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“You seem to specialize in that,” she said.

“Yep.”

They purchased all their goods, and he pushed the big flat cart out to the pickup truck while she tagged along to the side, fluttering with nervous energy over the fact that she had nothing to do. He picked up a very small bag from the top of the flat. “Here.” He handed it to her and she looked up at him like he was nuts.

He didn’t explain himself.

“You hungry?” he asked, as he finished loading the last of the bags into the truck.

“You don’t have to keep feeding me.” She threw her little bag on the top.

“Oh, don’t go getting excited. It isn’t going to be anything fancy like Becky’s. I just figured we’d stop at the Minute Market up the road at the gas station.”

They trailed into the little store and he grabbed a deli sandwich out of the case. Quinn had disappeared into an aisle—not tall enough for her head to be seen over the top of it—and emerged with a bag of candy a minute later.

She then went to a milkshake mixing machine and got herself vanilla.

A stark contrast to yesterday’s Caesar salad order.

He felt it was tantamount to having driven her to drink.

He took the items from her while she glared at him, and he paid for them all.

“I want to see your paperwork,” she said, taking a big sip of the milkshake.

“Nope,” he said.

“You don’t owe me anything. I mean, if I look at it, and I give you some advice, you don’t owe me anything. Flat out. But I want to see. When I said I want to help, I’m serious. None of the way that it’s charity or anything like that. It’s only that I really do like solving problems.”

“I said no.”

He put the last bite of his deli sandwich into his mouth and oriented the truck toward home, driving down the highway just a little bit too quickly.

“Just let me see.”

He looked at her. She was all glittering, sparkling, annoying. Beautiful.

His gut went tight and his body burned. And what the hell?

What the actual hell?

It was like he was drawn to bullshit. That’s what it was. Because she was the most annoying, high-handed female he’d ever had the misfortune of meeting and his body reacting to her was egregious.

“Quinn,” he growled. “You need to learn when to step off.”

And he thought she’d argue. But suddenly something like knowing moved through her green eyes, and instead, she leaned back in her seat.

She didn’t say anything more for the rest of the trip.

AT DINNER THAT NIGHT, he and Camilla had pizza, and a FaceTime call with Dylan.

“How are things?” Camilla asked.

“Hot as hell,” said Dylan.

“Well, it’s Jordan,” said Levi. “I’m not exactly certain what you expected.”

“See the world, they said,” Dylan said. “Join the military, they said. Not exactly the vacation that I was hoping for.”