Page 2 of The Secrets We Built Together

"Only when those instructions don't make sense," I told him. "Now shush, you're ruining my moment of calm."

He sighed, and then I heard him walk into the room and move around some boxes.

The sound of cardboard dragging across wire shelving grated across my nerves, but I refused to give up on what could be the answer to all my problems.

Desperation was apparently the tone for the day today.

"You're standing in the way of my zen," I told Daniel as he shuffled around the back room.

"And you're standing in the way of my decaf."

"Ugh, then I'm doing the world a favor. I might refuse to move on principle."

"And yet the world keeps throwing its money at me for it," Daniel answered dryly.

"Let's face it, if it was the entire world, you wouldn't have to put up with me."

"I'm not sure the rent is worth it, to be honest."

My eyelids snapped open, and I saw him standing in front of me with his hands on his hips as he stared me down.

"I know you don't mean that. I'm the highlight of your day." I shuffled two steps to the side and then closed my eyes again, butthe moment was gone, and I sighed in defeat. "It's not supposed to be this hard."

Daniel grabbed the coffee beans he'd been waiting for, glancing at me out of the side of his eye as he did. We hadn't really struck up the friendship I'd assumed we would when I'd approached him about the empty office upstairs. Marie had been the one to tell me about it. I had a feeling she suspected what I was going through, even if she was too nice to say anything about it.

Or maybe she was just trying to save me from myself and the six donuts I was eating every day. I might have saved one for Cade, but it was still more sugar than one person should consume.

Who was I kidding? If it wasn't for Delaney, my diet would be eighty percent sugar, and that was only because I consumed an unhealthy amount of coffee as well.

I should probably do something about that. Ugh adulting, why was it so boringly difficult?

As I paused in thought, I unconsciously reached up and began twirling a specific strand of hair between my fingers—the same lock that always became my nervous fidget when art anxiety struck.

"You're doing it again," Daniel told me as he went to walk past me and back out into the shop.

Obviously, I followed him. I wasn't done trying to make him my friend yet. But it didn’t escape me that he knew me well enough to spot my nervous tick, so that had to mean I was making progress. Hopefully it was the type of progress I wanted.

As he carried the bag of beans on one shoulder and a box under the other arm, my gaze roamed across the way his shirt pulled tight over the muscles in his shoulders and then dropped down to his tight ass.

"Stop staring at my ass," he growled.

My head snapped up as I looked around to make sure that no one else had heard.

Thankfully, the only person in the shop was Carol, and she was looking just as guilty as I was, so I'd probably got away with it. She might be retired, but she apparently appreciated a good view still.

Carol winked at me before turning back to her book, and I grinned in response.

The older ladies of Willowbrook were a riot, and if things moved in my favor, I'd get an invitation to their Wednesday lunch club. I'd won most of them over. Mrs. Schulster was the only hold out, but I had a surefire way of getting on her good side. It came in the form of the ham I now constantly had in my jacket pocket and a fiendish plan to make Titus fall in puppy love with me.

I passed by two local farmers who were huddled over coffee cups, their conversation drifting my way.

"Can you believe those Farrington brothers are doing all that ranch renovation without their daddy's money?" one said, shaking his head. "That rehabilitation center is gonna put Willowbrook on the map."

"Jasper must be fit to be tied," the other chuckled. "Those boys finally showing they don't need his wallet."

News moved fast in this town and I needed the lunch club to be at the head of it. Gossiping might be a bad habit but it was endlessly entertaining when there wasn’t much else to do. Plus I had a twenty riding on there being some form of vegetable based scandal by the end of spring. Only Delaney had taken the bet. Sucker. Even I could see the potential of allotment hijinx around here and I was a newby.

Daniel dropped the box on the counter, and when he turned back around to face me, I swear to God there was a smile on his face.

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