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My hands were just as jacked up and I hesitated, wondering if I should go to the little market in town instead of going to Carly’s. Her coffee shop was a pristine little retreat. She probably wouldn’t appreciate a grease monkey stomping around and making a mess of everything.
“You going to Carly’s?” Aaron asked, shooting me a sidelong grin from the utility sink on the opposite wall.
I rolled my eyes. “Maybe.”
Aaron dried his hands and turned to face me, leaning against the sink. Still grinning. “All right, all right. You’ve taken enough of my shit for today.”
I shrugged. “Trust me, whatever you can dish out, I can take.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that. You’re a Marine. You’re used to taking shit from us Navy dudes.”
I laughed. “Ain’t that the truth. Bunch of loud-mouthed, fuckin’ squids.”
Aaron roared with a gut busting laugh. “Damn, this is way more fun than I’d expected. You’re a good man, Adams.”
“Likewise, Rosen.”
We cleaned up and on our way out of the hangar, I shot a glance at Aaron, my gears turning with unasked questions. He caught my stare and arched a brow. “Yes?”
“What do I need to know about Carly? What’s her story?”
“To be honest with you, I don’t know a lot of it. She’s never been too interested in sharing her back story and I’m not the type to push. Which, in my experience, means some rough shit went down at some point in her past. She’s sweet as pie but can be a firecracker too. She doesn’t take shit, but she doesn’t go out of her way to start anything or stir it up either. Watching her with her sister is as close to pissed off as I’ve ever seen her.”
I nodded, processing the tidbits of the information. She was becoming more and more intriguing by the minute.
Aaron clapped me on the back, snapping me from my wanderings. We’d reached the front desk of the museum, where guests checked in and paid for their tickets. Aaron stopped short of the desk. I followed his stare to see Lana, his assistant, barreling toward him, waving her clipboard in the air with a frazzled look on her face.
“Mr. Rosen!” She called, her voice shrill and panicked. “The new brochures are here and the printers spelled the name wrong!”
I stifled a smirk at Aaron’s expression of sheer misery and returned his comforting slap on the back. “Good luck, buddy.”
“Thanks,” he replied dryly. “Bring me back something from Carly’s, will ya? She knows what I like.”
“Will do.” I gave him a mock salute and hurried away, leaving Aaron to deal with the great brochure crisis that Lana was discussing as though someone had died.
Outside, the air smelled like salt and sunshine. God, it was good to be out of Fallon.
I raced to The Siren but it turned out to be in vain. When I arrived, the lunch rush was in full swing, but instead of finding Carly doing an encore of her seemingly choreographed morning routine, I found her sister operating the counter. I hid my disappointment behind a charming smile and approached when it was my turn, startled to find her sister looking at me like I was a mirage in the desert.
She was gonna be trouble. I’d dealt with sisters before and the jealousy and pettiness could reach horrifying lows.
“Hey,” I started, forgetting her name.
“Alesha,” she offered, smiling at me like there were no hard feelings over my forgetting. “And you’re Nick.”
“Right.” I hadn’t asked her age, but the girl standing before me looked years younger than the one who’d stormed into the shop the morning before. She was dressed down and didn’t look like she was wearing the makeup that she’d had on earlier. Without her hair styled and sophisticated designer duds, she looked more like a high schooler.
A very flirtatious high schooler…
“Is it always like this?” I asked Alesha, glancing over my shoulder at the offshoot of the cafe that was filled with tables and one long booth, all of which were occupied.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Seems like it. I’m only here for the summer. Normally I live in Phoenix with my dad.”
“Gotcha.”
“Are you new in town?”
“Yeah, just got here this week, actually.” I rubbed the back of my neck.
Alesha leaned forward and offered another playful smile. “If you need a tour guide, I’d be happy to help. I know my way around. I was here last summer, too.”
I nodded, unsure how to get out of the conversation. I didn’t want to be rude to the sister of the woman I was interested in, but I also didn’t want to set myself up to be the source of her teenage fantasies.
Luckily, before I could come up with an exit strategy, Carly reappeared from the back of the shop—which I assumed contained a kitchen—and with one sweeping glance, sized up the situation and came over to intercede.
