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She felt panic rise in her chest as she whipped her head in a different direction. She didn’t want to spend her shift sitting here, staring at him. It sounded like a special hell designed just for her.
“Scoops customers are crazy,” she babbled. “They came during a hurricane once; a thunderstorm won’t stop them.”
“Yeah but—”
“Until then, we’ll clean,” Rory said, shoving a rag and one of the buckets of soapy water toward him.
Tyler frowned. “This place is already spotless.”
“Then we fill candies or fudges or make waffle cones,” Rory said, feeling flustered. “Last thing I need is for Calvin to come in here and think we’re slacking.”
“I—but—”
She walked away before he could complain, turning on the Bluetooth speaker and blasting music to drown out the nervous thumping of her heart, doing anything she could think of to keep her hands busy.
After they filled the spoon containers and the cones and the napkin dispensers, polished the stainless-steel appliances, even vacuumed under the machines to get rogue candies, and mopped all the floors, they still had two hours left of their shift. Only a handful of customers braved the storm for a scoop, licking their ice cream cones in their cars as rain came down hard, leaving their tip jars depressingly bare. So now they stood there, leaning on counters at opposite ends of the shop, letting the storm sounds slice through the awkward silence between them.
“I didn’t see you in school yesterday,” Tyler muttered.
“Sick.”
“You feeling better?”
She huffed. “No.”
He looked confused. “Then why are you working?”
“Not the kind of sick that’s contagious,” she explained carefully.
“Then what kind of sick?”
She sucked in a breath, already regretting the words coming out of her mouth. “The kind of nausea you get when you watch the most absurd promposal in Haverport history.”
Ty looked hurt. “It wasn’t that absurd.”
Rory rubbed the sweat from her palms on her khaki shorts. “Yes, it was.”
“Ry…” he said, taking a step toward her.
She couldn’t deal with this, couldn’t deal with the way he was looking at her and having to talk about prom and how much she wanted him.
So instead, she changed the subject. “I found him.”
Tyler frowned. “Who?”
She turned her face from him, looking out through the foggy windows. “My father. I found him.”
“Wait…what?”
“I found out who he was from Gabi’s old yearbook, and I tracked him down,” she explained. “I met him yesterday.”
Tyler closed the distance between them, placing one of his massive hands on her shoulder. “How’d it go?”
She shook her head, her breath catching. She wished she hadn’t spent so much time daydreaming about a man who wasn’t even worth the sticky old chocolate sauce smeared on the bottom of her sneaker. “There’s a reason Gabi never wanted me to meet him.”
“That bad, huh?”
Rory just nodded.
