Page 6 of Best Friends for Never

“Butwhichgreen?”

“There’s more than one?”

I sigh, shaking my head at my business partner. “You’re exhausting, Ax, you know that?”

He grins, his dark brows lifting high. “Only because you remind me daily.” He scratches his thick red beard. “Though I did order green. I’m not sure why they sent ... Well, I’ll be honest. That looks like baby shit.”

I wrinkle my nose, staring at the paint can’s offensive color. Thewrongcolor. “It really does.” I jut out my bottom lip. “I wanted sage.”

“Sage, shit. Pretty close, no?”

I cut him a glare. “Not even kind of close, Axel.”

He chuckles, still messing with his beard, a nervous habit I’ve caught on to over the years. It doesn’t mean he’s lying, but it does mean he knows he messed up. Again. “Well, I tried. I guess we’ll need to reorder if you can’t work with this one. It will set us back a few days, but I suppose it’ll be worth it.”

Hesupposesit’ll be worth it? There is no way I’m going to smear this hideous green on the walls of Rossi Café, which I’ve spent the last two months perfecting. I have everything planned around sage, not ... well, whatever this ugly color is. We have no choice but to reorder, which means we’ll have to tell our clients we’re behind schedule ...again.

I replace the paint-can lid, smacking it into place with my rubber mallet with more force than I’d typically use.

Axel doesn’t miss it.

“You mad?” he asks from behind me.

I shrug. “No. Yes. No. I’m not really sure.”

“I’m sorry I screwed up.”

I slam the mallet against the lid a few more times—not because I need to, but because I want to—then exhale and turn around.

“It’s just frustrating because you’re right—thiswillcost us a few days. Which means I’m going to have to disappoint Gianna again. Greta again. Heck, I hate disappointing anyone, and I feel like that’s all we’ve done lately. First, there was the wrong lumber on the Krueger house. Now it’s the wrong paint for the caféafterhaving to pull out and replace the wrong countertops. That’s a lot of major screwups in the last eight months. If we keep this up, we’ll be out of business before the end of the year, and we’ll never get to complete the theater project I’ve been dreaming about for the last decade.”

And I really don’t want to blow my big dream. I’ve been working toward it for far too long to let it get messed up now.

Axel’s brows are now nearly touching his hairline. His brown eyes are wide, and his lips curve up just slightly. How has my outburstamusedhim? This is serious!

“How are you smiling right now?” I bark at him.

“Oh, this?” He points at his grin. “It’s just a coping mechanism because I’m a little scared you’re going to hit me.”

I rear my head back. “Hit you? What? Why would Ihityou?”

He darts his eyes downward ... right to the rubber mallet I’m still holding. The same one I’ve been pointing and swinging in his direction this entire time.

“Oh.” I tuck my hands into the pockets of my overalls, securing the mallet safely inside. Honestly, it never occurred to me to hit him, but now that he’s mentioned it, maybe a good whack upside the head would do the guy some good. Perhaps teach him not to keep messing everything up.

I sigh, shaking away the thought. That’s not entirely fair. This isourbusiness. We’ve said that from the start. Yet I haven’t bothered to look at the finer details of things, like orders and invoices, and instead focused solely on the design aspects of the business. And if I’m keeping my head buried in the sand, then at some point, this becomes my fault too. All it takes is a simple request to review things and ensure he’s ordering the appropriate materials.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “It’s just—”

“I know,” Axel interrupts. “I know how important this is to you, and IpromiseI will do better. Things have just been a little hard at home with Mary and the kids, you know? Lots of late nights and very little sleep. It’s been tough trying to keep up with it all.”

Warmth spreads through me, and it’s the same thing that always happens whenever Axel talks about this adorable little family he’s created. He’s a good dad. A doting one. A much better father than I ever had, that’s for sure.

And while I love how important his family is to him, this is still our business, and we need to learn to run a tight ship despite the outside noise.

“I know that. I do. But we all have things at home distracting us.”

Those dang brows of his lift high again, and this time they say,Are you serious?

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