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“Nah,” I managed to say. “You never showed up.”
Emily chuckled and shook her head. “You couldn’t handle me,” she shot back and then her hand settled on the young man’s arm. He immediately jumped and stepped away from her before seeming to catch himself.
“It’s this one, right?” he asked as he pointed to something on the screen.
Emily, for her part, glossed over his odd reaction and nodded. She cast me a glance, but didn’t say anything else. Emily was the owner of the shop and the older of the two women who typically worked the morning shift, though I guessed she was still younger than I was. We’d been flirting harmlessly from day one, despite the fact that she knew I was gay. I’d had to make that fact known when one of her employees, a pushy, barely legal girl had found the need to continuously thrust her ample cleavage my direction while begging me to go to some party she’d promised would be “epic.” The girl hadn’t lasted long.
“Jenny finally move on to bigger and better things?” I teased.
Emily shook her head. “That girl,” she said with a sigh. “She up and decides she’s going backpacking for three months in Nepal with her boyfriend. Left me high and dry until Ashton here,”— she almost reached out to touch the young man again, but thought better of it before making contact and pulled her hand back— “rode in on his horse and saved the day. Hired him just yesterday, so he’s kind of getting a crash course… go easy on him.” There was a hint of an actual warning in her voice, and I had to wonder if she’d somehow sensed the same thing about the young man that I had… that whatever was behind those pretty eyes of his wasn’t just the stress of starting a new job.
“Ashton, this is Mr. Vale,” Emily began.
“Aiden,” I interjected, ignoring the look Emily sent my way.
“Aiden,” Emily finally conceded. “Aiden, this is Ashton.”
Ashton didn’t look up at me as he mumbled a greeting that I couldn’t quite make out.
“You good?” Emily asked Ashton.
He nodded. “Yeah, sorry,” he murmured. His eyes shifted to me as he told me the cost of my drink and Emily went back to working on the next order.
I was in the process of handing over a five-dollar bill when Ashton suddenly spun the tablet around, presumably because he thought I wanted to swipe a credit card through the reader on the tablet like the majority of customers did. I automatically jerked back when it nearly hit my knuckles.
“Oh god, I’m sorry,” he said, flipping the tablet around again as if that would somehow undo the previous action. This time, the tablet did hit me, but it wasn’t hard enough to do much more than leave a little sting behind.
But from Ashton’s reaction, I might as well have lost a finger.
“I’m sorry,” he squeaked as he took a step back.
“It’s fine. Nothing a quadruple knuckle amputation won’t fix right up,” I said with a wink in the hopes the move would put him at ease. I made a big production out of offering the five-dollar bill again, only this time extending my hand high above the tablet as if the device was an open wood chipper. But the attempted humor seemed to have no effect on him because he’d gone pale again. He glanced at Emily briefly before taking the money from me.
“I’ll… I’ll get your change,” he stammered.
“Keep it,” I said, hoping like hell he’d look up at me. I had no fucking clue why it was so important that he did.
He didn’t.
“Hey, Ashton?”
He stilled in the process of putting the money in the cash register and lifted his gaze. He looked like he was standing in front of a firing squad.
“It’s fine,” I said as I held up my hand to show him. “See,” I added as I quickly separated my fingers so I was doing Spock’s famous hand gesture. “Live long and prosper.”
Ashton’s eyes widened for a brief moment before a small smile graced his mouth.
It was the highlight of my fucking day.
A day that hadn’t technically even started yet.
I forced myself to turn away from him, grabbing my drink as I did.
“Mr. Vale?”
His voice sent shivers up my spine. I turned around.
“May the force be with you,” he said, a twinkle of mirth in his eyes.
“It’s Aiden,” I reminded him. I leaned across the counter just a little so only he could hear me. “And I’ll tell you everything that’s wrong with that statement tomorrow.” It wasn’t until I’d turned again and started walking away that I heard his whispered response. A response that immediately became the new highlight of my day.
“I look forward to it.”
Chapter 2
Ash
What the fuck did I just say?
I watched the man’s— Aiden’s— retreating back and felt nausea roll through the pit of my stomach. Shit, the words had just come out. How had that even happened? I’d meant to ignore him completely, but then he’d done that damn Spock thing and this warmth— this amazing, incredible heat— had spread through my veins, comforting me.
