Val found himself smiling, lifting one brow to stare back at her. "That's an odd thing to be proud of."
"I-I didn't m-mean it like that," she stuttered, her eyes going from small slits to wide open. Her normally hazel-colored skin turned darker on her cheeks, and the tip of her nose even seemed effected. It was actually kind of endearing, and he found a warm feeling filling his chest as he watched her try to spin her way out of her statement. "I meant it like I'm my own boss. I own the entire arcade, you know. I don't report to anyone."
"Congratulations," he replied, purposely pushing her buttons now.
"I don't even have a boyfriend," she continued, definitely in some sort of word vomit ramble at this point. "Not that I couldn't have one if I wanted. I could have a boyfriend. I have had boyfriends."
He smirked at her again. "Good to know."
She didn't bother trying to respond, but this time just let out an irritated huff then turned and stormed away.
"Wow. I would not want to be you tonight," Officer Powell said, turning to look at him over her notebook.
Val shrugged. "We'll be fine. We're the best of friends, as you can tell."
"Right." Officer Powell pursed her lips, non-chagrined. "Well, here's your report. Sign the bottom for me and you can keep the copy. We'll be in touch as soon as we find something."
"Thanks." He handed her back the paper after he'd scrawled his name across the signature line and torn off the copy. "Have a good Valentine's Day, by the way. We'll have a sale going if you're looking for any jewelry for your partner."
The officer didn't respond to him but took the paper and left. Val stood at the counter for another moment, contemplating his next move—both today and in life. This store had always been his dream after watching his parents run a local jewelry store in his youth. When they both passed away in a sudden car accident in his early twenties, he'd been forced to close their store to pay off the debts they'd accrued. He'd vowed to himself that when everything was paid off, he'd build the store back up again, this time under his watch. It wasn’t that he didn't respect how his parents had done things, but they'd struggled with the business side of things. They'd been so into the craft and the artwork of matching the perfect piece of silver or gold with a person or a story or an event…that they'd let the rest overwhelm them. Val was determined to do the opposite and build a lucrative business in memory of them both.
And yet, he'd just taken a financial hit that all could have been avoided with smarter business choices. More security. Less inventory on site. He was angry at himself for letting this situation occur, and he was even angrier at whatever dumb criminals had ruined his entire week—hell, month, year—in their rash attempt at grabbing his riches.
Val looked around the empty storefront with the gate pulled down in front. It was closed—obviously—but he had at least four more hours to kill before the arcade closed and their watch patrol began. Neighborhood watch with Amara Hart? Definitely not at all how he’d seen his shift ending today. He heaved a sigh and went to the back office to brew himself a cup of coffee so he could stay awake. Might as well keep working on all the insurance forms, since he didn't have anything better to do.
At least not until later tonight.
Why did that thought send a rush of energy up his spine?
Chapter Three
Amara
Well, that had been humiliating.
Amara stormed back into the arcade after her word vomit session in front of her neighbor. Had she seriously just told him that she was hopelessly single a few days before Valentine's Day and that no one loved her enough to care if she went missing? That wasn't true, obviously, but why the hell had it come out like that? She groaned as she went back behind the counter and located her cell phone, pulling up her best friend's name.
"Hello?" Nell answered the phone after just one ring.
Amara let out a sigh. "Please tell me again why I don't want a date on Valentine's Day."
"Because you insist on being straight, and men are absolute garbage," Nell responded without so much as a pause. The two women had met over a decade ago at a gaming tournament and, despite coming from pretty different backgrounds, they’d hit it off immediately. Amara was the youngest of two girls in a loving family and her parents were still together after almost forty years in a small lake cabin upstate. Nell was a former foster kid who had found her chosen family through a foster brother and his new wife and children. Even since they'd moved out to Silicon Valley when he'd gotten successful in the app world, though, Nell had been lonely here in Michigan, and so she and Amara had been spending more time together than ever before.
She laughed, the tension in her chest already easing. "I mean, after Aaron…I could probably be convinced to join you in the lesbian web."
Now it was Nell's turn to laugh since she was the one who had first told Amara about the joking concept of all local lesbians being somehow connected romantically to one another through some degree of separation. "It's an open invitation anytime. What's got you in your feels today?"
"I'm spending the night with the man who owns the jewelry store next to mine," she replied, this time leaning forward on the counter to support herself on her elbows. "And I just told him that I'm single and no one loves me."
"Wait…what?" Nell's voice almost squawked through the phone. "Rewind, because I feel like I missed ninety percent of this story."
Amara filled her friend in on the details of the recent break-in and her awkward verbal exchange with Valentino Rossi. Explaining it all over again out loud only solidified to herself how incredibly awkward her foot-in-mouth situation had really been.
"I'm not going to lie to you, Mara, that's pretty terrible." Nell was clearly holding back laughter on the other end of the line. "I mean, I'm getting second-hand embarrassment just hearing this story. Also, why don't you have a security system?"
Amara groaned. "Okay, clearly I'll be calling around first thing tomorrow morning to get estimates."
"Yeah, I'm with him on that one, Mara," Nell agreed with her next-door nemesis. "You need security, and then more security on top of that. Do you want me to come join you two tonight on your patrol?"
She almost said yes, but she knew Nell had to be at work in the morning and wasn't about to make her schedule be upended as well. "No. It's fine. It's one night. I'm sure it won't be that bad."
"Well, I'll keep my phone on anyway, in case you want to talk at two o'clock in the morning about your new crush," her friend teased.
"That is not helpful, Nell," Amara shot back. They finished chatting about the latest goings-on in both of their lives before Amara returned to her job of actually manning the arcade. A few orders of cheese fries later, and one MacGyver-type repair on the Galaga shooting game, Amara was finally closing up shop, making the final announcement over the speakers that this was everyone's last chance to cash in their tokens before she closed the arcade.