headed toward produce, completely oblivious to the fact that he’d just ruined Danny’s entire morning by existing.
Nope. No. Absolutely not.
He forced his gaze away, then fumbled with the receipt tape that didn’t need changing. His pulse was running a marathon, until the scars on his back ached with phantom pain. A harsh reminder that gorgeousness wasn’t synonymous with safety. Brad had taught Danny that lesson for almost two years, with receipts as scars.
Mrs. Curt’s liver-spotted hand touched his wrist. “Everything okay there, sweetie?”
Danny blinked back to the present. “Yeah, just tired.”
It wasn’t a lie. For the past year he’d survived on only a few hours of sleep each night, jolted awake by nightmares that left him shaken and exhausted. What he wouldn’t give for just one night of uninterrupted sleep.
He scanned her cat food and fiber supplements, double-bagging the two-liter of diet ginger ale she bought every Tuesday. Then he handed over her receipt. “Have a nice day, Mrs. C. Give Fluffernutter a scratch for me.”
She patted his arm, unfazed by the smudged kohl around his eyes or the obsidian lacquer currently covering his nails. Once she’d even suggested he try maroon eyeliner, insisting the color would make the blue in his eyes “pop.” Maybe one day. At least she was kind about it.
Unlike those who’d steer their carts toward another lane, like goth was some transmittable disease they were terrified of catching. Yet they had no issue with the hatred infecting them. Whatever. Their loss. The blue-haired brigade were better customers anyway. They always had the best gossip about the pharmacist’s blatant affairs or the ongoing feud between the barber and baker. Danny smirked at how it sounded like the title of a children’s book.
After she shuffled away, his gaze slid back toward produce. Mountain Man stood there squeezing a melon in each firm hand, committing agricultural crimes in broad daylight.
Danny nearly passed out.
Stop watching!
But his thirsty eyes were fully locked on and refused to abort.
Which was why it caught him off guard when he heard Mr. Pike’s voice right behind him. The manager materialized from whatever circle of retail hell had spawned him, bald head gleaming under the fluorescents like an angry cue ball. He had a face like a disappointed potato and the personality to match. His usual cluster of pens were shoved into his collar like he was on the verge of a midlife crisis.
