Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
LUCAS
There was a special place in hell for the man who made Lucas get up before nine in the morning to head down to the food truck.
It was complicated enough owning a restaurant on literal wheels that he would never be able to drive.
But to make him bother someone else at what he considered the ass-crack of dawn so they could get parked an hour earlier than normal, all to sate this sadist’s craving to make Lucas suffer?
Fuck him.
Fuck him entirely.
Not that anyone ever complained about driving the truck around.
The Eyeless Potato was his now, but Lane still lent him line cooks for street fair season and drivers to get it to where it needed to be.
Lucas was also more than aware this was a stopgap in his career.
He didn’t want to own this little truck forever.
He did want to do something bigger with his life.
Maybe not outside the bounds of their small town, but he did want to be known as more than that weird blind guy who made sandwiches for a living.
In reality, his dream was a bookshop and a café in one.
Maybe full of books he couldn’t technically read, since he had no plans to stock braille.
He knew exactly how fucking expensive that shit was, and there weren’t enough blind people in the town limits to make a profit.
But being surrounded by the smell of freshly printed pages and homemade cookies and hot espresso?
That was the dream.
He’d keep display cases of trinkets and hang up art from local artists. He’d sell tabletop games and custom dice and figurines that his friends all liked to paint.
It would be his space. His sanctuary. Something he built from the ground up without anyone else giving him a boost.
God only knew when he’d be able to get that kind of cash, but he was still young. He became very quickly aware that college wasn’t for him, so he was currently breezing through an online business class just to give himself some validity when he walked into a bank one day to ask for a loan.
But that took up very little of his time. He could focus the rest on trying to find the most ideal spots around town to make the most amount of profit and someday have his fantasy realized. And maybe with that would come a lot less being rejected by every fucking person he caught feelings for.
He took his time getting ready since he was up before he could feel the warmth of the sun. He thought about rubbing one out in the shower, but he couldn’t seem to conjure anything sexier than the asshole inspector berating him.
And humiliation was not his kink.
Still, the guy’s voice was a nice one. A very nice one. Sort of rich and made him think of cinnamon and autumn. His dick got halfway hard, but not enough he was going to do anything about it.
He spent more time on his hair than usual, though, and fought the urge to FaceTime Gage so he could do a fit check. He wanted to look hot enough to make that fucker regret ever being mean to him. But he also wasn’t sure that man would appreciate hot with his head shoved so far up his own ass.
“Breathe,” he told himself. “Relax. Let it go.”
Lucas was most definitely not good at letting things go. The second hardest part of being autistic: hyperfixating on things that made him angry. When would the universe give him peace, damn it? When would it let him relax?
He ran his hands over his clothes several times to ensure nothing was inside out or backward. Everything seemed like it fit nicely, so he shuffled into the kitchen to gulp down a tepid cup of coffee before calling for his ride.
If he ever got fuck-you rich, he’d own his own self-driving car so he could stop bleeding money into the pockets of rideshares that price gouged. But for now, he would take the cost of it because it came with a nice, fat side of independence. He rarely called his dad for favors anymore.
Lucas would always understand that his dad would never resent him for needing more than the average twenty-two-year-old man who left home. His dad had never seen him as a burden and never would. But there were things he wanted so desperately he could taste them.
Normalcy—his own version of it anyway—was at the top of the list.
Though today was making that fucker Francisco rue the day. And rue yesterday too. And maybe a few days leading up to ever meeting Lucas.
When his phone buzzed to let him know the ride was there, he snagged his cane a little too aggressively, and the tip caught on the lip by the door, the handle jabbing him so hard in the ribs he lost his breath. “Mother fuck! This had better not be a sign.”
But it probably was. He was already talking out loud to himself, which was never good.
He took a fortifying breath, prayed that the ride was parked in front of his building where he’d listed in the notes and not some random spot, then locked the door behind him and got ready for his mission.
The driver wasn’t super weird with him, which Lucas took as a good sign. The food truck was at the Children’s Museum today—his favorite spot because he really did like kids, and the parents were always willing to spend a lot to shut their little hungry rug rats up.
He couldn’t hear any voices yet, which was a good thing because he was most definitely not opening up until eleven. He pushed the button on his phone and listened to the tinny voice read out the time. “Eight fifty-seven a.m.”
So he was on time. Mostly. He turned his head from side to side, straining his ears to see if he could hear the fucker mouth-breathing nearby. But the roundabout seemed empty. He tapped his cane tip hard on the ground to be sure, but there were no odd sounds. Just the echo off the building.
Grabbing his keys, he unlocked the truck and began his prep work. He didn’t give a shit what Francisco said or wanted. He wasn’t going to label his stuff in print. He was the only consistent chef working at the truck, and if anyone else needed to know a date on something, he could read it to them.
Or they could fucking learn his system of writing. He was done accommodating assholes who had nothing to do with his life.
Turning on his music, he began to rock and bounce with it as he checked his inventory. Today was going to be a very high grilled peanut butter and jelly sort of day. And chips, which he had plenty of in the large boxes stacked along the far edge of the truck.
He began to prep a handful of sandwiches to keep in the mini fridge when he heard a soft tapping on the door. Taking a long, slow breath, he reached for his phone and turned the music off.
He made Francisco wait a few extra seconds before calling out, “You can come in!”
There was a pause, and then the door opened. Lucas felt the puff of wind across his face, then heard the door slam a little too hard behind him. “Shit. Sorry. I mean—sorry. I don’t usually swear on the job.”
“I do,” Lucas said. “I don’t really give a fuck.”
There was another pause, then a very faint chuckle. “Alright. So…”
Lucas froze. That voice…it was— No. No. No, no, no. It couldn’t be. Not a chance in hell. But…was it? The man from last night? No, if Francisco had been the man with his daughter, he would have said something, wouldn’t he?
Except, no. He fucking wouldn’t have. So many people believed they could pull one over on him because he couldn’t see them. As though he didn’t have a literal lifetime of learning ways to identify people without sight.
But he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Yet.
“Where do you want to start?” Lucas asked, then strained his ears to listen for the subtle nuances of the man’s voice to see if they really matched the kind man from last night.
“With an apology.”
Lucas almost choked on his own tongue. “What’s that, now?”
“I was having a bad day, and I took it out on you. I had no right to ask you to change the way you label things in here. Especially since they clearly work for you.”
Lucas wanted to punch something. Maybe him. How dare he make Lucas not feel his righteous anger! “Well, I…yeah. They do work for me, and you did have no right.”
“I brought an app with the braille alphabet so I can check the dates myself,” Francisco said.
Lucas’s jaw ticked. “Oh. Well. Aren’t you special.” He felt immediately like an asshole because that was most definitely not something other health inspectors did.
Francisco just sighed. “Would you mind stepping aside so I can—”
Lucas shifted over before the man could finish his sentence. The voice was too familiar. He took a breath, waited to hear the fridge door open, then said, “Did Elodie ever calm down?”
“Oh, yeah, she— Shit.”
“Yeah,” Lucas said darkly.
Francisco—or was it Frankie?—he was very quiet for a long second.
“Let me guess, you didn’t think I’d recognize you because I’m blind?”
“I wasn’t sure. You didn’t seem to know who I was last night, and I thought it might be better if you liked your neighbor more than the asshole who fucked up at his job yesterday.”
Against his will, Lucas felt his frustration and anger begin to unknot at the base of his spine. “Yeah, well…” He bit his lip. “Did she calm down, or did you have to duct-tape her to the sliding door?”
Frankie let out a small laugh. “She’s been a handful since the day I got her, but luckily, I’m not the kind of man who would do that to a child. I’m the master of the empty threat.”
“Is she adopted?” Lucas felt the tension in the air immediately after asking the question, and he felt like shit.
“Do you mind if we avoid talking about her while I’m on the clock?”
“Nope. Yep. Sorry, I’m being a dick.”
“You owe me, so…” Frankie said, trailing off.
Lucas wanted to agree, but also, he wasn’t so sure. Everyone had bad days. Hell, he had them all the time. He wasn’t the most pleasant person to work with when he was overstimulated, so he probably shouldn’t be too hard on this guy.
But damn it, he’d been enjoying having an archnemesis.