Hold On (Page 158)

Needless to say, I didn’t have time for an asshole on a tiki torch mission in Indiana for a luau he was giving in fucking October.

I looked up at Merry to see he agreed.

He’d also shoved his jacket back on both sides and had his hands on his hips.

There was no badge on his belt, seeing as he was off-duty.

Thus, I wondered how this would go.

That said, Merry was tall and lean and badass. The guy with the torches was not tall and was kinda doughy, so I had high hopes it would go well…and, hopefully, fast.

“You wanna move this along?” Merry suggested, though it didn’t come close to sounding like a suggestion.

“It’s my turn at the register,” the man in front of us sniped. “You’ll get your turn.”

“I’ll get it a lot faster, you give it up about tiki torches you aren’t gonna get, seein’ as this guy can’t conjure them from thin air,” Merry returned, shifting his torso to the side only slightly to indicate the line that had formed behind us, which had at least three other customers waiting to check out. “You do that, you can get on your way so the rest of us can get on our way.”

This was a faulty strategy.

He’d called out to the man’s civility.

Since the man had none, that was totally not going to work.

“I hardly need your attitude on a day where I’m looking forward to hosting a luau,” the man retorted.

There it was. I was right.

He didn’t give a shit that he was affecting all our days with his attitude about fucking tiki torches.

“Ditto, turkey,” the woman behind us snapped.

Surprised, I looked back at her to see a blue-haired, sharp-eyed lady with a basket filled with Frozen-themed party plates, cups, like-colored streamers and balloons, and a second basket filled almost to overflowing with bags of fake snow.

“My granddaughter got one year older today and I obviously am not getting any younger, especially waiting in this line,” she declared irately. “I’m not really looking forward to watching Princess Anna’s demonstration of sisterly love for the seven millionth time. But I’d rather do that than expire, waiting at the cash register of a party store, watching a grown man pitch a fit over tiki torches.”

“Yeah,” agreed the lumbersexual guy at the back of the line who had shaggy hair, a long, scruffy beard, was wearing a plaid shirt, and holding an enormous bouquet of pink and silver balloons with some Mylar ones mixed in that said, Sweet Sixteen. “Buy your tiki torches and go.”

The guy in front of us got red in the face, shoved the torches and baskets filled with leis and grass skirts toward the clerk, and snapped, “I’ll get them elsewhere.”

“Good luck with that,” Merry muttered.

The guy shot him a filthy look before he stormed out.

“Next,” the clerk said, dumping the unwanted luau items behind him to clear the register area, doing this with practiced nonchalance, gazing expectantly at Merry and me like all that hadn’t happened.

Then again, he probably had twelve situations like that every day.

This made me glad I was a bartender. People tended to kiss bartender ass to get what they wanted. You didn’t, your ass got ignored and your glass stayed empty.

On these pleasant thoughts, we got our Star Wars stuff. We took it out to Merry’s car. Then Merry headed us toward Marsh to pick up the R2-D2-shaped chocolate cake.

“Just to say, you totally get a blowjob for even going to a party store with me,” I declared as Merry pulled out of the parking lot. “You get another one for gettin’ in that dude’s face. But you didn’t flash your badge and scare the bejeezus out of him, so the month of ‘any time, anywhere head’ is yet to be earned.”

“Baby, can’t flash my badge at a party store to get some guy to stop bein’ an asshole.”

I looked to him. “You did it with the BMW bitch.”

He glanced at me before he looked back at the road. “That was good timing. My badge was already on my belt. Today, I’m off duty.”

I turned to face front again. “I need to take you grocery shopping with me when you’re on duty.”

“They kinda frown on that too, sweetheart, the me-on-duty part being operative, seein’ as they actually want me to work when I’m on duty, not go grocery shopping.”

“Whatever,” I muttered, but I did it grinning because he was funny when he was being rational.

“Gotta say, it’s good to know I got two blowjobs in store, so I probably shouldn’t point this out and give you ideas, but you don’t seem to hesitate goin’ down on me, even if I haven’t done something to earn your mouth.”

“Good point,” I kept muttering (and grinning).

“Though, the promise, brown eyes? Sweet.” Now Merry was muttering.

“Glad you think so.”

He drove.

I sat in his truck, grinning.

“Cher?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re an overachiever too.”

I felt my chest depress.

I turned my eyes to him.

He was also grinning.

“Fuck,” I groused.

“What?” he asked.

“Making you happy makes me even happier.”

“You say that like it’s bad.”

“It is.”

He glanced again at me then back at the road, his brows drawn, his face dark. “How is that bad?”

“Because it means you’re always one-upping me on the happy. I can’t make you happy without you making me happier because I’m making you happy. It’s a vicious cycle where you’re always on top. And that’s bad.”