He frowns. “The GrippaPeen guy’s dad is a taxidermist.”
“Yep. The gift shop didn’t take them off sale, but ownership changed within a year, and the new people did.”
“That sounds like it could be a warning to your new boss about behaving himself.”
My ass is getting cold. Jitter’s keeping Grey warm instead of me. And mention of my new boss makes my face have a reaction that I can’t suppress. “Speaking of, have I told you that my cousin is a complete and total thunder-twat who sold my family’s café to a guy who can be the world’s biggest prick but I get it. I understand a lot of his issues and I don’t blame him for how he feels.”
Grey ducks his head and sucks in a heavy breath.
I mean it though.
I don’t blame him. I haven’t blamed him. But if I’m talking to Duke, then I’m going to talk to Duke. Not Grey. “I have to find a solution to a problem of saving my café while letting my new boss get the peace he deserves in the next twelve days or else I’m facing the very real possibility that I’ll lose something that means the world to me. And the best person to help me find the right solution for justice is angry with me right now, and even if she wasn’t, I will never say that platycuntapus’s name to her. She deserves time to mourn and recover and find her new normal. Not questions about how to make him pay for what he did.”
Jitter whines and sets his head on Grey’s knee. Such a good dog.
I don’t even have to look at the man to know he’s struggling with this too. My dog’s telling me.
And the fact that my dog hates it when Grey’s upset hurts too.
The only other person Jitter loves this much is Theo, which I’ve never quite understood, but I think I’m getting it now.
Jitter has a finely-tuned people have hurt you and I want to love you meter.
I study Grey, making sure he’s not gripping anything for support or getting that distant look in his eyes like he did Sunday night when I thought he was going to pass out in his doorway.
He seems fine though.
As fine as I assume he can be in this position, anyway.
“You don’t think you can find a compromise for your boss,” he says.
“I think it hurts to watch your life’s purpose go up in smoke through no fault of your own.”
He looks away. “That is its own particular brand of torture.”
I know he knows. He told me as much Sunday night. We both know he’s doing the same to me that his partner did to him, except I still get it.
“What did Chandler do to you?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer.
I wonder if Emma knows.
As if it matters. I won’t bring her into this. I can barely bring myself to ask Theo what would hurt Chandler the most for fear he’d ask her, no matter how much I tell him not to.
I hunch forward and cradle my coffee in my hands, which are getting colder by the minute, even inside my gloves.
“Are you staying here in the Tooth?” I ask. “Is that the long-term plan?”
“I don’t know.”
“People won’t come to a kombucha bar for breakfast,” I say. “They won’t drop in for a five-minute chat while they’re waiting for their morning fermented tea the way they drop in for a quick visit while they’re waiting for their latte. And the locals won’t abandon the tavern and the other restaurants they go to for dinner for something new in town.”
“If that’s the case, that’ll eventually be someone else’s problem.”
Exactly the answer I was afraid of. “Please don’t make me fight dirty. I genuinely like you too much as a person to want to fight dirty.”
His eyes flare and then go dark as he shifts to look at me straight-on. “Define dirty.”
The fact that he’s turned on and not wary shouldn’t be a relief.
Nor should it make my breasts tighten and my clit tingle.
I straighten and face him, ignoring the distinct lack of space between us. “I will save my café by any means necessary.”
“You think you’ll find my skeletons.”
He shouldn’t be leaning into me with his gaze dropping to my lips.
And I shouldn’t like it nearly as much as I do. “I don’t want you to have skeletons.”
“You wouldn’t use them against me.”
“You have no idea what I’d do.”
“Okay, Duchess.”
Fuck.
The bastard just called me a good person.
“If I kiss you, I’m pretending you’re still Duke,” I breathe as our lips inch closer and closer together.