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Why is he here? Why is he doing this? To torture me? To wear me down?
I might have to go outside and give away vanilla yogurt samples with our newest buttermilk pastry topping. That could draw in some customers.
Alas, Cooper would probably follow me out there.
Instead I attack the self-serve nozzles with microfiber and rubbing alcohol.
“Uh, doesn’t the manager clean those every night after locking up?” Cooper asks.
I glance at him casually over my shoulder as I clean. “Doesn’t hurt to clean up afterward. The managers are not always perfect,” I say.
I know that the nozzles and every other fixture in here are cleaned to perfection every night after closing. Our evening manager is a dream come true. She studies cosmetology at the community college two towns over during the day and earns money at nights and weekends at Little Spoon.
“I think Evie’s even more of a perfectionist than you are; I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” Cooper says.
It shouldn’t chap my hide to hear him talking about Evie in a complimentary way, but for some reason, it does. She’s a perfectly lovely young woman and sweet as can be. Even sweeter than my sister Summer—and everyone loves Summer.
I scrub the double chocolate nozzle extra hard and breezily say, “She’s an excellent worker.”
“I’m thinking I might ask her to cut my hair.”
At that, my blood boils. I whip around before I can stop myself, to see Cooper scrubbing the top of his short-cropped head.
“Why?” I blurt.
With a look of surprise, Cooper replies, “To get her some experience. Earn some cash. She is studying for that kind of thing, no?”
“We can’t have her cutting hair here at the yogurt shop; it’s against health codes.”
Cooper blinks at me. No one says anything for a moment, and then a hint of a smirk pulls at his lips.
He’s clocking my little explosion of jealousy, and he likes it.
Ew. Who likes to make a girl jealous when he knows she’s not even into him?
“You’re absolutely right, Harmony.”
He slurps down the rest of his yogurt, pushes out his chair, and saunters over to the trash receptacle. He tosses away his paper cup and chucks the little red spoon in the bin marked for “utensils” to be washed.
“I was just thinking, we need a decent salon in our town and maybe I can convince Evie to open one here,” Cooper says.
Why is he still talking about Evie?
What in the name of all that’s holy is wrong with me?
I need my head examined.
I take a deep breath, hoping to calm my blood pressure, and answer, “We? Our town?”
He shrugs. “What can I say? This place is growing on me.”
De-escalate whatever is going on in your pea brain, Harmony. You are an intelligent, independent woman and you don’t need a man. You’ve made it abundantly clear to Cooper that you’re just friends. Why shouldn’t he express interest in someone else? Even someone ten years younger than him who works for the company?
He’s not technically her boss, so it wouldn’t be the human resources nightmare that is Wood Brothers and Love Games. Rumor has it that those construction guys and the gamer nerds started dating their employees the day they were hired.
I like what they’ve all brought to the town, but yikes. I do not like mixing dating with business. In fact, I don’t like mixing dating with anything these days, and Cooper knows this. And he’s baiting me. And I’m falling for it.
“Yeah, a new salon would be a good idea,” I say dumbly.
