She took a sip of her coffee. “We aren’t hooking up. He’s helping me out.”
“Yeah, but come on, Gene. He’s a cop. Cops aren’t exactly your favorite people. And you just volunteered to hang out all night with one. In the dark. Under the stars. Multiple nights, maybe. All kinds of opportunities going on there.”
She threw her stir stick at him. “Suck it, Crew.”
Jared laughed. “Don’t get mad at me. I’m not the one cozying up to my archnemesis.”
“You seriously need to grow up. There’s more to life than comic books, you know.”
Jared shrugged. “Says you.”
She rolled her eyes. “He’s the means to an end. I want to find out who’s messing with my truck. And it would be really nice to not get arrested in the process. He said he’d help. End of story.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so. Now go away. Don’t you have some work to do?”
Jared chuckled again and gathered up his coffee. “Always. But that’s the beauty of being my own boss. I can set my own hours. Though I do have two logos to design and an instruction manual to format.”
“Guess you better get on that then.”
“Eh. I’ve got two days to finish those. I’m good.”
Gina shook her head. “You take procrastination to a whole new level.”
“Well, it’s always good to be the best.”
She smiled despite herself. It was hard not to. “Get out of here.”
He stood and came around to her side of the table. “I’m only going because I do actually have a job to finish before midnight.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Have fun.”
He scooted out before she could throw anything else at him. Jared always knew which of her buttons to push, but she knew she was being a little overly sensitive. Cop or no, Officer Boyd was hands down the hottest thing she’d ever seen. Spending a few hours in the dark with him could be a whole lot of fun. And that was a problem.
She really didn’t want someone getting in her way and hanging over her, telling her what she could and couldn’t do. But she couldn’t catch Tony from a jail cell, so playdate with a cop it was. She grabbed her gear and called out a good-bye to Natalie, her best friend and business partner. After getting married, Nat mainly hung out at the bakery while Gina drove the truck. It was an arrangement that suited them both pretty well. Gina would go crazy stuck inside the bakery all day, and Nat was happy being able to hang out with her financial-consultant-turned-baker husband Eric.
Nat hurried out from behind the counter with one of the bakery’s signature bags in her hand. “A few treats to keep you going tonight.”
“I’m going to gain a hundred pounds before I catch the jerk if you keep force-feeding me this stuff,” Gina said with a frown, though she took the bag eagerly. The scent of chocolate heaven was already wafting out of the bag, and her mouth watered. “Ooh, did you put those brownies in here?”
Nat laughed. “Yes, and Eric made a special batch of baklava, just for you. The chocolate kind. With extra nuts.”
“You better kiss that man for me. Yum!”
“I put extra in there so you can share with your friend.”
Gina glared at her. “Don’t you start, too.”
Nat shrugged. “Come on, you can’t blame us. You wouldn’t let any of us help you out, and now you’ve got some cop playing stakeout with you. It’s…unusual, that’s all.”
“It’s irritating as hell, is what it is. And he’s not playing stakeout with me, he’s babysitting me. Afraid I’m going to go all vigilante and start busting up the city and terrorizing innocent citizens or some idiocy like that.”
“Yeah. Sounds like something you’d do.”
Gina’s lips twitched. “My reputation doth precede me.”
“Doth?”
“Yes. Doth.”
Nat giggled and gave her a little shove. “Go on. Go take your cop his doughnuts. Er, baklava. Whatever.”
Gina sighed and waved at Nat, not bothering to respond to that last little dig. She loved her friends but freaking hell, they needed to give the whole cop thing a rest. She was doing what she had to do to get what she wanted. Simple as that.
Officer Boyd was lurking around the truck when she came out of the bakery. Gina cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Whatcha doin’ over there?” she asked.
“Checking things out.”
Gina did some quick checking out of her own. If Officer Boyd was hot in his uniform, he was downright dead sexy out of uniform. Well, in normal people clothes. Totally out of uniform and she’d be drooling.