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“Don’t worry.” I slide the hot funnel cake across the counter with a smile. “It’s on the house.”
He gawks. “Really?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t owe you anything?” He lets out a nervous chuckle. “Wow. I … I didn’t expect this. I feel like …” He blushes. “… feel like I should’ve been a bit nicer, actually. I should really pay you somehow. Really, I can go back and get my—”
I prop an elbow on the counter. “If you really feel bad, you can owe me your number. Or a date. Or …” I give a humorous smirk. “… whatever comes to mind.”
His smile falters.
Then it’s gone entirely.
Something seems to be working over in his head. His eyes darken.
I frown. “What?”
“Is that what this is?” He stiffens up. “You see me—a sad, miserable, boring visitor to the island—and think I’m easy prey?”
Now I’m totally confused. “Easy prey? Huh?”
“This is your routine? Do you do this to some lonely guy every weekend?”
“No way. What are you talking about?”
“Yeah, I can see it now. The way you sweet talk me. Break me down a bit, whip me up a cake on the house, then guilt me into your bed.”
The thing is, he still looks hot even when he’s calling me out for something I’m not doing. Or is it something I’m not doing? I’m not even sure. “You’ve got the wrong idea. I don’t guilt nothing and no one into my bed.”
“I know guys like you. Just as gorgeous as the rest of them, but understated, playing it cool. I bet you run some surfing for beginners class, too, where you get all up and close with dumb and innocent visitors to the island …”
The picture he’s painting is hilarious and I kinda wish it was true, but I’m starting to get mad. “Look, I was just trying to do a nice thing here.”
“Well, I’m not dumb or innocent. Don’t let these rosy cheeks fool you. I know a player when I see one. Kent.” He snorts. “Even your name sounds like a player.”
And now he calls my super generous, sweet-ass self a player? “Those are ‘rosy cheeks’? I just assumed it was a bad sunburn.”
He glares at me for that comment. “There’s nothing finger-licking yummy about you or the cake.”
“You haven’t even tasted it yet.”
He snatches the basket off the counter, breaks off a piece of the funnel cake, and shoves it into his mouth. He immediately tries to suppress the reaction of ecstasy that explodes over his face. “I’m taking this ‘gift’. And you’re not getting my ass or my number in return.”
I snort at him. “Fine. I’m bad with numbers anyway.” I’m also terrible with comebacks, apparently. Bad with numbers? Really? “And I farted on that cake you’re eating.”
He’s already shoving another bite into his mouth as he marches away. “Well, your farts are delicious!” he shouts over his shoulder, angry.
I stare at his yellow-trunks-clad ass as he leaves.
That escalated rather quickly.
I farted on that cake you’re eating …? What in the hell came over me? Am I a twelve-year-old? Of all the things I could have said. I’ve clearly spent too much time around my prank-happy, idiotic brothers growing up.
This is why I’m still single.
“Is that how we treat our customers now?”
I cringe. Just my luck. I turn around to face my boss Malik. “It was just … a fun … He was just being a … I had to have a—”
“You gonna pick one of those sentences and stick with it?”
I sigh. “You know how these vacationers can get. They’re all so … entitled and rich and sensitive.”
“I also know how you can get.” Malik and his crossed arms and giant mustache fill the doorway leading into the back. “Kent, how many times do we have to do this song and dance?”
“It’s them, not me.”
“Well, if you hate them so much, why are you working the front of my bakery?”
“The answer is clearly my dashing smile,” I answer him first, presenting my face with a hand like a magician. “Second, I don’t hate them. I just—”
“Better yet, why are you working here at all?”
“I need to pay rent, like all the other islanders who work the Quicksilver.”
“Rent? You live with your mom and little brother.”
“And how else do we all pay our rent other than Robin Hooding from the wealthy vacationers with sweets, fine dining, and overpriced junk from our souvenir shops?”
Malik gives me that look he always does when I talk back. I should be used to it by now, yet I can’t help but feel like one of these days, I might actually say too much and get myself in trouble.
Until his eyes soften and he issues a sigh. “I know you and Adrian are at odds lately. I heard all about it at the Easy.”
That damned Cooper, shooting off his mouth at the Easy Breezy. If I can just go one day on this damned island without someone’s nose in my business … “What don’t you hear about at that damned bar?”
