Holiday Sparks

This so wasn’t a good idea.

He slammed the tailgate.

Okay, so they technically lived separately. If he wanted time alone, he had a whole wall between them.

And that was idiocy talking.

A wall didn’t mean anything when two people were dating.

No woman he’d ever been with had known the meaning of personal space. And he couldn’t bear to disappoint someone he was involved with. Because he was an idiot. He was overthinking everything.

It was a sandwich. And it was an evening. Even if everything about her made him want to pull her in and see how she fit. That was hormones talking.

After Jess he’d needed a break from the opposite sex. Then it just got easier to stay in his routine. Workouts, messing with the Christmas lights, the shop. Everything but going out with his friends.

He pulled into Lou’s small parking lot. The cars were stacked fifteen deep in a lot that was barely big enough for six. The shouts from inside and the hot punch of garlic on the air made his mouth water. Lou’s was a dive to beat all dives. And the strip of shops it was in was moving into the high end of trinkets, wine and boutiques. All except Lou.

Deli paper lined the walls with buckets of crayons nailed beneath. Red booths that had been there since the opening when he was a kid were jammed against every available wall and the deli counter was chin-high. Specials were taped up along the front breadboard and torn down daily. The signs were made by Lou’s kids, and now grandkids.

“Hey, kid,” Lou yelled when he spotted him.

“What are you doing slinging hoagies, old man? Where’s Dom?”

“My useless excuse for a son is hurling up his toes.”

Ben winced. “You poison him?”

“Hey! There’s nothing but excellence under my roof, kid.”

Ben laughed. A Red Sox cap sat backwards on Lou’s bald head and his sauce-splattered t-shirt hung off his shoulders as though they were a hanger. Lou was all bones and angles, but behind the counter he was magic and fluid grace. He had bread sliced open, yeasty sourdough warring with the garlic as two guys Ben didn’t know scrambled to keep up with the owner.

“Can I get a meatball grinder and a Philly steak to go?”

Lou made quick work of the food and wrapped the sandwiches in foil then deli paper. “I haven’t seen you in a few weeks.”

“Work’s been kicking my ass.”

“Inking up all those hot girls.” Lou waggled his bushy eyebrows. “They like those little designs above their butts. Nice.”

Ben grinned. Tramp stamps, as they were lovingly referred to, never quite fell out of favor. The curve of a woman’s spine and the hollow at the sweet spot of her back was a damn sexy place to accentuate. And it wasn’t a hardship for him to do. But women forgot how sensitive it was to use the needle around bone. Fleshier girls didn’t mind, but the rail-thin ones—well, more than one had walked away with a smaller design than intended.

“The only downside of my job is the pain.”

“True that.” Lou lifted his sleeve to show off a skeleton in a Red Sox uniform clutching the World Series trophy. “This hurt like a bitch.”

Ben took the food. “Because you’re goddamn skin and bones. You should come in and let me retouch that.”

“What and jinx my team?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I’ve got the lucky touch, didn’t you get the email?”

“I’m too busy feeding you vultures. Next!”

Ben texted Cesar and with no emergencies on the horizon, he maneuvered his way out of the clusterfuck that was Lou’s and back to Darcy. No—back to the store. Back to the job at hand. The job just happened to have a lovely side benefit, that was all. He tucked their food into his messenger bag with a fistful of napkins from his console.

After a quick unloading with Petey, he braved the store. He slung the bag over his head and behind him as he stacked the materials next to the base of the tree. He had a good eight hours of work ahead of him and that was if everything went smoothly.

He scanned the room and found her. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders as she pushed it back with a harried look. She was bent over her little tablet, flicking through screens as Jaime ticked off something on her clipboard.