Page 7 of Winning You
“Do we seriously have to do this right this second? I have a line.”
“Uh…no you don’t.” He peered around the truck again. There were a few more people milling around, but they weren’t queuing yet.
“Iwillhave a line. It’s almost eleven.”
“And we can be done in five minutes if you let me do my job.” His tension was bleeding into his tone now, and the guy gasped and stepped back.
“You’re rude.”
“And you’re a pain in the ass,” he shot back. Fuck, this was so not professional, but he was a little tripped up. He wasn’t used to being spoken to like this by a chef or a truck owner. They were usually overly polite and trying to distract him and kiss his entire asshole with their whole mouth so he wouldn’t notice all the violations.
He didn’t know if he hated or liked this version better. But he was going to do his job like he always did, no matter how much he did or didn’t like this man.
Glancing around, everything seemed fairly in order. No, that wasn’t fair. It wasveryin order. He’d never seen a space this small this well organized. Everything was in tidy bins, and there was no clutter at all.
“Impressive,” he muttered.
“Thefuckdid you just call me?”
He sighed and turned to face the man—Lucas, his name was, he noticed from the top of the file on his tablet. The owner of the Eyeless Potato. His brows dipped. He was pretty sure he didn’t see potatoes at all on the menu.
He didn’t get the pun.
Turning his gaze to Lucas, he took him in. He was very tall, long hair pulled neatly into two french braids and tied behind the nape of his neck in a bun. He was thin but muscular, a little pale like he didn’t spend much time outside, and, well…
Send him to hell for thinking it, but the younger man was absolutely fucking beautiful. Frankie was a little taken aback by it, actually. Lucas could have been a damn model. And hell, maybe he was one of those failed Instagram fashionistas. His very, very blue eyes would have caught a lot of attention.
“Hello? Are you still here?” Lucas demanded.
Frankie rolled his eyes. “Can you please show me where you keep your cold items?”
Lucas grunted and turned, his hand touching the handle to the fridge before yanking it open. Once again, everything was in a bin and neatly stacked…but not labeled.
“Dates?”
“They’re on there,” Lucas said.
Frankie snorted. “I’m being serious.”
“Uh, screw you. So am I? They’re right there.”
Frankie peered around his arm but saw nothing. “They’re not. Anyone with eyes can see these bins are all unlabeled, and I could shut you down for that. It’s dangerous.”
“Oh. That’s nice. Theyarefucking marked, for one. And for two, not everyone has the privilege of having eyes,” Lucas snapped back.
Frankie pinched the bridge of his nose. It was like this man got out of bed and thought,I’m going to pick a verbal fistfight with the first person who talks to me today. He rolled his shoulders back and searched for what little patience he had left.
“I’m sure that’s the case, but how many food truck owners do you know that don’t have eyes.”
“At least one,” he said as though Frankie should be in on that joke. Whatever the hell it meant.
“An eyeless man drives a food truck?” he asked flatly.
Lucas scoffed and took a step back, his hand out behind him to touch the counter before he rested against it. He folded his arms. “No, dipshit. Until they start providing affordable self-driving food trucks, I’m shit out of luck and have to pay someone to take my truck where it needs to go. Which are spent from the profits you’re cutting into by arguing with me, by the way.”
Frankie let those words hit him.
Then he processed what they meant.
