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An entirely different blonde was climbing her way up a ten-foot, A-frame ladder, gaze fixed on the rafters above.
Ditching his work, Luke ripped open the door to the store.
At the cashwrap, Mary’s part-timer Rashida was ringing up the last few transactions of the night. Casting a glance his way, she arched a sculpted black brow. “There a fire back there?”
“No. Why the hell is Andy stocking the quiver?”
“Did you want Reggie to do it with his broke-ass foot?”
“Lose the ’tude, Rash.”
She winked at him as he charged past the sales counter to the corner of the store opposite them. To where a couple clothing racks had been wheeled aside to make room for the ladder. At the bottom of which, Reggie stood talking a mile a minute as he balanced on his crutches.
“…I was in the spin cycle just getting tossed around like a rag.Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.Next thing I know, my board took a wicked bounce off the wall, popped back at me, andbam! Clips my foot, yo! Then my ankle exploded like a man in a gray suit had just took a mondo chomp on it.”
“Sounds painful,” Andy murmured from her perch atop the ladder.
“It was the gnarliest.” Reggie bobbed his shaggy mane of wheat-colored hair and flashed her a gap-toothed grin as she peered down at him.
Andy’s gaze shifted at Luke’s approach, alerting Reg to his presence behind him.
“’Sup, MacCallum! I was just telling Rhodes here how I almost tombstoned on that epic wave at Black’s—”
“Reg?”
“Yeah, bro?”
“I’ll take it from here. Go help Rash lock up.”
“Cool.”
Reggie sidled out of the way, and Luke assumed his position at the bottom of the ladder. Above him, Andy’s expression was wary. She was right to be so. “What the hell are you doing?”
She frowned. “I’m rotating the stock. Mary said the quiver should be full every morn—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. But I’d prefer you let one of us handle the boards up there.”
She flushed, hands immediately coming away from the beam above her. “Oh. You’re concerned I’ll damage one of them.”
“No,” he drawled. “I’m concerned you’ll damage my sister’s new assistant manager. I could give a fuck if you ding up a board.”
Andy’s nose wrinkled as she grasped his meaning. “I can assure you I won’t injure myself. I’m very comfortable on a ladder. I used to hang signage at ManCave all the time.” Returning her sights to the shortboard lying two feet above her, Andy placed a palm on the tail of it. “Sometimes I even had to change a light bulb.”
From Mary or Rash, that crack would have been delivered with a boatload of snark, but this chick was dead serious as she prattled on.
“And they were the long, linear fluorescent kind. Very fragile. Dave didn’t like Aldon to handle them because he said I had the steadier hands getting them in and out of the ballasts.” Andy smiled at this as she carefully shimmied the board to the right. “Plus Aldon dropped a bulb once because he was too busy ogling a customer." Now Andy’s lips pursed in annoyance. “Glass and powder exploded all over my department. It was such a mess.”
Whoever this Aldon was, he sounded like a tool.
As for Dave, Luke could only presume he was the jackass boss Andy had mentioned last week. But if the idiot had one thing right, it was that she did have steady hands.
And surprisingly toned arms. With the sleeves of her shop tee falling into her pits as she deftly slid the board free of the rafter, Luke’s gaze was drawn to her biceps. He cracked a grin. Damn, for such a slight thing, she was packing some nice little guns. “I’ve got it,” he said as she lowered the board.
“Thanks.”
Luke propped the shortboard against the wall, then moved back to steady the ladder as Andy started climbing down.
“Careful,” he murmured.
