Page 6 of Grudge Puck

“That her?” Vinny asked, smearing his index-finger on my screen. Apparently, it was his turn to watch over my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I snarled. I wiped his oily finger grease off my screen. “Don't touch.”

“Huh. I see why you're all bent out of shape over her. She's kinda cute.”

“Keep dreaming,” I said as I shoved him away. “She'd never fuck you.”

Vinny cackled. “Damn, Beau! Look how jealous you're getting!”

“I'm not jealous. I'm just saying, she was a smart chick. Valedictorian, actually. So she hated guys like us in high school. To her, we were just a bunch of 'fucking jocks.' Trust me, I heard those words from her lips more than once.”

“Mm.Speakingof her lips.” Vinny practically drooled on my phone.

I shoved him away. “Fuck off, Vinny. You toad.”

He laughed. “You'd be all over her in a minute if you thought she was DTF, Beau. Youknowyou would.”

I stared at her picture and imagined it: the two of us, naked and sweaty, boningloudlyand angrily,both of us hating how much we lovedusing each other's flesh to get off.

“Dude, no,” I answered Vinny with a laugh. I pushed all those images of Camille out of my head—last thing I wanted was to get hard before I headed for the shower.

“Bullshit,” Vinny hissed. “Nothing's hotter than a hate-fueled grudge-fuck.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

I shrugged and made my way for the shower.

Not like she'd ever go for it anyway.

Chapter 3

A Familiar Face …

Camille

Flour sprinkled the counter-tops and littered the floor, dirty pots and pans over-flowed from the sink, and tiny beads of sweat trickled down my back. It was our busiest day since we opened a month ago.

We still had a few minutes left before we locked the door and called it a day. In the meantime, Piper and I busily worked to bring order to the shop's chaos as quickly as we could.

And now, all I could think about was finishing up these tasks so I could count down the drawer for the moment of truth: to see if we'd managed to break even for the first time.

I finished sweeping and Piper hopped over to the dishes.

“Okay,” I said. “It's almost closing time.”

I counted up all the cash and ran the credit card numbers. Piper would never admit it, but I knew she was just as anxious as I was. We desperately wantedsomesign that we were on the right path, that this business of ours would take off.

I punched the last of the numbers into a calculator.

Piper, elbow-deep in sudsy water, watched me over her shoulder.

“Well? Well?” she asked.

I sighed. “We're about a hundred short.”

Piper's face fell. “Damn.” She paused to dig her spirit out of the dumps. “Well, hey, that's stillbetter. We're making progress, Cam.”

“Yeah …”