Page 127 of The Billionaire Is Back

“I totally have it!” Vera yells back. “I got it last night!”

I place a calming hand over my heart. All is well. The days of my best friend failing me are over. “Oh, thank God. I love you!”

But Vera’s face does not look calm. A person who has actually procured a box truck that could transport a giant cake to the end-of-summer Shellibration would not have that expression on her face.

I clench my hands into fists. “What? Tell me.”

“‘I have the truck, but she’s still at my place and she won’t start,’ she said, humbly, silently begging for forgiveness with her doe-like eyes.”

My fist drops from my heart to my hip. “Whywon’t the truck start?”

Vera scrunches up her face and rubs the back of her neck. “I left the lights on.”

I finally open the door for her, thinking about rehiring her just so I can fire her again.

“Do either of you have jumper cables?” Vera asks as she bursts through.

Despite being the recent owner of a shitbox vehicle, I do not own jumper cables, and Vera knows this. I look to Grady for help.

He shakes his impossibly beautiful, sexy head. “I’d have to drive by my parents’ house to get my dad’s.”

“Dammit, Vera! Why didn’t you call roadside assistance?!” When she widens her eyes at me I remember why. Vera boned the only roadside-assistance guy in town a couple of years ago and then ghosted him. I groan. “We’re gonna have to pull the cake to the beach on the dolly.” I toss my hands up in the air. This is the only solution I can think of, and it makes sense to me. “I can’t risk putting it in the back of a pickup truck—it’ll be too bumpy and dusty. The dolly is the only way. If we leave now and move very carefully we can get it there in twenty minutes. Half an hour tops.”

“Claire. We do not have to drag it there by hand, and we do not have to get it there before nine a.m. I’ve got this, babe. I’ll take care of it,” Grady says in his deep morning baritone. “Why don’t you make some coffee?” He takes out his cell phone.

“He’s got this, babe. Hi!!!! Look what a good friend I am—I brought you an egg sandwich!” Vera holds out a greasy paper bag and gives me a big hug, and I hug my lovable idiot best friend back. Because if there’s one thingI’ve learned it’s that you have no choice but to love the people who give you what they can and not necessarily what you want.

“Jakey, hey,” I hear Grady say.

“Why is he calling my brother?” I ask Vera. I turn to Grady. “Why are you calling my brother?”

Grady holds up a finger to silence me. I’m gonna let that slide if he actually solves this problem. “You still work with Robbie?” he asks the phone. “Is he off duty today?” There’s someCharlie Brownsquawking from my brother that I can’t make out. “It’s parked at his house, right? We need to move the cake. Can you bring it here?” More squawking. “Great. We need it ASAP. Oh, hey, pick up my brother on the way. If I called he probably wouldn’t come, but if you just tell him that we need him he will. We’ll need the extra set of hands.”Wa-wah wa wa wa wah.“Great, see you soon.”

Grady ends the call. He smiles and winks at me. It doesn’t make my heart beat any slower, but instead of fluttering in pure panic, it races because of how he’s looking at me. He’s back and he has my back and all is well.

“See?!” Vera says, patting my head. “We’ve got this.”

I swipe the egg sandwich from her and stuff my face with it. “Go make coffee,” I tell her with my mouth full. This is the last thing I will ever ask her to do for me. If she sets my bakery on fire while doing it, at least I’ll get my caffeine hit and dolly my lobster cake out before it all burns to the ground.

After quickly ingesting a sufficientamount of coffee, Grady claps his hands. “Okay, let’s see what we can get outside ourselves.”

Vera, Grady, and I work together to move the cake onto the dolly. There are tense moments. I accidentally call Vera a clumsy-ass fucker and threaten to murder her when she trips a little bit, but she doesn’t even blink and she forgives me before I even finish apologizing. We manage to wheel the cake through the back door and out to the back alley.

This is a lot of work and stress just to move a dessert shellfish that will end up on hundreds of paper plates by this afternoon. Maybe I’m just tired, but maybe I wouldn’t miss owning my own bakery as much as I thought I would.

Once we’ve got the dolly in a stable location and Vera has ensured that there are no raccoons around, I reach for Grady’s arm. “Grady.” I have to catch my breath because we exerted a lot of effort just now.

“Yeah, babe?”

“There’s something I want to tell you. I’ve changed my mind.”

I hear a siren in the distance.

“If you’ve decided to move this lobster back inside, I will be very displeased,” he says.

It’s hot. He’s got his shirt sleeves rolled up and he’s breathing just a little heavily and I shouldn’t be so turned on by the fact that he might be displeased with me, but gosh darn it, I am. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I know I said I can’t handle only having part of you. That I can’t live half a life without…”

Grady looks a little anxious. The siren is now veryloud and headed this way. I can’t hear my own voice over it without yelling. “Is there an ambulance coming?”

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