I raise a brow. “We don’t have a dog food order.”
“That old hound of yours is lookin’ skinny,” he says. “Consider it a ‘thanks for all the business’ discount.”
“You mean a ‘you never pay full price anyway, and I’ve given up arguing’ discount?” Penny says dryly.
Virgil waves her off. “Customer loyalty, Pen. Learn about it in… whatever fancy business school you went to.”
“I went to junior college in Austin,” she says. “But thank you.”
I huff out a laugh.
The bell above the door jingles.
Virgil mutters, “Ooh, look who it is,” and I automatically look, ready to see Nash swagger in with some smart remark about saving me from hard labor.
It’s not Nash.
It’s Faith.
And beside her, her younger sister, Charlotte, vibrating with energy.
For a half second, I forget how to breathe.
Faith is wrapped in a soft-looking gray coat that skims mid-thigh, her curls pulled up into a messy bun with a few strands falling around her face. Her cheeks are pink from the cold, her locket glints at her throat, and there’s a dusting of flour on the sleeve of her coat as if she rushed out of the house without brushing it off.
Beautiful.
Too beautiful.
My heart hits hard once, a clean punch under my ribs, then doesn’t quite settle into a normal rhythm again.
I haven’t seen her since New Year’s Eve.
Since the barn dance.
Since I had my hands on her hips and my mouth on her throat, and absolutely no business doing any of it.
The space was supposed to help. Give both of us some breathing room. Let whatever that was cool off and settle into something manageable.
Spoiler: it hasn’t.
“Dallas!” Charlotte cracks through the air loud as a firework. She waves both arms above her head, nearly whacking Penny’s clipboard. “Oh, hey!”
Faith closes her eyes for a fraction of a second, just long enough for me to see she didn’t plan for this either. Her mouth tightens, bracing for impact.
Great. Perfect. Exactly what I needed.
Charlotte barrels straight at me as a one-woman parade.
“Do you even remember me?” she demands without taking a breath. “You look the same, but also older, but also better somehow? Not that you didn’t look good before. I mean, as a teenager, you were like… never mind, ignore me, hi!”
I fight back a laugh. “Hi, Charlotte. Yeah, I remember you.”
She beams. “Oh, you’re so tall, I forgot how tall you are.”
“Gravity’s been cruel to me,” I deadpan.
Behind her, Faith coughs. The corner of my mouth twitches before I can stop it.
