Nathan pitched forward with laughter. There was something melancholic in him that disappeared when he found something funny. It made her possessive. Like each time she made him laugh, more of that delicious, eye crinkling sound belonged to her.
“So this was a spite tattoo?” Nathan asked. “This girl called you basic and you got a fleur de lis on your ass?”
“That is not what it is. And it’s not on my ass. But it really hurt, and I chickened out halfway through. Now I’m stuck with it.”
Miguel rounded the corner with two plastic baskets filled with food. He set them down and eyed the last bottle of chili sauce that Nathan had placed between them. “That shit’ll burn your lips off.”
Rachel grabbed it and unscrewed the top. “Challenge accepted.”
He laughed and gave Nathan a pointed look. “Ella me gusta.”
Nathan’s eyes never left her face. “Me too.”
Miguel waved and returned to the stand. The burgers were huge, and the fries were seasoned with so much salt that it formed a crust on the surface. Rachel used a paper napkin as a placemat and then used three more to cover her lap. She shook out a generous amount of chili sauce into a small paper cup filled with ketchup.
Nathan opened his burger and started covering it with fresh pickles. “That’s a very specific situation you got going over there.”
“Specific?”
“With the napkins.” He pointed to her ketchup. “And your chemistry experiment.”
“I don’t want grease all over my jeans.” She dipped a fry in the spicy ketchup. “And please tell me you’ve tried this.”
“I don’t eat ketchup.”
“Not even with fries?”
“Nope.” He picked up his burger, took a bite, and grunted his appreciation.
She looked down at her burger. “I should cut this in half.”
“Just bite it.”
“It’s messy.”
“Messy’s good. Get a little grease on your chin. It’s sexy.”
She groaned. “You’re making it weird.”
“Why is that weird?” He laughed. “I’m just messing with you. I can go get a knife.”
“No, no.” She picked up the burger and took a big bite. Tomato slid out of the bottom and hot grease coated her fingers, but it was delicious—salty and spiced with cumin and chili—probably one of the best burgers she’d ever had. A contented sigh burst from her throat. “Oh god. It’s been so long.”
Nathan cocked an eyebrow and grinned. She quickly changed the subject. “So, how long have you owned the laundromat?”
Something slid over his expression too fast for her to identify. He ducked his head and took another bite of his burger before answering. “Eight years.”
“Eight?” She lifted her brow. “How old were you?”
“Eighteen,” he said. “I live in the apartment upstairs.”
So he was twenty-six. Who buys their first business at eighteen years old? And why would he choose Oasis Springs? “Before I moved here, I didn’t know what these people were like.”
“These people?”
“Wealthy people. Like the Abbott and Vasquez families, with their piles of money earning interest in a vault on some island.”
He took another bite and swallowed before responding. “I don’t really think about it.”
That was hard to believe. Living in Oasis Springs meant that your kids ran around playgrounds named after Tomás Vasquez. He was the founder of the original Vasquez Coffee plant that was built when the town was still a small immigrant community in the 1950s. Today, that small plant was a billion-dollar conglomerate run by his son, Beto. And the community Tomás nurtured through real estate investment and philanthropy had become one of the most affluent suburbs in Fairfax County.
While the Vasquez family had been the economic lifeblood of the town for decades, compared to the Abbotts, they were still new money. The presence of Matt’s family in this historically Black and brown town was like a beacon for a richer and whiter group of business owners looking for commercial property at bargain prices. Eventually, small generational businesses were pushed to the fringes of the city that had once been a haven. Miguel was a prime example of the type of business owner forced to settle for what was leftover once people with more money and influence took more than their share. Rachel had researched all of this when Matt told her he was running for mayor.
“No one has ever been rude to you?” Rachel asked. “Handed you their dirty laundry and asked for a ticket like they were at a dry cleaner?”