I nod in approval.
“Hey, Joel,” Liam calls. “We’re hungry. Think you can salvage enough pizza from one of those boxes for an appetizer?”
Rayna squeezes her eyes shut for half a second. “Your friends will never let me live this down, will they?”
“They’re good guys,” I say, chuckling. “But no… probably not.”
I stack what’s salvageable and stand, then offer her a hand. She hesitates for a second before taking it, letting me pull her up. Her palm is warm, a little damp from the heat, and sends a surge of attraction through my whole body. She lets go a second too fast, like she noticed it too.
Mikki leans out the pickup window, wiping her hands on a towel. “You okay, Rayna?”
Rayna’s cheeks redden at the sight of her box. “I’m fine. Sorry about that.”
Mikki nods. “It happens. Joel, man, I’ll comp your lunch today.”
“Don’t even think about it, Mikki,” I say. “It’s not a problem.”
Mikki waves a hand to shush me. “Rayna, take five while we remake that order.”
“I don’t need a break,” Rayna says quickly.
“Take one anyway,” she says. “Need a hose, Joel?”
My friends all burst into laughter again before chanting, “Get the hose. Get the hose.”
I should probably care that I’m standing on the dock covered in pizza while my friends laugh their heads off.
Instead, all I can think about is the way Rayna looked at me when I caught her. And how badly I want her in my arms again.
Chapter Two
Rayna
IhavebeeninMercury Ridge for exactly six days.
Six.
And I have already dropped an entire pizza order onto a man.
Not just a man.
A man’s man.
The kind of man who’s all lean muscle and tanned skin and oh-so-kissable lips.
And I hurled a pizza at him.
I press my forehead against the cool tile wall just inside the back door of Mercury Slice and close my eyes.
“Please tell me you didn’t just concuss yourself,” Jenna, my cousin and fellow server, says.
“I wish I had,” I mutter. “At least then I’d have an excuse.”
She snorts and hands me a stack of paper towels. “You’ll survive. He’s shirtless right now, by the way.”
My eyes snap open. “He is not.”
“He is,” she says cheerfully. “Take a peek before he finishes changing his shirt.”
