Page 69 of Only Between Us

Siena chuckles, tucks her chin to her chest as she refocuses on her laptop. “Not sure there’s much magic left here.”

It’s a surprising slipup, seeing as I’ve never seen her do anything less than glow when she talks about this place. Or maybe it’s when she talks about it in the context of her father.

“Excuse me.” A man with a baseball cap low on his face pops out from behind me. “Where can I find your live bait?”

“At the end of aisle three, and to your right.” Siena offers him a smile before turning back to me. “Stick around any longer and I might put you to work.”

I can’t tell whether she’s gently dismissing me or giving me an opening to leave, but I ignore both.

“So put me to work, Pip.”

I lean my elbows on the counter, leaving barely a foot of space between us. It takes no effort to fiddle with the anchor around her neck, straighten the chain. Siena stares at me while I do. She might cap this thing between us at flirtation, but she always blesses me with a glimpse of something sweet when I fix that necklace.

I can’t tell whether she likes me—at least, not the way I like her—but she definitely likes it when I do that.

A woman approaches the counter, clearing her throat. “Where can I find the live bait?”

Siena darts upright, shooting me a look of warning like she hadn’t been giving me doe eyes a second ago. “At the end of aisle three, and to your right.”

The moment the woman is on her way, Siena heaves a sigh and stares at her laptop. My Siena—the one I know outside this shop—is all playful quips, laughter at my expense, and flawless smiles.

She’s different in here, though.

“Busy day already?”

She nods. “Business is up since we started fake-dating. Have you heard back from Josh?”

“He says it’s a wait-and-see game now, whether teams buy everything you’ve been posting.” Siena’s made it to a couple of training sessions since the kids’ camp, posting a few videos of Parker putting me through the ringer. “If all else fails, maybe the ass-hugging shorts you requested will sufficiently distract them.”

“I hope so. Keep me posted, okay?” No flirting, no teasing, no nothing. Siena’s gaze drifts over my shoulder as the sound of quiet laughter approaches the counter.

“No, no, that’s definitely her,” a hushed male voice says. “Think her name is Cece.”

“Imagine fucking all these players and still working the till, selling worms and fishing rods,” another guy says with a laugh. Unlike his buddy, he doesn’t seem worried about the way his voice carries. “The hot ones are always the worst on their knees, I swear.”

I’m so shocked by what I’m hearing that it takes me a moment to react. Siena looks so bored by the whole thing I almost question hearing it.

Still, I straighten up off the counter.

Then she lifts her eyebrows, and it stops me right in my tracks. Suddenly she’s there. Siena Pippen with that flare in those blue-gray eyes. The telltale sign that she’s about to slice through your ego with a machete and enjoy the hell out of it.

“Do you feel that?” she asks me at full volume. “Ithinkit’s small-dick energy. But I’ve never been around one of those before now, so I can’t be sure.”

“Hey now, don’t be mad.” A future corpse in shorts and an open linen shirt sidles up to the counter, either unfazed or unaware that he’s on the verge of death. “I don’t have millions in the bank, but I can still show you a good time, baby girl. Teach you exactly how to suck good—”

“You watch your fucking mouth when you’re talking to her.”

My presence seems to finally penetrate his thick fucking skull. He pales like the little bitch he is and backs away from the counter, bumping right into his friend.

“Ah, fuck.”

“That’s the correct reaction.” I take a step toward him, because it’s about damn time he has his pathetic little neck snapped, but Siena’s hand closes around my shirt.

“Don’t worry, baby. I’ve got this.” I don’t know which part hits me hardest. The offhandbabyor the utter, terrifying calm in her voice. Siena holds out her hand toward the man and crooks her fingers until he offers her the Styrofoam container he’d been holding. “Will that be all?”

He coughs. “Yeah. Just the bait. Thanks.”

With a sickly sweet smile, she rounds the counter, pries open the lid on the container. And flips it over the guy’s head. Damp dirt and worms rain over his hair, his face, his gaping mouth.