Page 24 of Oh, Flutz!

“Alright!” The annoyance in my voice doesn’t faze him, just makes his smile spread bigger. He must really get a kick out of driving me absolutely crazy, which is made even more clear by the fact that he doesn’t move out of the way to let me get to the food he’s so dead set on me eating.

“You’re in the way.”

He gives me awho, me?expression, not making any moves to get out of it.

“Let me through,” I say, irritability creeping into my tone again, and this asshole just shifts to block the door even more.

“Would it kill you to say please?”

“To you, yes. What are you, three years old? Moveoutof my way,” I say, making a dive for the handle behind his back, and he moves to block me.

“You should really say please, sunshine,” Bryan whispers, and he’s so close to me I can feel his breath on my nose, so close I can hear the catch in it as I lean in slightly. I don’t miss how his eyes widen as I catch my lip between my teeth.

“You know,” I whisper back, “I’ve never been very good at that.”

Then I elbow him in the ribs, which gets him out of the way.

I put a plastic salad container down on the register. Bryan grumbles something, rubbing at where I’d gotten him, then groans when he sees what I picked out.

“What?” I snap.

“Bo-ring!” he sings out, and I really amsoclose to slapping him.

The cashier looks awkwardly between us. “Um, that’ll be seventeen twenty-five.”

I reach for my wallet, but when I glance back up Bryan’s already swiped.

“On me. Now you owe me one.”

“I don’t owe you anything,mudak,” I inform him, and Bryan shakes his head sorrowfully, the self-satisfaction still clear on his face.

“So ungrateful.” He turns to look at the cashier. “See what I have to deal with?”

“You are absolutely impossible.”I grab my salad and my smoothie and turn to go back outside, but he takes my arm again to stop me. I whip around, looking down at his hand, lightly tanned against my sweater sleeve. “Will you quitgrabbingme?”

His hand flies off, like he hadn’t realized he’d done it. “Sorry. Um. Do you wanna sit down?”

I squint at him. “Will you continue pestering me until I say yes?”

He flashes me that crooked grin that never seems to leave his face for long. “Yes.”

Like I said. Impossible.

We sit down at a corner table, and unpack our food in silence. He peers over at my salad as I pour the dressing over it. Only because it’d be like chewing horse food otherwise. Might as well treat myself, right?

“What’d you get?”

“A salad,” I deadpan, and his glare is so childish that I have to smother a laugh. “Spinach and quinoa.”

He gags. “So—sohealthy,” he gasps, and I kick him under the table.

“Ow,” he says, even though I seriously doubt he even felt it. He might be skinny for a supposed pairs skater, but those standards are much higher than those for regular people. Meaning he’s definitely not skinny compared to the other guys in this place. Like, at all.

Still, I don’t care about normal standards, because I’m above that, so it doesn’t matter. I stop staring at his forearms.

“That’s not very nice,” he says.

“Whatever. You should learn to be healthy, too,” I reply, eyeing his sandwich and chips.

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