The minute Harley left, Roxy was right back through my door with a look that made me cringe.
“You,” she began as she shut my door, “like him. You like himlike him.”
“I don’t like himlike him!” I snapped as I did my best to be quiet. I didn’t need to be the center of anyone’s gossip in my own office.
“Yes, you do!”
“No, I don’t!”
“You locked his file!”
“I didn’t want you to know about him!”
“Because you like him!” Roxy said. “It’s been a few weeks, Maverick! Weeks! You know, I thought maybe you were going through a sexual crisis—like maybe you were less gay than you thought.”
“Please,” I scoffed.
“But Harley?” she continued, ignoring me. “Harley, Mav? And the way you two were laughing? You like him!”
“I don’t like him!” I repeated. “He’s a friend.”
“Maverick.”
“Don’t do that. Just don’t.” I switched off my computer and got to my feet. “I’m fine, Rox. Seriously. I can’t explain it in a way that you’ll understand, but I’m fine. Harley’s fine. We’re fine.”
“Oh, honey, you’ve got it bad,” she commented.
“I do not.”I didn’t.
I kept that thought on repeat as I packed up my stuff to head and finish up my appointments for the day. I didn’t have it bad. And I certainly didn’t feel anything for Harley.
CHAPTER 88
harley
After dropping Aria off at school, I parked at the end of Main Street and took a walk toward the coffee shop. I shoved my hands in my pockets, the early morning air still cool enough to make a jacket worthwhile. Wilde Bay was awake, but in that slow, small-town kind of way. No one was pushed by a rush of customers to throw open doors and meet demands.
In the city, mornings had always been an overwhelming experience of car horns, packed sidewalks, and people movingas if the world might fall apart if they slowed down for even a second. Everything had been loud and fast and impatient.
Here, no one seemed to be in a rush to get anywhere. The bakery had its doors propped open, and the smell of fresh bread spilled out onto the sidewalk. Someone waved at me from across the road, and a truck rolled lazily through the intersection like it had all the time in the world. Even the lake breeze carried a kind of quiet with it.
It was refreshing. And it was strange how quickly I’d grown used to the new rhythm. My soul was at ease, a small reaffirmation that moving to Wilde Bay had been the right choice. The freedom from the constant rush was something I had no idea I needed this badly.
Of course, that didn’t stop my own little chaos gremlin from being the cause of my morning caffeine run, but I was okay with that.
As I wandered out ofSparrow & Sage,I caught sight of Maverick leaning against his truck with his arms crossed. His jeans were soaked from the knees down and caked with sand—the same sand that clung to his shirt and dusted his hair. From the uneven stack of driftwood poking up over the edge of his truck bed, he’d spent the early morning hours on the beach again. I saw him out there with Duke almost every morning, and I still had no idea what he was doing with all that wood.
“I need you to do me a favor,” he said when I was within earshot. “My coffee is sitting on that counter. Any chance you could grab it for me so I don’t get sand everywhere? I don’t want to make Eduardo’s job any harder than it is.”
“Mmm,” I began, drawing out the sound as I playfully considered it. “For the price of… you have to answer one question for me.”
“Duke ran into the lake when he saw a fish surface, and I had to drag his ass out,” Maverick explained.
“That’s good to know, but it wasn’t the question I wanted to ask. What are you doing with all that driftwood?”
“Do you want to see?”
“Are you about to take me to a secret workshop and kill me?” I demanded.
