Elsie wrinkled her nose. “Who would voluntarily watch that?”
“Right?”
She’d instinctively waved him in while he was talking, but was still not sure why he’d decided to come here. It wasn’t like the library wasn’t an option.
He didn’t say anything about her cardboard towers, just carefully stepped through the path she’d made until he reached the couch. He pulled open his laptop and started flipping through a stack of paperwork he’d brought.
Apparently, he did just want a quiet place to work. She retrieved a stack of shipping bags off a chair and went back to folding T-shirts and inserting them in bags, before carefully affixing the sticky label to the front. They worked in companionable silence for a few minutes before he looked up.
“How’s your business going?”
“It’s fine.” She thought about telling him they’d just gotten in a new shipment of T-shirts to press, but it still wouldn’t explain why she liked to play with the boxes.
But there was something she and Jane had gone back and forth on and getting a third opinion wasn’t a bad idea. “We’d like to offer free shipping from Black Friday until Christmas, but we can’t agree on how to do it without raising T-shirt prices. We’re afraid of a backlash from our customers.”
Will looked thoughtful. “What are your margins now?”
“A pressed T-shirt costs us about three dollars and we sell them for 9.99.”
“9.99 is a good price point. I don’t think you can offer free shipping for one T-shirt, Elsie. No matter how much you raise the price. Shipping costs too much. Besides, you want to incentivize customers to spend more than they originally intended. Offer free shipping if they buy three or more shirts. That’s what I’d do.”
He went back to typing on his computer, and she went back to packing orders, lost in thought. He made it seem so simple. Jane had argued for free shipping when spending $50 or more, but counting T-shirts was much simpler on the customer, and most people didn’t want five shirts. Good things came in threes.
“Good things come in threes.”
“What?” Will looked up from his work.
“Good things come in threes. Would that make a good slogan? We could put it at the top of the website with the offer code.”
“Sounds like a winner.”
She jumped up and ran to her computer to make a graphic for it, excited to show Jane later. And then she checked recent orders and lost track of time for a while. Oh no. How long had she left Will alone in the living room? Ten minutes? An hour? Would he be upset?
She ran in to see him sitting in the same spot, working as if she’d never left.
“Sorry. Are you hungry?”
He glanced up. “Not unless you are.”
She put her hands on her hips. “What kind of answer is that? Either you’re hungry or you’re not.”
Will’s brown eyes twinkled. “Haven’t you ever been in between those two?”
“So you’re kind of not hungry?”
“I could eat.”
Now he was just teasing her. The man was exasperating.
He got up and walked to her, standing close. Too close. Her mouth went dry as his eyes gazed into hers. “I can see I’m making you huffy. Why don’t we go get something to eat?”
“I’m not huffy,” she whispered. His pinky finger brushed against hers and a shiver went through her. How could he go from staying off in his corner practically ignoring her, to this?
“Hangry then?”
“I’ve never been hangry.”
He reached up and brushed a strand of her hair back from her face. Her heart was practically going to jump right out of her chest. This was a mistake. She didn’t even like him. Charming men were dangerous. They easily hid their uglier side when it was convenient. And yet she couldn’t pull her eyes away, even as his face moved a little closer.
