Tristan smiles as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. “Sounds great. Show me the way.”
Now I have two choices: I can follow him, pretending this isn’t the worst idea in the world, or bail out and look stupid.
There’s not a chance in hell I’m picking the second so…follow it is.
“Lead the way,” I say with a cheerful smile.
Suzanne takes us into the back, showing us where the boxes and tape are, and where the assembly line will start. Four more people are coming in about an hour. “Since the store is still open, I need to be out there, but since you’re bothmatureadults, I’m sure you can manage.”
She’s officially dead to me.
“Right,” I say through my teeth.
Tristan turns his head to me. “No problem on my account.”
Ugh. Stupid man.
After a short laugh through her nose, she heads out, leaving the two of us alone.
Yeah, this is going to be just great.
By some divine luck, we spend the first ten minutes in complete silence. The only sounds in the room are cardboard moving, the slide of the tape dispenser, and then the tear of the tape.
All of it fills the very uncomfortable space in the room.
I glance over at him, trying to seem circumspect, but of course he catches me.
“What?” he asks.
“What?”
“I asked you first.”
I huff. “I didn’t say anything, so I don’t know what you’re asking me a question for.”
He grins and then grabs for the box across my body. “You were staring.”
I was, but there’s not a chance in hell I’m going to admit that. “No, I glanced over and you happened to do it at the same time.”
Tristan raises one brow. “That’s not how I saw it.”
“Then maybeyouwere the one who was staring,” I counter.
Seriously, how does he know I was looking if he wasn’t the one looking at me?
“Nope. I wasn’t.”
“Well, gee, now that you say it like that, I just happen to believe you.”
His smile makes my chest ache just a little. Ugh. Why does this man affect me so much? He really needs to stop. I shouldn’t care about his chiseled jaw, his scruffy face, or the way his brown eyes make my legs weak. All of that should be irrelevant, and I don’t know how to make it so.
Instead, I think about him. I verbally spar with him. I text him, because I’m dumb. And now I’m breaking up with my boyfriend thanks to one stupid sentence that I can’t get out of my head.
Well, that’s not completely true. It’s a lot more than just that, but still, he planted the stupid seed.
I let it grow.
Tristan laughs. “Listen, you’re the one who can’t help but look at me. I get it. I’m a good-looking guy—at least I’ve been told that.”
