Page 116 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

It cares whether I’m useful, whether I’m a problem, whether I buy produce and make eye contact and say thank you as my mother taught me before she started turning every human interaction into leverage.

Redemption Square’s busy by the time I get there.

The farmers’ market has spread itself across the center of town in rows of tents and folding tables and crates full of produce that looks too good to be real.

Tomatoes stacked. Bunches of herbs. Honey jars catching the sun. Fresh bread, flowers, local cheese, homemade jam. People moving in loose currents around the fountain and the gazebo, stopping to talk, to compare, to gossip.

That last part more than anything.

This town runs on produce and information in equal measure.

I shove my hands into my pockets and keep walking.

A couple of people look up when they recognize me. With curiosity. Interest. The kind that comes with everybody already knowing at least part of your business because Julian sang in a bar.

I ignore that thought too.

Bill Smith spots me first. He’s standing behind a table stacked with jars of pickled something and produce fresh from the farm.

“Well,” he says as I get close enough. “If it isn’t one of the new guys.”

I stop at the table. “Good to see you, too, Bill.”

He snorts. “Don’t get comfortable. I haven’t decided how much I like you yet.”

“I didn’t realize there was a ranking in this town.”

“Oh, there’s always a ranking,” he mutters, shifting a jar half an inch. “Some of ’em wave too much. Some of ’em don’t wave at all. One of ’em tried to pay me with a card like we’re in the city.”

“I’m assuming that didn’t go well.”

“Machine’s been broken since 2008,” he says. “And I like it that way.”

I nod.

He eyes me again, recalibrating. “You buying anything, or just here to walk around and make the rest of us feel underdressed?”

“I feel like that says more about you than me.”

“Mm,” he grunts. “That’s what people say when they don’t have a better answer.”

“I asked a question, actually.”

“You did,” he says. “Didn’t like it.”

I glance down at the table, because this is clearly not going to be a quick interaction. “What’s good today?”

“Well,” he says, leaning forward, bracing his hands on the table. “Depends what you mean by good. Tomatoes are early, which means they look better than they taste, so don’t let anyone talk you into those unless you enjoy disappointment. Corn’s decent if you cook it right, which most people don’t. Someone over there’s trying to sell zucchini the size of a baseball bat, which is just showing off and not in a useful way⁠—”

“I don’t need a lecture,” I cut in. “I need something I won’t ruin.”

“That narrows it,” he mutters.

He reaches over, taps a crate with the back of his fingers, checking it’s still there. “Peaches.”

I pick one up.

It’s heavy. Soft without being mushy. Smells like it’s supposed to.