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On the deck of the board, Luke had taped off a three-inch strip running from nose to tail just left of the stringer and hit it with some graffiti: the usual surf slang tagged in vibrant swirls of red, neon blue, lime green, and purple. If the board he’d done for Joe was ’50s hot rod, this one was ’90s lowrider. It was also fucking rad.
Damn, maybe he should do a whole cars-themed lineup. Luke smiled at the idea, and it was just as he was rising from his stool, that the buzzer in the workshop went off. A sudden sustained blast of it.
Luke’s gaze flashed to the security monitor to find Mary ringing up a teenager, her expression tense as she palmed her belly. Striding to the door, Luke poked his head into the shop. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
“No,” Mary said, handing the kid his receipt. “It’s this dickhead.” The boy’s eyes widened. “Oh no, not you.” She tipped her chin towards the dressing room.“That guy.”
Following her gaze, Luke spotted a dude talking to Andy. No, not just talking to her, but touching her as well. Standing way too close as he palmed the shoulder of a surf jacket that fit her like a second skin.
“Deal with it,” Mary demanded. “He’s bothering my assistant.”
No shit. Andy might not look at you half the time, but when she did her expressions were generally pretty easy to read. And right now, her anxious look had Luke charging across the store.
“But don’t break anything!”his sister admonished behind him.
Luke didn’t intend to. Except for maybe some fingers if this dude didn’t take his motherfucking—
“Hands off!”
The guy’s arm flew away from Andy, palm rising defensively. “Whoa, man. We were just talking.”
Luke’s dark gaze flickered to Mary’s assistant, noting her eyes were now trained on him, and they held a hint of fear. Fear he was causing. Jesus, he needed to dial it down.
Reigning in his more violent impulses, Luke cocked his head at the frat-boy-looking dude standing before him. “You can do that without the back rub, Tommy Bahama. She’s not into it.”
The guy’s face turned a ruddy shade of spray tan. Then he straightened and puffed up his chest, trying to prove he was as big-dicked as Luke.
News flash. He wasn’t.
“She never seemed to mind it when we worked together.” The guy shot him a douchey smirk.
Oh, hell no. Someone was about to need some emergency dental work. Luke shifted forward when a quiet voice stopped him in his tracks.
“But I did.” Luke’s attention swung to Andy as she spoke up. “I minded it.”
Tommy Bahama cocked his head, regarding her with confusion. As though the idea of her somehow not appreciating his hands on her person just did not compute. On the heels of that look came a dark flash of irritation.
It was a look Andy didn’t notice as her sights had shifted to check on Mary, but Luke sure as hell did. And it pissed him right the fuck off. But before he could get in his grill about it, the dude’s mercurial expression was changing once again.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Andy,” he said, now appearing contrite. “I should have realized you might have some sensory issues… what with your au—”
“Aldon,” Andy cut in, clearly having lost her patience for the idiot, “I’ve got a job to do, and I need to get back to it, so if you don’t need any help—”
“Actually, I did come in looking for a board.”
“Sorry.” Luke folded his arms over his chest. “We’re sold out.” Aldon’s gaze narrowed on the full quiver at the back of the store before returning to him. Luke shrugged. “Maybe you should stick to beer pong.”
“Whatever, man.” He stalked off with a sulky expression.
Luke followed his departure for exactly two seconds before shifting his attention back to someone infinitely more interesting. “So that’s the guy who can’t change a light bulb, huh?”
Andy snorted. “Yeah. Aldon Wickers. He was always sort of a pest when we worked together.”
“The touchy-feely kind?”
Andy screwed up her face, her grimace confirmation enough.
Luke peered towards the windows, committing name and face to memory as he watched Aldon Wickers settle into an orange Camaro parked across the street. “Did he try anything else?”
