Page 101 of The Promise Of You

“Why do you trust me? I’ve never run a restaurant before,” I insist.

“You understand business concepts. You understand food. You have great taste. You’re smart. You have motivation. And most of all,” he pauses, his gaze trailing down to my mouth, then up to my eyes, making me feel all sorts of mushy and warm and forgetting the conversation to focus on what might come next (his hand tucking a wild hair behind my ear? His fingers lacing with mine? His head leaning over the table to take my mouth?), “most of all, we’re friends.”

Friends?

Friends?!

Is that supposed to be a good thing? He says it like it is, handsome smile and all. Then why is my belly clenching, threatening to send back my burger? I don’t want to be just friends with awesome, sexy, kind Justin. Justin who’s hiding more than burn marks under his tattoos. Justin who does so much for his community and so little for himself.

Justin who told me himself, ages ago, in an elevator, that he could never be just friends with me.

What happened?

He’s a rebound, sister.

I know, I know. But I also know how his hands feel on me, how his mouth feels on me, how awesome his kisses are and the way he grumbles against my skin and how it sends shivers down my spine and all the way to my core. I know the effect his mere scent has on me, and I’ve been basking in it for hours now.

Can I get more?

Just a little more.

Just another round of rebound.

That has to be a thing, right? My core feels heated and bothered at that thought.

Time to regroup and reframe. “Um, okay so, when can we talk about the rent?” Okay. Better. Breathing back in control. Topic back on work. Friends. Gotcha. “Just you and me.” I wave my hand between us. “That us.”

He winces. Ouch. That’s not a friend thing to say. That was a Boston thing.

Yeah, well, Boston happened to me, too, and if he doesn’t like it, I do. In case he didn’t notice, I’m not letting him forget that.

Besides, he’s probably going to make sure I am out of a job pronto, so who cares.

He unfolds his long, strong, fantastic body, standing and towering over me. Grabs our dirty dishes. Sorts trash from recycling and tosses them in the recycling and trash thingies they have next to the door as I follow him. Then he goes out to the truck and to the passenger door and opens it for me. “Moose, out,” he says as he holds the door and helps me up with a hand lightly on my elbow.

Yum.

Once I’m seated and our eyes are level, he pulls the seatbelt out and hands it to me. “I said I trusted you, Chloe. You’ll figure it out. We don’t need to talk about the rent.”

His eyes drop to the slit of my dress mid-thigh as I pull the seatbelt across me, then zip back up to meet mine. “Oh, okay,” I breathe. “Thank you.” I guess?

He pours water from his bottle into a metal container for Moose, then shuts my door while Moose runs around to get back in from Justin’s side. Then he gets in his seat and starts the engine.

And I start cranking numbers and timelines in my head. I don’t know what his expectations are. I just know I need to beat them.

We’re back on the road we took on the way down, but now it’s pitch dark. My thoughts are reeling with what he said, with everything it means. For the business. For me.

It’s a lot to think about. I had a beer, Justin did not. It’s been a long day, and without the entertainment of the beautiful landscape since it’s now pitch dark, my eyelids are heavy.

Justin took a shortcut, same as on the way down. It’s a small country road, and sometimes instead of following the curve of it, he just keeps going straight on a dirt road that goes up and down hills and eventually rejoins the larger, hard-packed road we were on. It lolls right and left, up and down. It’s perfect.

At some point we lose decent radio signal, and it’s crackling so much, I turn it off. Out of habit, I check my phone—zero bars. Not that I could use my playlists by connecting to Justin’s truck anyway. It might be in excellent repair, but it’s from a previous generation. Moose is dead to the world, his huge body filling the back seat.

The purr of the engine is our only soundtrack.

Justin’s scent envelops me, and I take a deep breath.

“You okay?” he says, glancing at me.

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