sounds seriously boring.” I turned toward the end of the counter and Fluke was in my way, so I sighed, stepped over him, and rounded the counter to ring David up. “Sorry you don’t have something more mentally stimulating to do.”
He slid his hands into his pockets, and instead of a leather-jacketed Aureum agent, he looked like a nervous teenage boy. “Maybe you could fix it. I know you’re working a lot more lately, but maybe you want to get coffee sometime?”
The first of his books fell from my numb hands and my whole body froze as I stared at him in shock, mouth hanging open. He’d been coming to the store for years, and always acted the same to me. I’d thought maybe it was flirting at first, but when he didn’t do anything about it, my mind changed. Some people were just naturally flirty, and it didn’t always mean anything deeper than that.
And now he wanted to ask me out.
My reaction had been too dramatic, though, apparent in the way his eyes dropped from mine to the books and his shoulders slumped. Then, he actually cringed. “Oh gods. Coffee. Right after you—never mind. Ignore me. I’ll try again when I’m not being completely insensitive to what you’ve been through.”
“You . . . will?” I wasn’t sure if I was pleased or confused.
No, I was sure. I was definitely confused. David asking me out only complicated my life. I wasn’t attracted to him, and that was important to me. I’d have loved to be attracted to him. Finding someone nice and uncomplicated like David attractive would make my life infinitely easier. Not at all like finding the dead angry gunslinger attractive, which managed to be both dangerous and fruitless. I always fell for the impossible ones, though.
He gave me a much smaller smile and brushed his fingers against mine while handing me his credit card. “Yeah. I mean, I’m always around, right? I’ll do better next time. Maybe French. Or, I don’t know, pizza.”
“Probably better for you than coffee,” I answered without really thinking about it. I should have been shutting him down. Just say thanks but no thanks, David, I’m the one gay man alive who doesn’t find Captain America attractive. But I didn’t.
He took the card back, then the stack of books, and headed out, still smiling.
When I turned to look at Gideon again, he was frowning at the door. “What just happened?” I asked.
“Something not right about him,” Gideon muttered, not answering my question at all.
I waved him off. “He’s fine. Hell, Gideon, he practically works for the government. The Aureum vets their people. Like, a lot.”
Gideon didn’t say anything else, just nodded and kept looking at the street. After a moment, he nodded in the direction of the coffee shop. “Don’t look now, but I think we’re about to have another visitor.”
I leaned across the counter and looked where his attention was focused, to find Lina Merton hurrying toward us, all the while glancing toward where David had gone. She definitely didn’t want to run into him again.
Maybe she just had issues with authority figures. Technically, for all his “aw shucks” sweetness and farm boy good looks, David was one of those. Hell, I should have found him terrifying, but he was just so . . . David.
When Ms. Merton reached the front door, she gave one last surreptitious glance behind her—not suspicious behavior at all—before coming inside. When she found me and Fluke watching as she came in, she ducked her head and scuffed one shoe against the floor. “Too Mission Impossible?”
I waved a dismissive hand and lounged against the counter. “I get not wanting another scene. Honestly, I didn’t realize David was so attached to the shop until that discussion we all had.”
“The shop, sure,” Gideon muttered, and went over to plop unceremoniously down on the couch.
She glanced back in the direction David had gone, then back to me, and shrugged. “I don’t know him that well, but I thought the last thing we all needed was another Saturday.”
Huh. Didn’t know him that well. Guess they definitely hadn’t dated in the past, which left me back at square one for understanding their weird dynamic. She wasn’t wrong about us not needing a repeat of that previous encounter, though. I nodded. “Yeah, I’d rather not.”
“But I did want to stop in and say that, you know, I am interested in buying the shop. If you actually want to sell.” She reached into her purse