I sigh, “There’s nothing to drop. So he has a crush on a local, so what?” I wipe an already-clean section of counter, “I’m sure it happens a lot when he does these take overs, which,hello,we need to focus on not being taken over! By concrete! Let’s get back to the Memorial Day Derby.”
Everyone reluctantly agrees.
But as we make our plans, the thought nags at me…why is Aiden still driving Steven’s truck?
_____
I knew it. Iknewit.
“No,” I try.
“Yes,” Aiden says, parked behind the bakery with my bike already loaded into the bed. “It’s unbearably hot and humid. You don’t want to ride your bike home any more than I want to drink Althea’s coffee. Let’s go.”
It is bizarrely hot for the time of year. Record-breaking, we’ve been told. I just hope that will bode well for our Memorial Day plans in a couple weeks. I look at Steven’s truck which is new, comfortable and air-conditioned, and I cave.
Aiden smirks.
“What is it with you and the coffee?” I ask when we’ve both climbed in.
He shrugs, “It’s phenomenal. You know that.”
I narrow one eye, “Eh, that’s not it. It’s the secret ingredient thing.”
“Of course it is,” he snaps, half smiling.
“Man, first the karaoke night, the secret ingredient, the derby. I knowsomany things you don’t know.”
“Derby?”
I watch the town go by slowly and say, “Mhmm.”
“Tell me,” he commands.
I laugh, “Unfortunately, I am not Stuart.”
At that, he smiles. Huge, wide, rare and downright beautiful. Again, my face must react because Aiden quickly schools his features.
“Come on, I’ll help you strategize.”
I shake my head at him, “Again, why would you help the enemy?”
He dips his chin to level with me, “Harper, we both know I’m going to win.” He looks away to turn on his blinker and make a left off of Main Street. “You all haven’t a tiny prayer. But if I can help you end closer to the black and less in the red, why not?”
My mouth falls open.
He looks over and frowns, “What?”
“You’re…you’re really going to tear down half the street?”
His brow furrows even more, “Of course. There’s no other place to put the lot for—”
“Stop the truck!” I say, angrier than I’ve been in a long time.
“Harper,” he tries.
“STOP THE TRUCK!”
“NO!”
