Page 1 of The Grump I Loathe (The Lockhart Brothers #3)

EDDIE

I was about to commit burrito murder.

The upside to the amount of the game Word Trip I was currently crushing on my phone was that it kept me from committing actual murder. The downside? I was burning through all of my phone’s battery, and the food line still wasn’t moving.

I tucked my phone away and peeked around a broad shoulder, calculating my chances of making it to the front before I expired. At this rate, I wasn’t sure I’d live long enough to commit the crime.

“Next!” the cashier called, and I advanced a few glorious inches. There were three people left between me and my tortilla of cheesy goodness.

My stomach growled as I peeked around that same broad shoulder, eyeing up the Mexican food truck parked in the food hall of the San Francisco convention center for GeekCon.

I only had thirty minutes (now more like twenty) between the end of my booth time, running the demo for my new solo game Alterbot , and the “Women in Indie Gaming” panel I’d been asked to speak at .

So this was my only chance to eat. Being asked to sit on that panel had felt like a huge win considering I’d just gotten my foot in the door as a game developer on the indie circuit. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin the opportunity by passing out from the heat and low blood sugar.

I tugged on my shirt, trying to get some air between my sweaty skin and the damp material.

The T-shirt was my favorite—it had a neon keyboard on the back, and the front said Ctrl+S is my Love Language .

But I’d be a whole lot more comfortable in it if I was in a room with actual, functioning air conditioning.

“Next!”

Oh, thank God. We were moving again!

I pulled my phone out, checking the time. Eighteen minutes till my panel! And that included the time it would take me to actually get there through this mob.

“Next!”

Finally! There was only one guy—one very tall, broad guy in a suit—left between me and my lunch.

Come to me, my sweet, burrito-y wonder. My stomach gurgled in anticipation of all the warm, gooey cheese I was about to stuff in my mouth.

And the chipotle crema! I couldn’t forget that smoky, spicy deliciousness.

Come on, suit guy, let me at that sauce bar!

I sized up the dude in front of me as he stepped up to the counter to order. I wasn’t usually a clothes snob, but there was just something about the structured silhouette of the suit and the subtle sheen to the smooth fabric that screamed “money.” And “pretentiousness.”

He was giving rich-guy-who-lived-off-steamed-chicken-and-quinoa energy—probably some company exec here to network with new creatives. That was good. It would likely take all of two seconds to slap his boring, low-calorie order into a tortilla, and then it was my turn.

“What can I get’cha?” the young guy behind the counter asked. “Combo A is our best deal. That comes with chips and?—”

“I’m gonna do a single chicken quesadilla,” suit guy said, interrupting the spiel.

Close enough , I thought, smirking. One side of quinoa, please .

“I want that lightly grilled though,” he said. “Definitely no char on the meat.”

I arched my eyebrow.

“Are your tortillas fresh?” he asked.

Oh, no! My face fell. Don’t be one of those guys! I didn’t have time to hang around while Picky Peter deconstructed the meal.

“Can you crisp it up on both sides? And cut it into smaller triangles,” he continued.

“Cheese?” the guy behind the counter asked.

“Yeah, I’ll do a mix, but nothing spicy. And speaking of spicy, how is the chicken seasoned? Can I sample that?”

My head dropped back as I stared at the ceiling, silently begging for him to get an emergency text message and he’d rush off. Not an emergency-emergency. I’m not that mean?—

“And absolutely no cilantro,” he added.

—Yet. I glared at his back. Any hope of avoiding the hangries was rapidly going down the drain.

“Which of these sauces are spicy?” he asked, gesturing to the row of bottles on the counter. “Because I absolutely do not want?— ”

My phone buzzed with a reminder. Fifteen minutes until the panel. “Anything else?” I muttered under my breath. “Come on…”

“Excuse me?” The guy whirled around on the heel of his probably very expensive loafer, his eyes narrowed in response.

My breath caught as I finally got a look at his face. Okay, the Cilantro Cop was less chicken-and-quinoa-exec and more male-model-hiding-at-a-geek-convention, but that was beside the point.

I blinked at him. All six-foot something of him.

His dark, slightly tousled hair was graying at the temples in that way all men wished they could pull off.

He had a bit of scruff on his cheeks, the kind of jawline that would make a concept artist drool, and eyes so brown they were almost black.

Or maybe that was just the hatred built up in his hard gaze.

Damn him for being this infuriating and this unfairly attractive.

It was like the universe’s idea of a cruel joke.

“Did you need something?” he demanded, his words clipped.

“Nope, sorry. Proceed.” I gestured to the counter, a part of me wondering why I’d backed down. “Just…maybe keep in mind the size of the line behind you. We’d sure appreciate it if you could move this along a little faster.”

He looked me up and down for a long moment, as if he was weighing whether my words were worth considering. He must have decided they weren’t, because he turned back around without another word to me and proceeded to demand ingredient lists for all the sauces.

Picky Peter had just graduated from Cilantro Cop to Sauce Inspector.

God have mercy.

I could hear the people in line behind us grumbling. I wasn’t the only one who was getting fed up. But I was the only one within poking distance of Mr. Tall, Dark, and Steamy, so that made it my duty to step in. I tapped him on the shoulder. Nicely.

“Look, you obviously need a minute to sort out your sauces and whatnot. Maybe you could just step aside while you do that, and I could get my order in. It’ll be super quick. I swear.”

There was radio silence from those broad shoulders. The guy didn’t even turn to tell me no. He just flat out ignored me. Rude .

“Hey,” I said, an edge to my voice. Panic was setting in. I needed to eat. “I’m not making unreasonable requests here.” Still nothing from him. The next time I prodded him in the shoulder, I wasn’t so nice about it.

“What is your problem?” he snapped, finally turning around again.

“My problem is that I’ve got”—I checked my phone—“ten minutes before I absolutely have to be at a panel, and you’re ordering so slowly that it’ll be time for next year’s convention before anyone behind you can actually place their order.”

I was officially hangry now. If I had any hope of getting through the panel without my stomach growls being heard through the mike, I needed to eat.

He huffed or snorted. Either way, the puff of air was dismissive.

“What I’m doing,” he said, taking a step closer, those dark eyes boring into me in a way that made me hot and cold all at once, “is standing in line like a civilized human being. Novel concept, I know.” His gaze flicked down to my shirt, lingered there for a beat, then he looked back up with a smirk.

“Maybe you should Ctrl+S it for future reference.”

My hands curled into fists, the condescending dismissal sending a familiar spike of frustration through me. I’d spent the morning working my butt off at my booth getting people to pay attention to my game and actually give it a chance. I believed in my work. I knew I’d made something good.

And yet…

I was young, I was female, and I had a limited list of credits, all of which added up to me having to hustle to get anyone to take me seriously. And this guy’s dismissiveness on top of everyone else’s was the straw that broke the very hungry camel’s back.

“I don’t have an issue waiting,” I said slowly.

“I have an issue with you wasting everyone’s time.

You might be free to spend all day asking a million questions and trying to substitute every item on a simple chicken quesadilla, but the rest of us actually have things to do and places to be at this convention. ”

I heard murmurs of agreement from the people behind me, and their support galvanized me to take another step forward. “So why don’t you step off to the side there and do whatever chemical analysis you’re into on the sauces, and I’ll just order real quick. ’Kay? Thanks.”

“’Kay?” he said, like the word had personally offended him.

It was my turn to ignore him. I locked eyes with the kid behind the counter. “Hey, can I get a number four with?—”

“Absolutely not,” Picky Peter said, bumping me out of the way. “Why do you assume you can just cut in line?”

“Um, maybe because you’re not treating it like a line?

You’re treating it like this is your own personal restaurant built to cater solely to you.

Lines are supposed to move ,” I said, nudging him with my hip.

The contact sent an annoying little jolt through me.

The kind that made me want to either punch him or… something else entirely.

Neither of which I had time for .

“You can wait your turn,” he insisted, planting his feet and refusing to budge.

“No, actually, I can’t—because I’ve got a panel in,” I checked my phone, “ seven minutes now.”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever panelist you’re fangirling over can survive without you for the first few minutes.”

“ Fangirling ?” I squawked. “I’ll have you know that I’m on the panel.”

“Sure you are,” he said, voice full of derision. “What’s your expertise? Queuing etiquette?” He turned to the cashier, tapping that infuriatingly perfect jawline and dismissing me entirely. “You know what, I’d actually like to change my order to steak.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Five minutes !

I’d spent the entire break waiting in line, and there was no way I could grab food anywhere else.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

I leaned all my weight against him. The guy barely budged.

It was like throwing myself up against a brick wall.

A very firm, muscly brick wall that I needed to not think about.

“Don’t listen to him,” I told the kid. “Focus on me. A person who actually intends to eat my food this century.”

“Sorry sir,” the kid said, checking over his shoulder. “We actually just ran out of the steak.”

“No worries,” Picky Peter said. “Do you think you substitute the steak for?—”

“No!” I cried. “He can’t substitute anything.” Why were they even allowing substitutions? I kept trying to nudge him over, trying not to get distracted by the heat of his body against mine. “Seriously, kid,” I said to the cashier. “Just slap some beans in a tortilla for me—whatever’s easiest. ”

My phone buzzed. Crap! Two minutes until the panel! I was so hungry I’d gnaw off my own arm, but there was no time to fix that now. At this rate, I was going to have to speed walk across the convention center to get there on time.

The cashier pushed a plate with some quesadilla monstrosity in Picky Peter’s direction as a white-hot fury burned inside me. Well, there was time to fix one thing.

I reached for the sauce counter, grabbed the spiciest hot sauce I could get my hands on—the one with the skull and crossbones on the label and all the warnings with exclamation points—and splattered Picky Peter’s entire quesadilla.

The icing on the cake was the epic fart noise the bottle made as the hot sauce exploded on the crisp white shirt he wore beneath his suit jacket.

“Thought you might need some spice in your life,” I said as he tried to stop me.

I gave him my best grin. I might be starving, but at least I could savor the tiniest amount of glee knowing that his meal plans had been ruined, too.

“You can catch me rocking my panel in Hall A when you’re done,” I gestured to his hot sauce splattered shirt, “dealing with that situation.”