Page 78 of Matchmaking On The Menu

“Indeed.”

I look at him. He looks back. “And the prize?” I ask.

He gestures behind the counter.

A tandem bike. It’s bright and completely out of place.

I look back at him. “What?”

“A tandem bike,” he says, as though that clarifies anything.

“I heard you.” A longer pause this time. I look at the bike again, then back at him, in case it makes more sense on a second pass. It doesn’t. “I don’t want a tandem bike.”

He shrugs, hands already on the handlebars. “Then junk it.”

I glance at the bike again. Someone put time and effort into it. That sits wrong with me. I also note that this man seems entirely unbothered either way, which is its own kind of strange.

“No,” I say after a moment. “I’ll take it.”

He nods, looking more relieved than the situation warrants. “Good choice.”

I’m not convinced it is.

The bike is a mistake.

I know this about three steps in, when the front wheel veers left like it has its own agenda and the back half lags just enough to make the whole thing feel like I’m dragging a stubborn animal. It’s balanced for two people. Every step compensates for something that isn’t there.

“Can’t even ride this alone,” I mutter.

I tighten my grip and keep moving, the grocery store where I left the Jeep coming into view. I didn’t want to miss happy hour, so I parked there and walked the short distance to the print store. The owner had offered to keep the photo behind the counter while I dealt with the bike. Nice of him. Less nice for the guy who now has to make two trips.

Which means I need to figure out how to get the bike back to the apartment without scratching the Jeep’s interior. Then I’ll have to come back for the photo.

The bike rattles with every step, metal clinking softly.

It’s a distraction. A decent one.

Until it isn’t.

“Back off⁠—”

The voice cuts through everything. Sharp, tight, close enough to be real. My body reacts before my brain does—I stop, then I don’t.

The bike slips from my hand and hits the ground with a crack as the frame splits where it shouldn’t, the sound echoing sharper than it has any right to in the quiet.

I don’t look back. I’m already moving.

Adrenaline cuts through everything as I round the corner, my focus narrowing to one point, one sound, one⁠—

Her.

Dannica.

She’s at the back of the diner, body angled away, trying to pull free as a man grips her arm, his other hand fumbling at her bag.

Something in me locks into place. Not thought. Not decision.

I’m already closing the distance before I realize I’ve moved.