She pressed her lips tight together.
Nope.
She didn’t miss that Mal was messed up about whateverhappened out there.
“Why do you have a boatload of kids hanging out at yourstore?”he asked.“And don’t tell me they’re customers.”
He turned his head to look out and watched how the kids weremoving while they helped clean up.
This was their space.
He returned his attention to Archie.“They’re here a lot.”
“They’re group.”
“What’s group?”
She pushed away from her desk and started, “Jag—”
He turned fully to her, lifted a hand, dropped it, and cuther off, saying, “Okay, this is where we are.”
She looked surprised.
Then she appeared to be settling in and she did this puttingher hands on her hips.
She had thin, long, elegant fingers, she varnished her nailsand shaped them into ovals.They were painted white.And he wanted to spendsome time looking at the tats she had there and on her wrists, which were tiny,but they looked cool.
That would have to be later.
For now…
“I’m done dicking around—” he began.
“Well, it’s good you are, but—”
“Listen to me, A, and don’t interrupt,” he ordered.
“This may have escaped you, J, but you’re in my office, inmy store, and you can’t tell me how shit is gonna go down here.Or, really,anywhere.”
“Okay,” he crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder againsther window, “you tell me.How’s this gonna go down?”
“First, I’m not a big fan of being called babe.”
“Noted.”
He said it.
He didn’t mean it.
She was totallyababe and he hoped she would soonbehisbabe.
So that was sticking.
She could find that out later.
But for now, they needed to move this along.
“Second, it actually doesn’t matter if you call me babe ornot.The window where we could have been something to each other has closed.I’ve moved on.You need to move on.”
