Page 13 of Winning You
Lucas let out a small laugh. “Help me find my dinner and we’ll call it even?”
“Sure, I—ah. Right. Hang on.” Lucas felt a tap on the back of his hand, and his cane was returned to him. Then another tap, and there was his bag of slightly squashed chips, burrito, and his guac. Nothing seemed to be compromising the thin paper sack, so he assumed nothing had spilled.
“All is forgiven,” he said. “Are you, uh…new here, or whatever?”
The guy was very, very quiet for a moment. “We moved in last week. Ellie and I live in one-oh-four.”
That was two doors over to the left, Lucas realized with a sigh of relief. No tiny toddler feet keeping him up at all hours. He could live with it.
He tucked his cane against his shoulder, then stuck out his hand. “Lucas.”
The man hesitated for a beat too long, then took his hand. “Frankie.” It had a nice ring to it, in spite of the fact that Lucas was pretty sure he was another one of those “scared of the big, contagious blindness” guys.
Would it never end?
But then he realized the man’s handshake was lingering. Was it something else? Oh god, did he still have guac on his face? He pulled his hand back and attempted to wipe at his cheeks with his sleeve before remembering he wasn’t wearing sleeves.
Wonderful.
“Anyway, see you around,” he blurted, then turned on his heel.
He managed to get to his door in time to hear the guy mutter, “Yeah. I guess so.”
The hallway was silent after that, and when Lucas was certain he was alone, he shoved his key into the lock and stepped into his little sanctuary. Thank fuck.
But it was in that moment of stillness and silence he realized that he could still feel the impression of the man’s hand. And like his voice, it was oddly, inexplicably, familiar.
CHAPTER THREE
LUCAS
There wasa special place in hell for the man who made Lucas get up before nine in the morning to head down to the food truck. It was complicated enough owning a restaurant on literal wheels that he would never be able to drive. But to make him bother someone else at what he considered the ass-crack of dawn so they could get parked an hour earlier than normal, all to sate this sadist’s craving to make Lucas suffer?
Fuck him.
Fuck him entirely.
Not that anyone ever complained about driving the truck around. The Eyeless Potato was his now, but Lane still lent him line cooks for street fair season and drivers to get it to where it needed to be. Lucas was also more than aware this was a stopgap in his career. He didn’t want to own this little truck forever. He did want to do something bigger with his life.
Maybe not outside the bounds of their small town, but he did want to be known as more than that weird blind guy who made sandwiches for a living.
In reality, his dream was a bookshop and a café in one. Maybe full of books he couldn’t technically read, since he had no plans to stock braille. He knew exactly how fucking expensivethat shit was, and there weren’t enough blind people in the town limits to make a profit. But being surrounded by the smell of freshly printed pages and homemade cookies and hot espresso?
That was the dream.
He’d keep display cases of trinkets and hang up art from local artists. He’d sell tabletop games and custom dice and figurines that his friends all liked to paint.
It would be his space. His sanctuary. Something he built from the ground up without anyone else giving him a boost.
God only knew when he’d be able to get that kind of cash, but he was still young. He became very quickly aware that college wasn’t for him, so he was currently breezing through an online business class just to give himself some validity when he walked into a bank one day to ask for a loan.
But that took up very little of his time. He could focus the rest on trying to find the most ideal spots around town to make the most amount of profit and someday have his fantasy realized. And maybe with that would come a lot less being rejected by every fucking person he caught feelings for.
He took his time getting ready since he was up before he could feel the warmth of the sun. He thought about rubbing one out in the shower, but he couldn’t seem to conjure anything sexier than the asshole inspector berating him.
And humiliation was not his kink.
Still, the guy’s voice was a nice one. Averynice one. Sort of rich and made him think of cinnamon and autumn. His dick got halfway hard, but not enough he was going to do anything about it.
