Moose dusted off his hands. “Well, the spirit of competition motivates a lot of people. Now you’re a prize to be won. Getting a date with you is a victory that will set them above their fellow contestants.”
I barely stifled a groan. “Contestants? Is this a game show?”
“If it is, Macy is not playing. Yet she’s the one you want, isn’t she?” Lucky nudged Joe at his side. “They talk about hard nuts to crack. Dude, that chick is a nut surrounded by titanium with a platinum chastity belt. Your abs are impressive, but I don’t think they’re quite enough to make her swoon. Sorry. Mine, on the other hand…” He pulled up his own sweaty navy shirt and eyed his eight-pack. “Yeah, I feel like I need a kid, stat. That line out there would be three deep across if I could come up with one.”
“Try eBay,” one of the guys in back suggested.
“Hey, Moose, you seem to have extras in the child department lately. When those twins come out, how about you sell me one? Just for a weekend. So…like rent. I’ll give it back, promise. It’s not like I want one for real.” Lucky shuddered.
“Hate to break it to you, but you can’t just hold a kid and think it counts as parenting. It’s a long-term commitment. Women are not stupid. You using a child as a prop will fool no one.”
Lucky covered his ears. “Listen, dude, I don’t like to hear the word commitment from women, so I definitely don’t want to hear you say it to me in regards to children.”
“Trust me, no one wants to hear it from you either.” Dahlia, Macy’s design expert, strode up to the built-in shelving unit Lucky was constructing on t
he far wall. The idea was for it to hold all manner of seasonal dishes and spooky memorabilia. “This unit needs to be twice the size. Consult your schematics.”
She strode off, jet black fall of hair swinging. Lucky tried to roll his tongue back in his mouth and failed.
“Everything with Lucky is small. That’s why his mouth is so big.”
Lucky flipped a random middle finger over his shoulder at whichever member of the crew had waded into the fray this time. “I have schematics?”
Rolling my eyes, I strode to the bar and grabbed the paper in question. “Yeah, you do, and you better get to expanding that built-in. When it comes to Macy and witchy shit, think more, not less.”
As if her name had conjured her, a commotion sounded at the pass-through door between the restaurants. My skin started to buzz as if I’d just taken a hit of her coffee. Which I had not done in several days, not wanting to see if she’d made it for me every morning as she had until she’d laid her lips on me and found out I was Benedict Arnold Daddy. Or whatever she called me in her private moments.
I didn’t want to know.
Macy moved aside the boards we’d put up to keep her out and hacked through the tape we’d wrapped over the opening to stop her from peeking. She was using a machete or something smaller and just as deadly.
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said to the nearest crew member who tried to admonish her. “I pay the bills for this operation. From five to five, I own you, sucker.”
Joe lifted his hands and shot me a glance as he backed away from the door. “You deal with her, man. She’s a tornado.”
“You better believe it, and he’s not going to deal with me either. I am here for a status report. My restaurant is due to open in,” she consulted a paper in her hand, “sixty-two days, and I want to know how things are going.” She stopped stomping across the room and pointed at Lucky’s built-in. “What is this for, a miniature dollhouse? I wanted big. That is too small.”
“Same thing Lucky heard last night,” someone called.
“He’s been advised that’s not to proper scale and will make adjustments.”
Macy zeroed in on me. “Shouldn’t that size issue have been noticed before he got that far?”
“Hey, don’t be rude to the little fella. He’s been dealing with those comments all his life.”
Lucky ignored Joe and turned to Macy. “Look, you have a problem with my work, you talk to me. I’m not twelve.”
“Okay then, let’s chat.” She stepped right up to him and got in his face as well as she could, considering he was more than half a foot taller than she was and tended to loom over people in an attempt to dominate them. But there was no using his size to make Macy submit. She would’ve gone toe to toe with the devil himself.
I didn’t find that ridiculously sexy. Oh, hell, who was I kidding? She made my fucking head light, just from watching her jab her finger in Lucky’s barrel chest.
“I was clear as a bell what size I wanted that built-in. So, fix it.”
“I will fix it. I stand behind my work. There’s no need for you to come in here like your balls are too heavy to carry and you need to throw them around.”
Macy narrowed her eyes. For a second, I thought she might really haul back and hit him. Instead, she started to laugh. And she did hit him, but it was just a friendly jab in the shoulder. “All right, dude. Do your thang.”
I wasn’t sure which of us was more surprised. I’d been prepared to step between them if need be.