Happily Ever After: A Romance Collection

by Amelia Wilde

“Good, because I’d probably be just as bad at that,” she says. Then, without turning fully around, she bends her knees and puts the last shirt on top of a teal pyramid.

  I can’t help myself. “Nice moves.”

  “You caught me at my worst, okay? I’m not taking any other chances.”

  “Your worst?” My erection is officially entering raging territory. “If that was your worst, I want to see you at your best.”

  She lifts her chin and makes her way toward me. Closer and closer she comes until there’s only a foot of empty space between us. Her blonde ponytail swings perkily in the air, swaying to a stop when she stands in front of me, face still scarlet.

  My heart hammers in my chest, pumping blood straight to the tent pole in my pants. Anything could happen in this moment. We’re totally off script. Is she even a real barista, or is she some mirage sent here to tempt me into abandoning my business goals?

  I don’t care. Right now, right here, I don’t care. She has startling gray eyes and soft, pink lips, and my God, I want all of her.

  She bites her lip a little bit.

  This is it.

  It’s happening.

  She’s going to jump on me like a lusty tiger. A babysitter will appear whisking Rosie off for some educational play in a comfortable environment, and I’ll bend her right over the counter and—

  “What’s…” she motions to the empty space between us. “What’s going on here?”

  Am I about to ask her on a date? Am I about to date this woman and then destroy her business? I’m not. Right?

  “You tell me.”

  Another wave of pink to her cheeks. “I have to get by.”

  “We’re all getting by.”

  “No, I mean…” she laughs. “There’s only one way to get behind the counter.”

  I step out of the way, murmuring an apology, but you know what? I’d like to get behind her counter.

  If you know what I mean.

  5

  Ellery

  I have died, and I’m being punished. That’s the only explanation for the events that are unfolding right now, in my actual life. There can be no other explanation for why this gorgeous man—this choir-of-angels-singing, ripped-as-fuck man—walked into my coffee shop at the moment I’d succumbed to the fantasy of being a good dancer. A dancer at all, really.

  It doesn’t matter that the air here is supersaturated with the scent of coffee. I can still smell him as I brush by. Clean. Manly. Responsible.

  It could be the baby in his arms that’s making him look so responsible that my panties are damp already, but I can’t make that call right now. I’m busy surviving this.

  Back behind the counter, I move to the handwashing sink and take my sweet time. After I shut off the water, I whirl around as fast as I can. If this were heaven, he would be gone, and I would be left to die of embarrassment on my own.

  “You’re still here,” I say, because this is my brain on a sexy man.

  He gives me the world’s most attractive grin. Not for me, my mind screams. Not for me. He is certainly not for me. For one thing, he is a coffeehouse patron. For another, he is here in the afternoon. Only people who truly love coffee buy it in the afternoon, long after there’s any real need for it. Fall for a coffee-lover? No way. “You sound a little disappointed.”

  “I’m not,” I say, shaking my head too fast. “I’m completely not disappointed. But the longer you’re here, the longer it’ll take to cleanse my mind of that incident.”

  “I don’t remember any incident.”

  “The incident where you saw me trying to twerk, and then I called you hot? You don’t remember—” Cool. Yes, this is cool. I waggle a finger at him. “You’re trying to bait me. I don’t know who you are, but I’m not falling for it.”

  “Bait you?” His laugh might as well be golden for how beautiful and sultry and smooth it is. “Look, I came in for some coffee. This is your show.”

  “It wasn’t a show,” I grumble.

  “What song were you dancing to?” He cranes his neck, looking around. There are speakers in here, but they’re not on.

  “The sanitizer.”

  He comes over to the counter and stands in front of it like a normal customer. Only his green eyes are locked on me, not on the menu above me. “Is that a new band?”

  “Sure. It’s Bill Sanitizer and the Squeaky Cleans.” Oh. My. God. I can’t stop myself. This is a disaster happening in real time.

  “No way.”

  “Correct. That is not a real band. I—made it up.” I sigh helplessly. “I was dancing to the beat of the dish sanitizer. It makes this swish swish swish sound, and—” Can the earth swallow me up? Is that a thing? Three, two, one, now. It doesn’t happen. I’m still here, digging my own grave.

  He nods solemnly. “There’s something to be said for the beat of your own drum.”

  “We don’t have to say anything else about it, though.”

  “Let me say this…” he rushes the words out. “You weren’t bad.”

  I suck in a deep breath and put a customer-service smile on my face. “Welcome to Medium Roast, Lakewood’s premier and only coffee shop,” I say it loudly, for the benefit of the hidden cameras. There are hidden cameras, right? That’s what this is. A big, enormous prank, starring a supermodel disguised as a dad. “What can I get for you today?”

  He looks at me, gaze steady, mouth quirked in a smile. “Here’s what I don’t want to do.”

  “Let’s focus on what we do—”

  “I don’t want to hit on you.”

  A small part of me deflates like a punctured balloon, complete with whining sound. “You don’t?”

  “No,” he says, but the fire in his eyes doesn’t convince me. “I do not want to hit on you in your place of employment.”

  My eyes bug out a little bit. “This,” I look around behind him, “this isn’t real, right? I mean, you kind of already hit on me, and—”

  “This is real,” he says, his tone going serious. “The dancing got the best of me before, but I’m trying to be an upstanding citizen. From now on, at least.”

  Challenge accepted. “Were you not an upstanding citizen before?”

  “I’ve always been upstanding.” I’m sure he has. I let myself risk a glance over his body. Oh, yes, he’s upstanding. “But I’m new in town, so I don’t want you to think I spend all my time walking into coffee shops and hitting on women who happen to be dancing inside.”

  I snap my fingers and point at him because that is where I am at in my life. “And I don’t spend all my time dancing in coffee shops.”

  “Touché?”

  “Totally.”

  “All I want,” he says, pointedly keeping his eyes above my chest, “is a coffee. Black.”

  I narrow my eyes and look at him across the counter.

  He looks back at me.

  “...and your name.”

  “There it is,” I say, slapping a hand down on the counter. The baby in his arms, so far silent, jumps a little bit and frowns at me, her eyes huge and already welling with tears. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare your baby.”

  He cuddles her in close, shushing her with a smile. “It’s fine, Rosie. She’s playing.”

  “I’m working here, sir.” I don’t know why this man is unleashing the prim Englishwoman inside of me, but it’s happening, and I can’t stop it. I also can’t resist. Fish, meet hook. “And my name is Ellery Collins. Everybody calls me Ellie.”

  He digs into his pocket, coming up with a crumpled five-dollar bill. “Ellery,” he repeats.

  “Don’t forget it,” I say with a laugh that’s so weird and awkward I want to shove it back into my mouth and swallow it whole. While I ring him up and get his change, he goes for the stack of to-go cups next to the register.

  “Oh, I won’t,” he says as I drop the change into his waiting hand. I don’t dare touch him. If I did, I might explode. “I’ll have plenty of chances to practice.”

  I can’t thin
k of a damn thing to say while he fills his cup and reaches for a top.

  “Can I—let me help.”

  “No need,” says this prince among men who can do three things at once without batting an eye. Then he heads for the door. “See you tomorrow, Ellery.”

  6

  Dash

  It’s like Rosie knows. She normally sleeps until seven, seven-thirty, but on Friday she’s up at six, babbling in her crib.

  The sound tears at my heart. It’s only going to last so long, this baby thing. It’s exhausting. Sometimes I’m so sick of baby talk that I pretend to be a game show announcer instead. Still, lying in my bed, listening to her in the other bedroom of the cottage, there’s only one thought that beats at my brain: Why? Why? Why?

  It’s pointless to wonder. I know that. But in this post-dawn haze, the sun barely above the horizon, hardly peeking in through the matchy-matchy curtains, I indulge myself in a few minutes of what the fuck-ery. Serena left me, and our baby, for a mystical tea journey. How? Rosie’s voice must not have sounded as sweet to her. She must not have felt that ache in her chest, knowing that the minutes are speeding by faster and faster with every passing day.

  No, I’m not a sentimental man.

  Not about shops like Medium Roast, anyway. My goal is to far eclipse that place, and judging by the state of the interior, it’ll be one of the easier things I’ve done in life.

  “Da-da,” coos Rosie. “Da-dee.” She sings the word, her voice rising and falling, a few times. When I peek over her bedside her little face lights up in a smile. She’s only got two teeth on the bottom, and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Then there’s the giggle. God, kill me now, that giggle.

  I settle into the rocker in the corner of the room, brought all the way from the big city, and we have her first bottle of the day. Then it’s the high chair in the kitchen for some baby oatmeal and mashed bananas. She eats it all, and I announce every bite like she’s won Plinko on The Price is Right. I dress her in a tiny pink shirt and matching short-alls, then smooth her wispy hair.

  Forty-five minutes down.

  Am I antsy? No, not at all. I’m not desperate to get back to Medium Roast to see if Ellery is there. I haven’t been tossing and turning, thinking of her all night.

  Fine. Most of the night.

  I bundle Rosie into the car. I don’t want to show up there before seven, because Jesus, how desperate am I trying to look? Rosie and I cruise along the lakeside for another twenty minutes, singing The Song a few times for good measure.

  As soon as I pull the car into a spot down the block, I know something is different.

  The sidewalk in front of the shop is busy. Shit. This must be what it’s like for the morning shift, tapering off through the day.

  Why didn’t I think of that?

  Because my brain was addled by that dance move. That’s why.

  Well, I’m not going to let a little crowd deter me from the morning ritual I’ve kept up since college. Huxley men finish what they start. I’m not quitting because my ex-wife turned out to be a complete traitor. Maybe it would be better if I hadn’t invited her along all those years we were together. I’ll never admit it out loud, but I feel her absence at times like these, and it takes the edge of my anger. It makes it hurt more. And fuck that.

  Rosie kicks her roly-poly legs getting out of the seat, pointing at everything she sees on the sidewalk. “Bird,” I say as a seagull waddles haughtily across the concrete, going for a discarded piece of muffin. “Bench. Man. Lady. Table.”

  There are people sitting at each of the two tables in front of Medium Roast. One is occupied by two middle-aged ladies in neon workout gear. “Daddy’s day out?” one says with a smile as I walk by with Rosie, heading straight for the door.

  “Today and every day,” I say. I don’t stop to see her reaction. Today is not the day I let it get to me.

  This is it. This is the moment when I find out if Ellery was real or a fever dream from a road trip with a baby.

  The door tugs back against my hand, a little burst of air-conditioned air escaping onto the street. Inside, the shop is humming with activity. There are six people waiting in a line in front of the counter, one of them brandishing an empty carafe by the handle. The guy has to be eighty years old. “Evelyn,” he shouts, even though there’s a woman up front placing her order. “You’re out. How long until the next batch?”

  There, standing behind the counter, is Ellery. Not Evelyn. Jesus.

  I’m not crazy. She is real, and she’s here now.

  “It’s coming, Morris. Three minutes,” she calls.

  “What?”

  “Three minutes,” she calls again, then turns back to the woman in front of her.

  “The time, Evelyn,” shouts Morris.

  “Three. Minutes!” she shouts back, and it silences the murmur of conversation in the shop. “Three minutes,” she says again, into the quiet, then waves her hands like a conductor. “Carry on, carry on.” A couple at the back of the line laughs. Ellery shakes her head, giving the woman at the counter an apologetic smile, then risks a glance over the rest of the store.

  Our eyes meet.

  Her hair is a little tousled, but her eyes are huge and gray and alive, dancing with a kind of private humor. “You came back.” I see the words on her lips, though I can’t hear them because old Morris is airing some other grievances about waiting for coffee.

  “Damn right,” I mouth back.

  That’s when I feel it.

  That first twinge of guilt.

  Can I run her shop into the ground? Yes, it’s a little worn around the edges, and yes, it looks half-stocked at best.

  I get into the line.

  One thing at a time. Who knows? Maybe I’ll open my shop, and this one will only get more customers.

  “Announcement,” Ellery calls from the front, and the chatter dies down again. “I’m out of espresso. Only decaf espresso from here on. If you want a latte or a cappuccino, it’ll have to be decaf or with regular coffee.”

  Or maybe not.

  “What?” The woman ahead of me whispers the word to her man. “Out of espresso?”

  She’s right. What’s going on at this place?

  What’s my alternative? Scrap the plans for my own shop to keep this strange, strange place alive? I don’t think so. I started it. I’ll finish it.

  “Brrrp,” says Rosie.

  “That’s right,” I say absently. “That’s right.”

  7

  Ellery

  The espresso announcement puts a damper on things like I knew it would.

  I knew it from the moment I opened the shop this morning. In all the commotion I caused yesterday, I forgot to look out the front windows of the shop for the delivery guy. When Aunt Lisa and Uncle Fred first opened up Medium Roast, they did the roasting themselves. She was always terrified of burning the coffee beans, so no matter what blend it was supposed to be, they all turned out...

  You know. You know how they all turned out.

  Now that they’re down in Bradenton with Fred’s mom, they’ve contracted with a guy from forty-five minutes upstate.

  It’d be well and good if his trademark wasn’t micro batches of each roast. It means that when he does show up with coffee beans in his signature green bags, they’re....micro. It’d be the perfect supply for Lakewood in the winter when all the tourists are safely at home away from the snow. During tourist season? Not so much.

  I called the guy—his name is Leonard—this morning at six-fifteen. Unsurprisingly, there was no answer.

  I called my aunt after I opened, while all the regulars poured their coffees. No answer.

  So I did the only thing left to do.

  I faced the day knowing I’d have to make that announcement.

  It’s more than a little embarrassing to have to do it in front of the hottest mystery man Lakewood has ever seen. I don’t have to ask around to know that it’s true. If anyone that hot had ever stepped foot in this town, someone
would have told me about it immediately. Probably Mary Marshé, who loves to know things first almost more than she loves yoga.

  Morris is in rare form today, and it takes all my concentration to focus on the lady at the front of the line.

  “It’s, like, a latte, but with caramel.” She mimes pumping the caramel into a cup. “Two pumps.”

  “And you’re okay with coffee? I have no more espresso.”

  She shrugs one shoulder, then the other. I take that as a yes.

  “Evelyn.” Morris rattles the carafe. “How much longer?”

  I turn back to the woman, who is, thank God, still wearing a wide, easygoing smile. “One second?”

  “No problem,” she says, and bows her head gracefully back down to her phone.

  The carafe behind me has just finished filling. The coffee inside it is going to be too hot to drink for another twenty minutes at minimum once it’s in the cup, but I flip the top down and pull it off the machine anyway. Then I hoist it up and come around the counter, parting the customers like the Red Sea. Once the carafe is firmly on the countertop—next to the second carafe, which is also full—I move back toward Morris and take the empty one out of his hand. “There you go.”

  He kisses his fingers. “You’re a peach, Evelyn. A peach,” he shouts.

  I go back behind the counter, so aware of the mystery man at the back of the line that every nerve is humming with it. He looks every bit as hot today as he did yesterday. From the brief glance I stole, I did gather that he is wearing a blue t-shirt and not a black one, but it emphasizes the cut muscles of his upper arms just as well as yesterday’s version. Does he have to flex that much when he holds his daughter? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I only hope he keeps doing it.

  Focus, Ellie. I’m dealing with hot liquids here, not to mention the state of affairs between my legs. The heat rises with every second he stands there, looking at me.

  Who is he? Where did he come from?

  “Caramel,” says the lady at the front of the line. She mimes again. What is the deal with the miming? “Two pumps.”