Page 21 of Resisting the Grump

She slid my loyalty card across the counter, pulled out a stamp with a cupcake-shaped handle, and marked three of the thirteen blank spaces on my card. “It doesn’t matter what you believe.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

She punched some buttons on the register, read the screen, and looked up at me. “That’ll be $26.50.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” I said, handing her my card. “But would you at least tell me why the thought of eating food with me is so off-putting to you?”

“It’s not off-putting,” she said. “It’s just a conflict of interest professionally.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. Was she for real? “How so?”

She waited for the machine between us to noisily spit out my receipt, tore it free, and extended it in my direction.

I waved it away, and she crumpled it with one hand.

“Just to confirm, are you ignoring me again?”

“I’m not ignoring you,” she said. “I’m just… choosing my words carefully because I don’t want to offend you.”

Interesting. “I have pretty thick skin,” I confessed. “Whatever you want to say, I assure you, I can handle it.”

T H I R T E E N

- Avery -

The first time he asked me to have dinner, I thought I imagined it. In fact, I only brought it up again to see if I’d been hallucinating, and realizing I hadn’t been kind of freaked me out.

I mean, fantasizing about the guy was one thing, but this real time tête-à-tête was another beast entirely. Yes, he was hot. Yes, I was confident he could replace the current aches and pains in my body with much more interesting ones. Yes, his attention made me feel that delicious sort of flustered I hadn’t felt since I was a smitten schoolgirl.

However, there was nothing safe about this guy, and I was supposed to be shirking danger, not letting it take me out to dinner. As handsome as he was, he was renowned for breaking people, and I couldn’t afford to be broken right now. I was finally starting to feel secure in my singledom.

His thick brows rose with impatience. “I know you don’t have a boyfriend, so why reject a harmless invitation?”

“How do you know I don’t have a boyfriend?” she asked.

“Because you would’ve said you did when I asked you.”

“Not necessaril—”

“And you would’ve worn pants instead of pigtails to the baking festival.”

I scowled at him. “Lucky guess.”

“So go out with me.”

The woman by the window finally started wrangling her kids together, and based on the mess they’d made, you’d swear there were twelve of them instead of two. “It’s not a harmless invitation.”

“In what way?”

“Well, let’s suppose you decide you like me—”

“I do like you,” he said. “Thought that was obvious.”

I swallowed and ignored the way the back of my neck burned. “Let’s say your intention is to sleep with me.”

“What makes you say that?” he asked, failing to suppress a smirk.

“Because you’re a man who’s asked me out without bothering to ask my name.”

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