“Touchy,” she said softly, exhaling on a whistle.
How the hell did she always manage to get the upper hand like that? Spencer seethed as he walked the short distance back to SCSS. One minute he was staring at her luscious mouth while she devoured that fucking apple, and the next she had him on the back foot about some ancient history that nobody else even cared about anymore. And worse, why the fuck would she nose around about his feelings concerning Mason’s imminent departure? What did she care?
She was the most frustrating woman. He didn’t know how to converse with her, and it didn’t help that he was semihard every time he was in her general vicinity. He didn’t know why the hell he was so turned on by her. Sure, she was pretty, but she’d never been anywhere near civil to him. Maybe he liked being treated like dirt. It was familiar—it was how most people had treated him for the entirety of his life. And it was disturbing to think that he was still such a victim that he would willingly seek out this treatment from someone like Daff, someone he desired, someone he couldn’t seem to stay away from.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
“Hey, boss,” Claude Meintjies, his manager, greeted him when Spencer stepped back into the store, and Spencer lifted a hand in greeting. The salesmen and women all looked up with smiles and waves, too. They were a friendly lot, hardworking, efficient, and he valued every single one of them. He kept them incentivized and well paid, and he made sure there was room for growth within the company. SCSS was so much more than just this store. He intended to expand and branch out. And he made sure his staff knew that they would be right there along with him.
“I’ll be up in my office, Claude,” he informed, striding past the smaller man as Claude gave him a thumbs-up. Spencer made his way to the back of the store, through the storeroom, and up a short, winding staircase to the small glass office upstairs. The second floor of the building was a huge empty space, housing only the staff break room, Claude’s cubicle, and Spencer’s office. But Spencer had big plans for this space.
He shut himself into the office, closing the door and the blinds. His staff would know not to disturb him. He lowered himself into his desk chair and threw his head back on the rest. He examined the stained ceiling board above his desk, the remnant of a damp problem that had long since been taken care of. He should have replaced the board, but he liked the familiarity of the elephant-shaped stain.
His phone beeped and he dragged it out of his pocket and raised it to his line of sight, blocking out the elephant in the room. A text message . . . from Daff.
Seriously. Thanks for lunch.
He sighed and chewed the inside of his cheek for a second before sending a thumbs-up emoji.
He waited for a moment, but no response was forthcoming . . . she wasn’t even typing. He was about to lower the phone when it pinged and her response—a grinning emoji accompanied by a thumbs-up—popped onto the screen.
He stared at the two cheery little pics for a moment before screwing his eyes shut and then opening them to type two words. Words he knew he’d live to regret.
Dinner? Tonight?
“For fuck’s sake,” he gritted, furious with himself. He was a sucker for punishment. Clearly he was a masochist. Who knew?
She was typing . . . and typing . . . and typing. Jesus, how many words did she need to spell out a rejection? In the end, after endless amounts of typing, he found himself staring at just one word: Okay.
No shit?
He nearly dropped the phone in his haste to respond. He fumbled and caught it before it fell and sent his response before he could change his mind.
Pick you up at 6:30
Another thumbs-up in response, and that was it.
Someone knocked on her door at six that evening. Daff was in the middle of getting dressed for her dinner—date?—with Spencer, and she cursed the timing of this unexpected visitor. A quick peek through the peephole had her groaning and she unlocked the door with palpable reluctance. Daisy stood on her doorstep, a huge canvas bag tucked beneath her arm and clutched protectively to her side. Her entire demeanor was furtive, and Daff’s curiosity was immediately piqued.
The younger woman pushed her way into the small house and Daff stepped aside, allowing the intrusion. It was Daisy’s place, after all, even though her youngest sister would never really intrude unless she absolutely had to.
Daff closed the door, shutting out the cold, and followed her sister into the living room.
“Thank God you’re home,” Daisy was saying, gingerly placing her bag on the coffee table. “You have to hide these.”
“Hide what?” Daff asked blankly and then watched as Daisy carefully unloaded the contents of her ugly canvas bag.
“Ugh! No, I don’t want to hide your creepy caterpillars,” Daff protested as Daisy gently placed her entire caterpillar collection onto the coffee table. A little revolted, Daff gawked at one complacently smiling little caterpillar, a ceramic thing wearing a jaunty sailor uniform.
“Come on, please, Daff,” Daisy begged. “You even have the perfect display case for them, right there.” She pointed at the empty cabinet that had previously housed the unsettling caterpillars that Daisy had always found so inexplicably fascinating.
“Why?”
“Mason keeps swapping them out for these weird butterfly trinkets.”
The information startled a laugh out of Daff, which she quickly stifled when Daisy scowled at her.
“Why would he do that?” she asked, trying very hard to keep a straight face.
“Some nonsense about me letting go of my negative self-esteem issues and embracing my inner butterfly.”
Aw, hell! That Mason was constantly surprising Daff. She honestly couldn’t have asked for a better man for her baby sister.
“I’m not keeping them.”
“But I like them,” Daisy insisted.
“You do not. You collected only a quarter of these before everybody else started showering you with the hideous things and you found yourself drowning in them.”
“I’ve grown attached to them. I’m not holding on to them because I have negative self-esteem. Not anymore. They’ve become . . . I don’t know . . . a collection. Mine. I don’t want to part with them.”
“So explain that to Mason,” Daff said reasonably. “He loves you, he’ll understand.”
“I know. But he can be stubborn, and I just want to give my caterpillars a temporary safe haven until I can convince him of that fact. He’s already disappeared three of them and he won’t tell me where they’ve gone.”
This was absurd. But kind of cute, too.
“I suppose I can keep them for a while.”
“Oh thank you . . .”
“Not for long,” Daff warned her sharply. “You don’t sort this out soon and I’ll start disappearing them myself. So you and Mason find a way for caterpillars and butterflies to safely coexist.”
Daisy grinned cheekily at that and nodded.
“Definitely,” she said and hugged Daff before taking a step back to peruse her appearance. “You look nice. Are you going out?”
“Yes.”
“On a Tuesday night?”
“Yes, Mom. I have a social life even during the week,” Daff said with a roll of her eyes.
“Jeez, no need for sarcasm, I was just asking.”
“It’s just a . . . a meeting, kind of. With Spencer,” Daff confessed, trying not to look or sound self-conscious.
“Spencer? Really?” Daisy looked inordinately pleased by that news, and Daff smiled. “That’s great, Daff.”
“We’ve been planning your crazy mixed ‘last glorious days of singledom’ party,” Daff elaborated, and Daisy smiled widely in response to that.
“Thank you,” she said and then surprised Daff by enfolding her into another warm hug. “I know you guys don’t always get along and I’ve been worried, even though Mason has been telling me that I’m stressing for nothing. I’m so glad to know he was right.”
“We love you guys,” Daff said into Daisy’s neck. “And we want your wedding to be perfect and stress-free. That’s more than enough reason for us to set aside our differences.” She tried not to wince as she showered her sister with comforting half truths, but who knew, maybe tonight would be the night they actually, for real, set aside their differences.
Daff still had no idea why he had asked her to dinner, or—more pertinently—why she had accepted. In fact, she shouldn’t have texted him in the first place, but once her smugness in provoking a reaction from him had worn off, she’d immediately felt bad for pushing him like that. She’d felt the need to end their lunch on a more positive note. She certainly hadn’t expected a dinner invitation after the way they had left things.
“What time are you meeting him?” Daisy asked, stepping out of the hug.
“He’s picking me up in about ten minutes.”
“Oh gosh, and you were getting ready? I’m sorry I disturbed you.”
“It’s nothing.” Daff shrugged, feeling a bit awkward. “It’s not like it’s a date or anything.”
Except she’d been fussing over her clothes and makeup almost exactly like it was a date. She now found herself grateful for Daisy’s interruption, because it put everything back into context.