Perfect Pairing (2 page)

She wandered down a brick walkway between warehouses turned upscale apartment buildings until the space opened into a courtyard of sorts, only instead of being filled with gardens or benches, this one was overrun with food trucks. Big, boxy, and loud, they lined every wall and squatted stagger-stacked three deep in some places. Beyond them, a covered wooden walkway held a small stage surrounded by benches and patio furniture, an old, beat-up piano, and a bunch of bar stools. Farther out, even more food trucks hummed, each one overlapping the one next door. There had to be more than thirty of them within view. Who knew a city the size of Buffalo could sustain so many? She guessed it wouldn't sustain them for much longer.

She'd come prepared to hunt for her target but didn't have to work hard to locate Cheesy Does It. The neon yellow truck had electric blue trim. If the combo wasn't so happily appealing, it might've been too bright to look at, like the sun, but noisier. In fact, even if she'd been blind, she could've found her target by following the thump of bass currently reverberating from its two outward pointing speakers. They looked like the old sirens on the sides of schools or fallout shelters, but instead of heralding news of a nuclear attack, they loudly proclaimed that Justin Timberlake was bringing sexy back.

Me too, Justin. Me too
, she thought as she threaded her way through a pack of women in everything from maxi dresses to shorts that were entirely too revealing for late spring in Buffalo. A few young men in jeans and button-down shirts flecked the crowd, but for the most part
she felt like she'd found the world's most disorganized ladies' room line. She wasn't sure she could even make it up to the truck, but still it beckoned to her like one of those lights that zaps flies. She hadn't gotten as far as she had in business by being timid. Her cool air of politeness and a clearly voiced “excuse me” parted much of the crowd, and when they didn't she punctuated her words with a sharp elbow.

When she finally stood below the large serving window, she could barely see the people above her until they leaned out under the awning to take an order. The first head to pop out over hers was dark, with black hair pulled back behind a red handkerchief. Even darker eyes regarded her expectantly. The face wasn't exactly what she'd expected, but close enough to the one in the magazine picture she carried with her that she pulled it out to double check. No, not the same. This woman's skin was a little darker than the deep olive complexion she sought, and her hair both a little darker and a lot longer.

“Can I help you?” The woman shouted to be heard over the music.

“No, I need to speak to Hal Orion.”

The woman's smile was not unkind, but certainly suggestive. “Sorry, you got me. What can I get you?”

“You can get Hal Orion for me.”

“Like I said, she's helping other customers. I'm helping you. You can either order now or get back in line and try your luck again.”

“She didn't get in line the first time,” someone nearby said.

“Line?” Quinn asked. “I see no lines here.”

The woman in the truck laughed and pointed to the back of the crowd she'd just pushed and cajoled her way through. “That's the line to order from the Fryboi.”

Unacceptable.

She'd left the office early on a business call. She'd arrived just before the starting time in order to beat the rush. She'd done her due diligence, but she would not waste all night milling around this hipster cattle herd. She wasn't here for some grilled cheese, no matter how mind melting they may be. She had work to do, and she couldn't do it from a distance.

“Well, tell the fryboi that I'm not here to order anything. I am here to offer her something.”

“Just like prom night,” the woman said, causing everyone within earshot to laugh, including someone inside the truck.

“How dare you. I don't know what kind of a business you're running here—”

“We're running a food truck, sweetheart, so unless you want food from this truck, go ahead and scribble your digits on a cocktail napkin, hand it over, and stop holding up the line.”

Heat flared beneath her cheeks. “Listen, I'm not sure who you're used to working with, but I'm not some sort of booty call. I'm not one of your little unshaven hipster fan-girls. More importantly, I'm not leaving here until I speak to your boss.”

“I'm not her boss. I'm her chef. We're a team, like a pilot and a gunner.”

Quinn wheeled around to see Hal Orion leaning casually against the back corner of the truck in a white chef's coat with the sleeves cut off. Her dark brown hair sharply angled to a point just above her right eye. She was the exact mirror image of the magazine cover, sans knife, only more enthralling up close. Either her proximity or her magnetism actually made Quinn falter long enough for this Fryboi to continue. “I'm the quarterback and Sully's my receiver. I'm a rapper and she's my DJ. I lay the tracks, and she locks the flow.
Comprende
?”

“Lace.”

“Excuse me?”

“The lyric is ‘lace,' not ‘lay.'” Quinn recovered. “P-Diddy laced the tracks. Biggy locked the flow. If you're going to drop nineties hip-hop, you should do it right.”

“Copyright infringement.” Hal shrugged. “The point is, talking to one of my team members like they're your personal butler is a horrible way to go about getting anything from me.”

Quinn took a deep breath and released it quickly. Clearly she'd misjudged this woman. No matter. She was more than capable of thinking on her feet. Actually, she preferred it. “Point taken. Moving on.”

Moving on
? Who was this woman? Hal had watched her approach, first from the serving window, then up close. She didn't even know what possessed her to leave the truck. She often had to deal with a rowdy or drunk customer, but Sully could easily handle a petite blond with entitlement issues. Something about this woman's tone, or maybe her eyes of steel had pulled Hal closer. The feeling was unsettling. Challenging. And she didn't like it. Still, this tiny ball of accountant-looking spitfire had just dropped some old-school rap lyrics like her name was on the mic.

Paradox?

Quandary?

Intriguing.

Still, she couldn't let Sully be spoken to like a hired hand. The bonds of business and friendship demanded a firm hand here. “No moving on, 'cause I've yet to hear an apology.” She nodded from this woman up to Sully, who still watched them from the window.

The woman's face didn't flame, and she refused to so much as frown, no matter how much it may have irked her. The little way her hands tensed quickly, as if wanting to ball into fists, was the only fleeting signal of her ire. Whoever she was, she'd perfected the stone cold business face. “Sully, was it?”

“The one and only.”

“Great. Sully, I'm sorry for speaking to you the way I did. I'm sorry for taking up so much of your time.” She turned back to Hal. “I'm sorry for not following the proper procedures for setting an appointment. I wasn't able to find a phone number on your social media pages, or I would've called ahead, but the least I could've done is ask for a more convenient time to talk.”

“Maybe if you'd done that,” Hal said almost wistfully, “I would've told you I always stay until the food is gone or the last person is fed. After that, I'm all ears. But you didn't ask. You got all entitled up in our grill, backed up our lines, insulted my friend, and took me away from my job—a job I love.”

“And I apologized for that.”

“You also dropped some old-school rap cred, which impresses me
from a woman in a shark suit and three-inch heels,” Hal said slowly. “So I'm going to give you a do-over.”

“A do-over?” Both the woman and Sully repeated.

“I'm going to go back in my truck and make some food for all the nice people who understand how a line works, and if at the end, the very end of that line, you happen to want to buy a sandwich, I might talk to you while you eat it.”

“And if I just walk away right now? You won't even wonder about what you missed out on?”

Hal's short shot of a laugh was unexpected even to her. “Lady, I've missed out on more things in my life than you can even begin to imagine. Nothing you could possibly offer will keep me awake at night.”

“She's still here,” Sully said after she'd served the last of the stragglers and picked up a scrubbing pad to begin the second shift, which involved degreasing the truck.

“Who?”

“Don't play dumb. I've seen you checking her out all night.”

Hal pretended to inspect the knobs on the gas burners. Damn Sully and her attentiveness. She never let her play it cool. Of course she'd been watching the woman all night, but not as closely as she'd watched Hal. She'd sworn she could feel her icy blue stare even from inside the steam-filled truck. What was her problem?

“She's got a hard-on for you, dude.”

“She does not. She's watching me like a scientist looks through a microscope, all detached and squinty.”

“Clinical maybe, but not detached. You got her all hot under the collar earlier.”

Hal didn't argue, but she did disagree. She hadn't had much effect on the woman at all, at least not comparatively speaking. Hell, she'd even given her a second chance.

“Speak of the devil-wears-Prada, looks like she's ready to swoop in for the kill.”

Hal glanced up but didn't respond as the woman approached, more slowly this time, restrained, calculated. She waited until all she could see was the top of her blond head over the edge of the serving ledge before asking, “What can I get for you?”

“I'll take a,” she cleared her throat, “
Hippy Dippy
.”

Sully smothered a snort, either at the pained way in which the woman pronounced the name, or the fact that she'd chosen, not surprisingly, the preppiest sandwich they made. The combination of goat cheese, honey, and arugula on rye bread was a favorite with the health conscious and uptight, and right or wrong, they did stereotype customers based on their orders.

“One
Hippy Dippy
,” Hal called in her best business voice.

“Got it, Chef,” Sully replied.

She turned back to the woman. “Anything else?”

“Actually, I would like to have a word with you, but if you're busy now, we could schedule a meeting at your earliest convenience.”

She glanced at Sully who gave her a you're-asking-for-it look, which she promptly ignored. “Now's good for me. I'll bring your food out.”

Hal waited wordlessly while Sully flipped the
Hippy Dippy
into a little cardboard food shell, then extended the container to her. Hal reached for it, but once her hand got close, Sully moved her hand back. They repeated the motion twice more before Hal finally snatched it away.

“Just keeping you on your toes, Chef. I get the feeling you're going to need the practice with that one.”

Hal ignored the warning and hopped out the back door of her truck. She strode confidently to the picnic table the woman had chosen behind the line of trucks, shielding them from both the remaining revelers and the acoustic assault of the band still trying to wring every minute out of their last set before someone cut them off.

“Here ya go.”

“A personal delivery from Buffalo's own Fryboi. I'm glad to see you haven't forgotten your roots, and even happier you're not a vengeful person.”

“Oh, don't go that far until you've tried the sandwich. Maybe Sully spit in it.”

“Somehow I doubt that. If she had, you would've warned me.”

“You're right, and also Sully would never do that. You know, waste food.”

The woman smiled, not a full smile, but the corners of her mouth curled up for a second. “Good to know the pecking order around here. Food first, then me.”

“No, don't put it that way. There are many, many more things that come behind food before we get to you.”