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I snapped my gaze away from his thigh that I now wanted to lick. Shit. I’d been staring…and hopefully not drooling. “Yes?”
“Did you need me to stop somewhere so you can get a better breakfast?”
I shook my head. “I can do it. I’d like to do some exploring of the places I can reach on foot. I have a lot to figure out, and I don’t want to have to depend on you to help.” My list was growing between bookstore stuff and Wilma Allen stuff and apartment stuff and transportation stuff, but if I were in San Diego, this was where Mom would try to take over even though I didn’t need her to.
Tattoo Guy pulled in behind our building, where he’d been parked the night before too. “Okay. Well, I’ll be around.”
I couldn’t help but grin. I liked that he was so easy to get along with. He just went with the flow, didn’t question me, or try too hard to help like some people did. They assumed there was something wrong with me when there wasn’t. Neurodivergence wasn’t wrong…just different. But not once so far had he made me feel that way.
“Wow…something must be good?”
“Hmm?” I asked.
“Your smile is bigger than your face. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before.”
“That’s not possible.”
“One would think that, but they aren’t looking at you right now. It’s cute as shit—and there it goes, getting even bigger. Damn, you can go on the road with this act.”
“That was a terrible joke, and you’re very strange.” When his brows pulled toward his hairline, I asked, “What?” though I knew what he was saying: why was I the one calling him strange? But it didn’t bother me at all. I knew how he meant it, and again, I knew I was unusual to a lot of people. Something about Tattoo Guy made me feel comfortable, though, because if someone else I’d known for less than twenty-four hours had done the same thing, I probably would’ve given them a piece of my mind.
“What, what?” he asked.
I shook my head and tried not to let my smile take over my face again. “I have to go.”
“No one is stopping you.”
He was right. No one but me. I was stopping me because he was fun. We hadn’t even done anything, and I was having a good time. So I just said, “You’re exactly right,” and unclicked my seat belt and opened the door. “Thank you for the ride.”
“You’re welcome for the ride.”
“Are you staying there all day?” I asked after climbing out.
“Stop being obsessed with me. First you won’t get out of my truck, and now this.”
My heart dropped somewhere near my sneaker-covered feet. Oh God. Did he think I was some obsessed stalker? I opened my mouth to plead my case just as the familiar curl of the right side of his mouth kicked up again. “I know that was sarcasm. Do you think you’re very good at it? I’m not an expert, but you don’t seem to be.”
Gideon playfully clutched his chest like I’d just dropped my hat before mortally wounding him. “Ouch. I thought I was funny before I met you. You’ve done nothing but bust my balls.”
“Yours are in your chest?” I asked as seriously as I could, but he just rolled his eyes.
“Not that I’m aware of, but I’ve heard my brain is in my dick before, so I guess you never know.”
We shared a laugh before I grabbed my bag and forced myself to walk away.
It wasn’t until I unlocked the door and was safely tucked away in the bookstore that I realized I’d thought of him as Gideon instead of Tattoo Guy.
* * *
All the passwords and information I needed were in the paperwork Chester had given me, and the first thing I discovered was that Wilma Allen had badass bookkeeping skills. I was honestly impressed with that part of it, but what had me a little worried was the fact that she was making less and less money. As in, toward the end, she was in the red. Part of that was because she’d worked less herself and had hired more people to help. I’d be full-time, which would help, but I couldn’t ignore the feeling of discomfort settling at the base of my spine.
Which made my brain start going too fast and too many thoughts sprint around the damn thing. She’d left me a business that could fail—logically, all businesses could, but this one had steadily declining profit for years. And according to my research, she was charging Gideon less than the going rate for rent on his space and the apartment upstairs.
She was lucky she owned the building outright. If she hadn’t, I wasn’t sure how she would have continued to make it work. And I so, so, so needed to do that…to make this work, not just for Wilma Allen, but for me. She had built this with her own hard work and then had entrusted it to me. I didn’t want to let down this woman I didn’t even know, and God, did I want to prove I could do it.
