“That her?” Vinny asked, smearing his index-finger on my screen. Apparently, it was his turn to watch over my shoulder.
“Yeah,” I snarled. I wiped his oily finger grease off my screen. “Don't touch.”
“Huh. I see why you're all bent out of shape over her. She's kinda cute.”
“Keep dreaming,” I said as I shoved him away. “She'd never fuck you.”
Vinny cackled. “Damn, Beau! Look how jealous you're getting!”
“I'm not jealous. I'm just saying, she was a smart chick. Valedictorian, actually. So she hated guys like us in high school. To her, we were just a bunch of 'fucking jocks.' Trust me, I heard those words from her lips more than once.”
“Mm.Speakingof her lips.” Vinny practically drooled on my phone.
I shoved him away. “Fuck off, Vinny. You toad.”
He laughed. “You'd be all over her in a minute if you thought she was DTF, Beau. Youknowyou would.”
I stared at her picture and imagined it: the two of us, naked and sweaty, boningloudlyand angrily,both of us hating how much we lovedusing each other's flesh to get off.
“Dude, no,” I answered Vinny with a laugh. I pushed all those images of Camille out of my head—last thing I wanted was to get hard before I headed for the shower.
“Bullshit,” Vinny hissed. “Nothing's hotter than a hate-fueled grudge-fuck.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
I shrugged and made my way for the shower.
Not like she'd ever go for it anyway.
Chapter 3
A Familiar Face …
Camille
Flour sprinkled the counter-tops and littered the floor, dirty pots and pans over-flowed from the sink, and tiny beads of sweat trickled down my back. It was our busiest day since we opened a month ago.
We still had a few minutes left before we locked the door and called it a day. In the meantime, Piper and I busily worked to bring order to the shop's chaos as quickly as we could.
And now, all I could think about was finishing up these tasks so I could count down the drawer for the moment of truth: to see if we'd managed to break even for the first time.
I finished sweeping and Piper hopped over to the dishes.
“Okay,” I said. “It's almost closing time.”
I counted up all the cash and ran the credit card numbers. Piper would never admit it, but I knew she was just as anxious as I was. We desperately wantedsomesign that we were on the right path, that this business of ours would take off.
I punched the last of the numbers into a calculator.
Piper, elbow-deep in sudsy water, watched me over her shoulder.
“Well? Well?” she asked.
I sighed. “We're about a hundred short.”
Piper's face fell. “Damn.” She paused to dig her spirit out of the dumps. “Well, hey, that's stillbetter. We're making progress, Cam.”
“Yeah …”
