Page 24 of Under Pressure

“You’re making me feel old and broken.”

“We both know that’s not my intention.”

Her grey hair is bright beneath the brown hair net wrapped tightly around it. It’s styled perfectly, with the slightest curl that I know she uses thick hot rollers to achieve. There’s a soft outline around her eyes from her usual silver liner and a thin layer of concealer blended beneath them. Other than her slower-than-usual pace, nothing about her seems misplaced.

“You’re worrying too much. I’m sure there are things out there for you to busy yourself with,” she says, waving at the door.

“You promise you’re fine?”

“I promise.”

“Alright then.”

I fold my muffin wrapper into fourths before dumping it into the garbage and heading out. It’s quiet this morning after the initial rush earlier. A few tables are still shifted a bit out of place, with some garbage left on the tops of them. Taking a cloth from the sink beside the blender, I get it warm and soapy before making my way out past the counter. I busy myself with cleaning the crumbs and garbage, then readjusting the tables and chairs before retying the cushions on the bottoms of them.

Mostly, the fabric stays pretty clean. Our weekly wash and stain remover ritual helps with that, I’m sure. Stretching my neck, I wipe up the last table and blow loose pieces of my hair off my forehead. The bell above the door chimes, and I look over my shoulder, unable to help myself.

The slight shimmer in the black paint of Beck’s expensive car catches my eye through the window, but I ignore it, unable to look away from the sight of him stepping inside. Frustration wells up so thick in my throat that I try to cough to clear it. Itfails to work, and the next moment, he’s raising the corners of his mouth, smiling brightly.

His tank top looks like he ripped it with his bare hands, exposing at least an inch of skin above his jeans. The ball of frustration quickly melts away, replaced with something hot and sticky instead. The dark trail of hair is like a giant beacon flashing and encouraging me to stare at his abs. Fuck, he’s even got those lines in his hips like an arrow pointing to what I know has to be a huge?—

“Good morning, beautiful.”

I yank my eyes up to where his watch me, crinkled at the corners. “It’s not busy enough for me to need a dishwasher.”

“That’s a shame. I even brought my own gloves this time.”

I’m about to call his bluff when he turns and pulls a pair of neon green rubber gloves from the back pocket of light-wash jeans. He toys with them between his long fingers, and I scowl, forcing my spine into a rigid line.

“Sorry you wasted your money on them.”

“It wasn’t a waste. They can go in the back until the next time you need my help.”

“Do you always have an answer for everything?”

He takes the slightly barbed question in stride, not missing a beat. “Sometimes. Not always. I’m just lucky that I have a million things I want to talk to you about.”

“You’re doing it again. The whole flirty, flattery thing,” I mutter, dropping my head so I can focus on tying the strings of a chair cushion that were already perfectly tied.

“If I stopped, I guarantee that you’d find me boring.”

I make a low huffing noise.

“You don’t agree?”

When I look up from the chair again, he’s standing closer. There’s barely a foot between us, and I know that if I inhaled deeply enough, I’d smell him. From the lack of stubble on his jaw today, he must have shaved this morning, and I cannotafford to like both the smell of his cologne and the aftershave Ijust know he covers himself in. I’d probably go up in flames, and that would be a fucking nightmare.

“I have no past experiences to go off of. You’ve been this way since the first time you were here.”

By the way his smile has blown into a full grin, I know I shouldn’t have said that.

“You remember the first time I came here?”

“No. I don’t know why I said that.”

Liar, liar, liar.

“I could remind you. Everything about that day is up here,” he drawls, tapping the tip of his finger to his temple. “You had your hair tied back by a thick yellow scrunchie and were wearing this tight long-sleeve that?—”