Love by the Slice (Valentine’s Sweethearts)

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

EZRA SAID, “EARTH to Shelly?” and her head jerked up from over her phone. He tapped the three pizza boxes on the counter. “You may want to deliver these.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Shoving her phone into her pocket, she uncoiled from the counter stool and hopped to the floor.

Ezra said, “Who were you texting?”

With a tearing sound from the hook-and-loop closure, Shelly opened the thermal bag to start loading pizza boxes. “Greg. I wanted to ask about that kid hanging around.”

Ezra’s eyes darkened. “No.”

She turned to him. “Yeah, he didn’t seem to have—”

“I mean, no. You were smiling and glowing while you were texting the entire contents of War and Peace . I’m not having you fall in love with him.”

Shelly huffed as she sealed the thermal bag. “Like you have a choice.”

“ You have a choice, and that’s the important thing.” Ezra scowled. “Greg’s not right for you. You have goals, and he’s going to get in your way.”

Shelly smirked. “Yeah, that’s how it works. I exchange three texts with your friend, and ten minutes later, all my life goals are in the trash.”

“Greg doesn’t take anything seriously.” Ezra huffed. “You know that as well as I do.”

“Maybe you take things far too seriously.” Shelly hefted the thermal bag. “You know, like the time you told me we were both going to lose our jobs because Loveless was going to close, except now you’re the part owner and you’re engaged to the other part owner?”

Ezra said, “That was, if you recall, a serious situation.”

Shelly headed for the back door. “Yeah, talk more about it once you’re done turning everything into a catastrophe.”

As she drove up Main Street, Shelly hissed out a hard breath between clenched teeth. So, those were the only two options? Seeing devastation around every corner, or being a light-hearted goofball?

Ezra had a point that Greg didn’t always take things seriously. His number one statement was, “Don’t worry. It’ll work out.” It galled Ezra to no end when things did work out, but Shelly knew they “worked out” because someone had worked them out. Either that, or someone had put in effort to minimize the fallout.

Shelly had no idea if any of her mother’s exes were wandering around, thinking about their abandoned offspring, “It’ll all work out.” If things had worked out for her and Ezra, they hadn’t worked out except with a lot of sacrifice and a lot of effort. Ezra’s effort had sprung Shelly. Shelly and Ezra now were making efforts to extract the next sibling. Ezra sent home money to their mother, and in that way, things “worked out.”

Greg, on the other hand, never clenched his teeth and “worked things out.” It was so darned refreshing to see someone with confidence that the world wasn’t poised to swallow them whole.

Take kissing him at midnight, for example. Greg hadn’t freaked out. He hadn’t gotten a weighty moodiness and dissected the kiss for hours to figure out what she meant by it. She’d kissed him, and he’d enjoyed it. Boom. Done.

If they kissed again? He’d probably be just as cheerful.

Greg rolled with the changes. He let things happen. He rode the crest of the wave, and once the wave settled, he was ready to ride the next. It made sense that she’d daydream about him and text him and tease him.

Plus, he really was kind of a goofball. But she’d meant it about him being trustworthy. He showed up for his shifts. He locked up when he was done. She’d also meant it about him being approachable—if only she could approach him without Ezra freaking the freak out.