Scribbling a few additions to my chalkboard, I didn’t look up as I said, “What can I get you?”
Normally, if it was a newcomer, I’d welcome them and offer the list of special drinks, but men dressed so nicely where the sand dirtied you up and made you one with the beach irked me.
Especially when one of them was a man I’d slept with and hoped to never see again.
“I don’t know.” Bastian's hair curled every which way. Did he style it to look that good or was he just born with that rich color and perfect wave? “You don’t have a menu written out yet for me to choose from.”
I shrugged as I kept writing. “Well, most everyone got the Pink Princess smoothie today.”
“The owner of this company probably wouldn’t like to know that the girl he hired isn’t giving customers their full attention or all the options.”
“The owner of this food truck is just fine with it. She thinks guys in suits who come and demand all the options are sort of rude,” I deadpanned and leaned through the window enough so they would both have to step back. Then, I hung the sign to the left and pointed theatrically. “Oh, look, a menu!”
“Pink Princess, Kiss of a Rainbow, and Black Suit Pricks?” Bastian hesitated on the last one. His smile after was swift, though, like he had a sense of humor after all.
That smile dimmed everything else on the beach that day. It was deadly, brilliant, and quite frankly, the most beautiful thing I’d seen besides the ocean water. His dark eyes sparkled just like it when he smiled, but the darkness hid something deep down that I knew I didn’t want to find.
“Pick your poison, boys.” I folded my hands over my chest and his eyes flicked up and down my body.
“Morina,” he said my name, and it sounded just like it had in that plane right after we’d slept together. He’d pushed my hair from my cheek and murmured it softly like I was the only woman in the world.
Maybe I had been for just that night.
This was reality though, far from sunrises and private jets. And he wasn’t supposed to be in my reality.
At all.
“How did you find me and why did you even look?” I glared at him.
His eyes widened, clearly shocked with my question. “I didn’t come looking for you. I’m looking for the owner of this truck.”
“That’s me,” I threw back.
“No. That’s impossible. Maribel owns this truck.”
My grandmother’s name rolled off his tongue with ease but it hit me like a bullet. “Maribel Bailey is my grandmother. She gave this to me.”
His gaze whipped to Dante who immediately started putting things into his phone.
“What’s going on?”
But Bastian was already shaking me off and dismissing me. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll handle it.” He growled.
“Oh, daddy can’t share anything with little old me now?” The question shot out before I had time to think about it.
His eyes widened, and his jaw flexed.
I stepped back, suddenly realizing that Bastian and I were not in the territory of playful taunts anymore. Our realities were mixing and they weren’t ones to be toyed with.
I turned to the blender, not giving them time to choose anymore. “Smoothies it is.”
“Tell me, is it sanitary for you to be making these in a bikini?” he asked softly.
I can’t help wanting to reply, “I’m not making them in a bikini; I’m making them in a blender.”
He couldn’t come to my place of business, throw around my grandmother’s name with no explanation, and then on top of everything else, comment on my attire. I wasn’t good at hiding my emotions. It was the Sagittarius in me.
I cleared my throat and my frustration away when he didn’t respond. “If you’re so concerned, go elsewhere.”
“See, that’s the interesting thing about this place.” Bastian leaned into the window of the food truck, put his elbows on it like he owned it, like he owned everything. Just with that movement, I knew he was important: someone my grandma probably knew and someone I didn’t want to know at all. “You’re the only food truck for three miles up and down this beach. We had on file that was your grandmother’s doing. Tell me, how did you and her manage that?”
I didn’t like to admit that I was naive. I didn’t really consider myself flighty either but his words were a kick to the stomach and reminder that I was. I never really thought much of it. I’d taken over the food truck at fifteen, when my parents had died. Ever since, I’d worked it nights and weekends and summers during high school. When I graduated, I’d taken it on fully.
Business was always good enough.
“Didn’t you ever consider that, piccola ragazza?”
“Stop with the little girl nickname.” I sounded just like that as I said it.
He chuckled and I spun back to make the smoothie. These two men had waited for the line to go before them. They wanted to be last, which meant they wanted more from me than just a smoothie.
Bastian was never getting any more ever again.
I didn’t enjoy one night stands coming back to terrorize me.
I poured blueberries in the blender, spices that would turn the banana and ice black, and just as Bastian started to speak, I hit the power button.
I smirked at him and winked. His response was to lift an eyebrow.
Welcome to Mo’s food truck, jerk. Here, I rule.
He looked toward the sky and sucked on his teeth. It gave me a good look at his strong neck, how tense it was, and the little bit of black ink that peeked out from his shirt. I’d run my hands over those tattoos while he’d dragged a finger over mine just a week ago. What a reminder collar that he wasn’t all stuck up suit but something more underneath.
Once the whirring morphed to a soft hum, I knew I had to turn off the machine. I grabbed two Styrofoam cups and took the big pitcher off the stand to pour in the contents. The fruit complemented the spice in this mixture well. I’d made it a million times before but I usually called it Midnight on the Beach. Today, I would add the little twist just for them. “You need to be calm or energized today, Dante?”
“Does it matter?” Bastian grumbled.
Yet, his friend behind him with the piercing green eyes, responded quickly, “We need energy.”
“Well, then. I guess Mr. Difficult will have what Dante’s having.” I grabbed a citrus oil with a touch of lavender and shook in a couple drops to top off their drinks. I handed over the cups and straws.
I was about to say the total when Bastian laid a fifty on the window counter between us. “You own this truck then?”
I stared at the money, not at all sure I wanted that big of a tip. I had men come in and out of my little beach town all the time. They threw money around like it meant something, like they could attach all the strings in the world to it too. “So what if I do own the truck?”
“I need to know if your grandma has partnerships with other businesses in the area.” He nudged the money my way.
I narrowed my eyes at him, rung him up, and pushed the change back his way. “I don’t have information for you.”