I nod, pulling out my phone to get the info.
“All good. Enjoy your shower. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll order it while you’re in there.”
“You really are perfect, aren’t you? Can you order the chicken Caesar salad wrap for me? It’s my second favorite.”
“Second favorite?”
She lifts a shoulder, grabbing her bundle of clothes.
“Sometimes they have this tomato and burrata sandwich that is what my actual dreams are made of, but it’s a special, and they rarely have it. It’s late, so even if they had it today, they’re probably out.”
“Got it. One chicken Caesar salad wrap, coming up,” I say with a grin, standing and pulling her in to me to press my lips to hers before stepping away and ushering her off. “Now go; shower.”
She does as I demand, and as soon as the shower starts, I lift the phone to my ear to make a call, wandering into the living room area just in case.
I should stop.
Now that we’re more than coworkers and friends, I should absolutely stop this game of making the world work in her favor.
But it brings her so much damn joy, and I can’t seem to find it in me to.
“Sandy Shore Sandwiches, how can I help you?” a bright and cheery female voice answers.
“Hey, I’m looking to place an order, but I was wondering if there’s any way you can make a burrata and tomato panini? Just one. I’ll pay as much as you need, triple the normal price, whatever you need.”
Because if June Taylor wants something, I’m going to make sure she gets it.
“How’s the business going?” I ask, closing my laptop later that night. When I told June that the shop just so happened to have one of her favorite sandwiches, she squealed with excitement, making the fact that it took an extra thirty minutes and four times the list price to get here completely worth it. Now she’s finishing packaging her orders while I sent off a few emails.
“Amazing,” she says with a laugh, disbelief still in the word. It cuts something in me, the fact that she’s surprised her business is thriving when it’s clear to everyone around her just how damn talented she is. “I can’t believe it’s growing so fast.”
“I can,” I say, and I mean it. I have one of her pieces hanging in my office at the Daydream headquarters in Hudson City, and, according to Sutton, at least five people have asked her where Igot it. I hadn’t intended to buy it, simply checking the morning after she told me about her plan to see if she had actually opened her shop. But when I saw the ocean landscape, I instantly knew it was Seaside Point, and I needed some small reminder of this town that has both given me intense headaches and made me feel more challenged and fulfilled than ever before. It’s a shock, the tiny location I felt so annoyed to be assigned to, becoming my favorite project to date, but it’s the truth all the same.
And even more of a shock that I never want to leave.
I get it, now, what June is always saying about this place being magical.
I’m thinking about that when I spot a sketchpad withWelcome to Seaside Pointdrawn across the center. Instantly, I know that, despite her dismissal, this is one of her ideas for the mural Claire has been hounding her about.
“What is this?” I ask, and she turns to me, her hair in a messy bun on top of her head, her oversized Seaside Point High School shirt just barely covering her ass.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” she says with a quick shake of her head, reaching for the paper and trying to pull it away. I don’t let her, though, grabbing her wrist, stopping her retreat. She lets out a deep sigh, explaining before I even have to ask a second time. “It’s one of the sketches I have for the proposal.”
“One of?” she rolls her eyes, tugging her arm back and crossing them on her chest.
“Don’t tell Claire, but Ihavebeen trying to put something together. Just to see if I could,” she justifies quickly, biting her lip. “I don’t think I’m actually going to submit it.”
“Can I see it?” I ask. I expect her to argue, to tell me no, and to make me get creative with how I move forward with this, but instead she sighs, moves to her old laptop on the kitchen table, and pulls it up. I sit in front of it and start scrolling, instantly shocked at how much she’s actually accomplished on this.
It’s not just her messing around in her downtime: she’s almost finished the proposal, including three different fully colored variations of the mural.
“This is actually very good, June,” I say, looking over the actual proposal, which includes the length of time, the cost of materials, and what other provisions she would need from the town. “The price is a bit low.” I go back to the top and begin looking through the pages with a keen eye, as I would with any business proposal. “And you need to make sure you’re including any local resources you might need to use.”
“Local resources?” she asks, looking over my shoulder.
I turn, put my hands on her hips, pull her into my lap, then point to the map she included, showing where the mural is planned.
“That location is in a busy area—if people decide to stop and watch you, it’s going to cause an issue with traffic. You might need an officer or two to be on standby or monitor traffic for you.”
