Neanderthal by Avery Flynn

Chapter Eight

Kinsey

Lying was like eating a pizza roll straight out of the oven—it felt satisfying for a second, but then it was like having a mouth full of piping hot lava—and Kinsey’s mouth was burning up.

Stupid Todd.

Stupid fake Todd from Moose River, Alberta.

Stupid Moose River that is actually a river in Ontario and not a town at all.

Wait a minute. Moose River was actually kinda cool with its bird sanctuary and Polar Bear Express train flag stop.

Okay, so how about stupid Kinsey Dalton for fabricating a fake almost fiancé three years ago and bringing his syrup-loving made-up butt along with her to Harbor City?

Yeah, that was definitely a yes.

Guilt at lying to Griff, who might be (totally was) a big jerk for calling her a disaster swirled around inside her. Meemaw had raised her better than that. Lying was lying, even if it was for a good reason. Most of the time, people didn’t ask for details about Todd, so it felt less like lying than just letting folks believe what they wanted to—which was what they always did anyway when it came to her.

Rationalize much?

Blocking out the annoying voice of truth in her head, Kinsey made a beeline for the bathroom but came to a dead stop in front of the large standalone pastry display case.

It was opened up, and pieces and parts were everywhere. A string of curses and a few metal-on-metal bangs came from behind the behemoth. She could relate. This same model was sitting next to the counter at the diner back home. Kinsey had done her fair share of cussing out the evil thing under her breath while working as a waitress when she was home for summer break during college.

“Is it the capacitor?” she asked, naming the number one culprit that had killed the display case’s ability to cool the contents back home.

There was something super sad about a key lime pie with formerly stiff peaks of cream turned into sad little white pools.

A guy not much older than her with a snarly expression looked around the case, giving her a quick up-and-down—lingering for a few seconds too long on her boobs—before dismissing her without a word and going back behind the machine. She peeked around at what he was working on. She couldn’t help it. Some weird inner compulsion mixed with the you-gotta-help-even-grumpy-strangers lessons Meemaw had drilled into her—second only to no white after Labor Day—drove her forward. It would be easier to turn down fresh-made country gravy or crispy fat than to keep her mouth shut when she’d lay one-hundred-to-one odds that it was the evil capacitor.

She took a step closer, not rounding the case exactly but getting as close to that as possible. “We have one just like this back home, and that capacitor is worse than sweet tea made with agave syrup. My cousin tried that once. He nearly got run out of town.”

“Look,” the man said without even glancing up. “I don’t know what you overheard your dad or brother or whoever saying, sweetheart, but you don’t know anything about this. Go on back to the land of Barbie. I’ve got this.”

Sweetheart? Land of Barbie?

Kinsey came from the home of calling everyone “sugar” or “honey” or “sweet child,” but this was different. “Sweetheart” wasn’t being used as an endearment. It was a dismissal. And anyway, Barbie had been an astronaut, a computer programmer, and more. Hell, she had the scientist Barbie still in the box on display in her room at Meemaw’s house.

She should walk away.

She should let him spend the next forty-five minutes trying out everything but the one thing that would no doubt fix it.

She— Fuck, who was she kidding?

“Really?” Two and a half decades of home training was the only thing keeping the smile on her face as she gave it one last shot. “So the compressor runs normally after you short-circuited the display?”

The man stilled. “No.”

“Then I imagine with my tiny little girl brain that you checked to see if both electricity poles are working?”

Okay, Meemaw would have shot her the look for that little bit about her brain, but a woman could only take so much before her sass outweighed her sugar.

“It’s a defective relay,” the man said, sounding way less than 100 percent sure as he looked up at her.

“So the relay electricity isn’t flowing?”

He winced.

“Uh…” He looked down at the gauge in his hand, his confident expression morphing into annoyance. “Shit.”

“Defective capacitor,” they said at the same time.

He let out a deep sigh and stood up, a little more sheepish than he’d been a minute ago. “Thanks.”

“This machine will drive you to the edge and then poke you until you jump off,” she said with a genuine grin this time. “The pie will be safe—that’s what matters.”

“Maybe we could share a piece to make up for my being an asshole?” He rubbed the white towel in his hand against the back of his neck as his gaze moved down to her hand. “Or not.”

“Yeah,” Griff said from behind her, the sound of his voice making her heart speed up. “Not.”

Kinsey whipped around to see Griff standing a few steps away, his arms crossed over his massive chest and a look on his face that could only be translated to I’m-gonna-floss-with-your-bones.

What in the blue blazes was that all about? He didn’t know Todd and, even if Todd were real, there was no reason for Griff to go all territorial on someone else’s behalf.

Ugh. Men.

“Thanks for the capacitor tip,” the man said, already sinking back down behind the display case to finish the repair job. “I’ll remember that next time.”

Well, at least two good things had come out of this. One, the pies were saved. Two, Griff got to see how wrong he’d been about her. Did disasters fix refrigeration equipment?

“Just happy to help,” she said. She kept her smile in place but let it drop from her eyes as she lowered her voice so only Griff would hear. “See, cavemen not required here.”

Then she whirled around, chin held high, and walked straight into the bathroom, letting the door shut behind her without looking back at him even once.

But the temptation to see if he reacted to her calling him a caveman? Oh boy, it had her buzzing more than a shot from the jug of lightning water Meemaw put out for the grown folks during the Fourth of July fireworks.

Because as much as Griffin Beckett was sexy as sin, one disaster comment aside, what was far sexier was that he asked her questions and then listened to her answers. Not one time did he interrupt her or tell her she was talking too much or decide what she had to say wasn’t as important as something he wanted to say. Whether she talked about syrup or complex carbon bonds, that man had listening down to an art.

For a woman who was too often ignored for her words because of her looks, it was quite literally the sexiest thing in the world. The tatted arms and intense jawline were just whipped cream on his pecan pie.

Which was why she just had to ignore him. He was her best friend and soon-to-be roommate’s brother, and he thought she was an engaged disaster. So ignoring him was her only choice.

How hard would that be? It wasn’t like they’d be hanging out together.