PART ONE
ONE
Acruise ship had to be in, because the pizzeria was flooded with tourists in floppy hats and fanny packs, showing off their purchases of joke t-shirts that could be bought anywhere in the world with such winning slogans asDad Jokes? I Think You Mean Rad Jokes!and complaining about the cost of a Key Lime Coolada.
Ten bucks for sixteen ounces was a better deal than anything else they were likely to find on Perfection Avenue, but arguing with cruise people was like hammering a nail into the wall with your bare fist, so Shepherd hid out behind the bar and let his employees handle it.
A few months ago, this wouldn’t have been a problem. But a few months ago, Ginny Kent hadn’t moved into the apartment upstairs and picked up a few shifts working for him. Which turned into most shifts working for him. And Ginny Kent, unlike his other employees, did not suffer in silence and let him get away with it.
“Noah,” she’d sing-songed to the bartender after clearing out a table, “do you happen to know what the Spanish word for coward is?”
Noah said, “Uh,” and kept drying glasses.
She, of course, wasn’t actually talking to Noah, so Shepherd put his hands on his hips and waited.
“Cobarde. In French, you ask?” Ginny raised both her shapely red eyebrows and stared at Shepherd.
“I did not.”
She answered anyway. “Lâche.”
“How about Japanese, huh?” Shepherd asked. “You got coward ready to go in Japanese?”
“Koshinuke.” Ginny smiled, her ice-blue eyes sparkling in the light of the Edison bulbs above the bar. “Don’t ever underestimate the power of an Ivy League education, Mr. Shepherd.”
“And yet, here you are. Selling pizzas for a living.” Shepherd leaned his forearms against the sticky varnish of the bar and clasped his hands together. He could feel himself smiling too, in that annoying, big way his face kept doing around Ginny that made his cheeks hurt. Every morning before work, he practiced grinning in the mirror in a normal way. A sexy way. A way that wouldn’t cause him physical pain by the time he was closing up shop. But it hadn’t worked the entire time she’d lived upstairs. “Working for me, I might add, so as long as you’re on the clock, you go and deal with all these yahoos, huh? I’ll be here. Watching. Supervising, if you will. As is my God-given right.”
She laugh-snorted. “The only right God gave you was to be an unmitigated asshole.”
Shepherd nodded once, decisively. “That’s right. And don’t you forget it.”
“You’ve mentioned an Ivy League education before,” Noah said, “but you haven’t saidwhatIvy League school. I went snooping for it in your résumé, but then you didn’t have a résumé.”
Ginny shrugged. “I didn’t give Shepherd one.”
“Yeah, she didn’t need one. I hired her ’cause she’s cute.”
“OK, admitting that is workplace harassment,” Ginny said. “One that worked in my favor, I didn’t have to type up an updated résumé, but still. Maybe don’t put too fine a line under that.”
Shepherd grinned, but Noah groaned. Shepherd glanced at his long-time bartender. The shorter man had two still-damp glasses pressed against his forehead like he was planning out a Halloween costume, droplets of water dripping on to his greenShepherd’s Piesshirt.
“In front of me? Really? I’m trying to work here, guys. Can you two please just get a room? Hey, go upstairs! Ginny’s room is literally right there, and then maybe I could go through a shift without throwing up in my mouth a little bit.”
Shepherd tried to guffaw in disbelief, but something was caught in his throat, the back of his neck beading with sweat.
Noah glared at the both of them and walked away to helpa customer covered in a layer of thick white sunscreen, waving him down for a refill on his coolada.
Shepherd was at a complete loss for words, something that almost never happened to him. He stared at Ginny, knowing his mouth was hanging open, but quite unable to do anything about it.
She smiled. “While I will admit that you are the exact type of asshole I typically find charming, I have a strict Don’t Date Your Boss rule that I will never, ever break.”
Shepherd breathed in. The scent of fresh garlic knots and tomatoes roasted in house for their special sauce centered him. He returned Ginny’s smile and moved to stand up straight. “He said get aroom—nothing about a date.”
“Aw.” She tapped his cheek with the flat of her palm. “It’s so cute how you think you have a chance with me. But even if you weren’t my boss, you’re still a coward. Cobarde. Lâche. Koshinuke. And I would never hide behind a bar instead of facing my fears.”
Ginny tapped his cheek again and, with a wink, spun around towards the hostess station.
Then she made a weird squealing sound, dropped to her haunches, and crawled back behind the bar.
