Since tomorrow is National Pizza Day I've decided to share an excerpt from my newest release, The Name Game. Technically, the book is part of the Sandwich Shop series, but it turns out the hero runs a pizza place. It's set in New Jersey--if you know, you know.
This time, when their gazes met, they stuck. And Carly found it hard to look away. Desperate for a way to distract herself, she glanced around his restaurant where he’d chosen to meet her, closed now in the interim between lunch and dinner.
Tay, are you seeing this? She silently queried her sister. Taylor would have appreciated the quirky design elements. The simple reclaimed wood and metal tables and matching benches gave the space a quasi-industrial look, as did the acid-stained floor, the bare brick of the street facing wall and the exposed beams overhead.
One long wall had been painted black with what appeared to be chalkboard paint. It was covered with hand-drawn pictures done in colored chalk depicting pizzas, pizza toppings, fresh produce; and, of course, the restaurant’s name, Pizza My Heart, and its logo—a heart-shaped pizza with a missing piece. And, in case anyone still didn’t get the late-sixties rock ‘n’ roll song reference, the restaurant’s motto: “…it makes you feel good,” was scrawled across the wall immediately below it, right next to a sketch of a woman wearing granny glasses and a reggae slouch hat, who appeared to be eating the missing slice.
The hat was striped in red, white and green, like the Italian flag, and the woman’s resemblance to the singer Janis Joplin may or may not have been intentional. The fact that the same sketch also graced the menu, with yet another lyric-inspired quote: “Nona says, ‘have another little piece!’” suggested it wasn’t a coincidence.
Carly wasn’t sure whose idea it had been to reimagine the legendary rocker as an Italian grandmother, but her money was on the man seated across from her. He was fun to look at, but she could already tell that his ideas were a little bit out there.
“Where’d you go?” Tino asked, obviously having noticed her distraction. “Did I lose you?”
“No, I was just admiring the décor,” she told him and watched as his face lit up. He might be nuts, but he might also be her kind of nuts. Plus, he was kind of adorable—especially when he smiled. She had a feeling Taylor would have appreciated that, as well.
“Thanks,” he said, sounding pleased. “I’m happy with how it turned out, but it took some doing, lemme tell you. It wasn’t easy.”
“Really?” That surprised her. She’d thought the whole point of the look was that it hadn’t taken much effort.
“Oh, hell, yeah. The building was a real mess when I took it over—storm damage, you know? We ended up having to gut the entire ground floor. The whole downtown area got hit hard. Everything was boarded up. People were losing hope. It would have been simpler and probably quicker to have just razed the entire few blocks. But we really wanted to preserve as much of the original buildings as we could—at least the facades. And I needed to get this place up and running as quickly as I could, to give everyone a place to gather. I wanted something cheap and cheerful to brighten things up and bring people in; something that wouldn’t take too long to implement. This seemed to fit the bill.”
Carly nodded as she looked around again with greater awareness and a new understanding of the playful aesthetic. This was something more than just a purposely distressed, industrial-chic eatery. This was a post-apocalyptic clubhouse, a welcome port for people who’d survived an actual storm.
* * *
* * *
He knows what to do to save her business. She knows what he needs to fix his life!
Atlas Beach is experiencing a retail renaissance—and Carly Meyer is determined to be part of it. But she and her sandwich shop, The Lunch Box, are struggling to stay afloat.
Luckily, help is on the way thanks to the Chamber of Commerce’s innovative mentoring program—partnering successful Atlas Beach business owners with some of the newer start-ups. Too bad the mentor assigned to her is the delectable—and highly annoying—Tino DiLuca.
Tino knows exactly what’s been hurting Carly’s business and—exactly how to fix it. But his number one solution, changing the name of her signature sandwich, is the one thing she’s not prepared to do.
Buy links:https://books2read.com/u/boaKv1
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