Enemies With Benefits (Loveless Brothers 1)

“You ever think about going by your middle name?”

“Not really,” Zane Payne says, shrugging. “I like Zane a lot better than Gomer.”

Gomer. Oof.

Before I can offer my condolences on a middle name that makes mine sound high-class and fancy, I hear voices on the other side of a towering stack of paper towels, talking in hushed tones. They sound like they don’t want to be overheard.

“Poor Violet,” one woman is saying. “She must feel awful about it. Good thing Martin was there.”

A prickle runs down my spine at Violet’s name, and I stop.

“Did you know he could decorate cakes? I didn’t know he could decorate cakes,” a second woman says.

Still standing behind a stack of paper towels, I frown. If Martin can decorate cakes, I’m a warthog.

“Montgomery won’t take it from her paycheck, will he?” the first voice asks, growing fainter.

Shit, they’re walking away. I backpedaled, trying to stay even with them. Zane’s disappeared around a corner, hopefully not lost forever in this maze.

“Oh, no,” the second voice says. “It’s just an accident, he would never. Still, I’m glad I’m not Violet right now.”

Zane’s head pops around a corner as the voices fade away, my heart beating faster, something tightening in my chest.

Why would Montgomery take something out of Violet’s paycheck?

She’s the one who saved that stupid cake, not Martin.

“Still no oysters!” Zane reports, too cheery for my tastes.

“Keep looking,” I growl, more angrily than he deserves, and his head disappears.

I keep looking too, but despite the ticking clock and the very imminent disaster, I’m no longer thinking about oysters.

I’m thinking that if Martin’s trying to take credit for Violet’s cake heroism, I’ll rub poison ivy on the inside of his jacket when he’s not looking. Sure, Violet’s annoying, but at least she did the work instead of just trying to take credit afterward.

“No oysters here either!” Zane Payne says from behind me.

“Right. Thanks,” I say, my mind returning to my current disaster.

Just as I’m giving up hope, a door in the wall opens. A man emerges: bearded, burly, wearing flannel, and about fifty. He looks like he knows what’s what down here, I jog over.

“Howdy,” he says, pushing a baseball cap back on unruly hair. “Welcome to the loading docks. You here on business or pleasure?”

He grins, laughing at his own joke. I smile despite myself.

“You haven’t seen a few bushel bags of oysters, have you?” I ask. “They were supposed to come in this morning, and no one’s seen them.”

Bearded/burly runs a thoughtful hand through his beard.

“Oysters,” he says, reflectively. “Oysters. Hold on a tic, will you?”

I’m flooded with hope. This man just might be my redneck savior.

“Hey C.J.!” he shouts into the doorway from which he emerged. “Were you the one telling me you found some oysters this morning on top of those tables?”

“Yup!” a voice shouts back.

I crack the knuckles on one hand, silently praying: please tell me you found somewhere cold to put them.

“Where they at now?” Bearded/burly hollers.

“You know that old chest freezer down along the far wall where they took out those vending machines last year?” C.J. shouts back. “Tossed ‘em in there, didn’t know where they were supposed to go but figured they ought to stay cold.”

Thank you, oyster Jesus.

Thank you.

“Thanks, man!” Bearded/burly calls back, then looks at me, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “There’s a chest freezer over yonder against the wall that doesn’t freeze anything any more, but it ought to have kept oysters cold enough.”

I thank him profusely, then jog off to find the freezer. Zane is right behind me as I open it.

Inside are four red mesh bags, all filled with oysters. I stick my hand in to see how cold it was, but Bearded/burly is right: it’s kept the oysters cold enough.

“That them?” his voice says behind me.

“Yup,” I say, already heaving one out. “I think you just saved my ass.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says, pushing at his baseball cap again. “You know, it was the weirdest thing. Found those this morning by accident. They were on top of a shipment of tables that we were about to return to a rental agency, up where no one could see ‘em, only one bag happened to slide off. Figured someone must’ve made a mistake so I tossed ‘em into the old freezer. Hell of an odd place to put oysters, though.”

I glance over at Zane, the wheels in my head already turning.

“Well, you’re supposed to keep them somewhere cold and dark,” Zane says earnestly. “Maybe someone just got confused.”

“Must have been pretty confused,” B/b says.

I pull two bags out and hand them to Zane before he can offer any more thoughts, then hoist the other two on my shoulders.

“Come back now, y’all hear?” B/b calls out as we leave.

“Thanks!” I call as the loading dock door swings shut behind us.