with your parents.”
“I know, but I need a break from them. All the talk about selling the shop is stressing me out.”
“It’s actually kind of funny how in some ways, we have similar things going on,” Law said. “Family businesses, legacy issues with fathers.”
“Yeah, but you want your family business.”
“Right. And what you said in there makes me realize how…” She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know, I guess how easy I have had it, relatively speaking.” So why couldn’t he just sit back and let things be easy? Run the bar and be happy with his life the way it was?
“So what I hear you saying, Benjamin, is that you’re withdrawing from the grant competition because I deserve it more.” She side-eyed him, and just when he was starting to question if she was serious, she cracked up.
Good. Enough confiding in each other. It was confusing. “No. That is most decidedly not what I’m saying.”
“Good,” she said. “Because when I win, it’s going to be all the sweeter knowing that I took you down.”
He tamped down a smile. “Keep telling yourself that.” They walked in silence until they got to the bar. “You want to come in for a glass of wine?”
“I can’t.”
He was more disappointed than he should have been.
She pointed to the Moonflower Bay Monitor building. “I told Eiko I’d help her with distribution of the Raspberry Festival special edition of the paper.” She flashed him a fake-looking smile. “Because I am sooo community-minded. In fact, I sincerely hope you are making progress on your mission to find another mermaid queen, because you’re looking at the queen of community-mindedness. You, Benjamin, are not going to be able to turn a corner in this town the rest of this summer without running into me doing someone a good turn.”
Maya hadn’t really considered, when she’d signed up to sit in the dunk tank on the Saturday of the Raspberry Festival, that Benjamin would be there, too. But of course he was. Whatever job there was to be done in service to the town or its geriatric bosses—beach cleanup, driving Pearl to one of her gaming competitions—the two of them were competing over it. If Maya was the queen of community-mindedness, Benjamin was the king. It was clear that a handful of other people were after the grant, too. But it was also clear that if you judged by who was falling over themselves to ingratiate themselves to the town council, the real contest was between her and Benjamin.
Maya had seen a lot of Benjamin in daylight in recent weeks. It was weird. Daylight Benjamin was softer than she was used to. More sympathetic. Though maybe that was because they were starting to realize they had some stuff in common.
It was also true that in the bright light of day, brown-haired Benjamin had little glints of auburn in his stubble, which she had never noticed before.
“Oh, shoot!” Pearl, standing in front of the tank, frowned down at her clipboard. “I think I double-scheduled this shift.”
“I’ll take the shift,” Maya said. “I’m already changed.”
“I am, too.” Benjamin took his shirt off and dropped it on the ground like he had thrown the gauntlet, leaving him standing there wearing only swim trunks and flip-flops. Hooboy.
Usually Maya saw Benjamin without a shirt exactly once a year. That day this year would be tomorrow—the day of the sandcastle-building competition. She was ready for it. Meaning that she was prepared to beat him—they had a long-standing rivalry at the contest—but maybe also that if she was going to have to see him half-naked, she was prepared to do that tomorrow. Not today.
She sighed, and her mind came to the same conclusion it always did on the annual See Benjamin’s Chest Day: the dude must be hauling a lot of kegs. He was surprisingly toned for someone who worked all the time. But hang on. Maybe she needed to get a little more serious about her recreational Tinder swiping if she was getting hot and bothered over Benjamin.
“I already got Carter to cover the bar,” Benjamin said, “so I have nothing better to do.”
A few seconds passed while he looked at her. Ugh, she had dropped the ball on their argument, struck dumb by his stupid chest. Just because he was annoying her slightly less than usual didn’t mean she had to lose her head. “I said I can do it.” There, that was back to normal.
“But it makes more sense for me to do it.”
“I