by Amelia Wilde
I give the woman the same smile I used to flirt with women in the club back in college. “What size, ma’am?”
“Medium,” she says breathlessly.
“Medium latte,” I repeat back. “Any flavoring?”
“Caramel,” she whispers. I read her lips. These people are making a racket in here.
“Three eighty-five,” I say, putting the numbers in. “Then what?”
“Money,” Ellery says it as she opens the front of the sanitizer and yanks out a frothing pitcher.
I keep smiling at the woman while she opens her purse, takes out her wallet, and hands over a five. “Out of five dollars,” I say.
“The big green button,” Ellery calls. She’s already got milk in the frothing pitcher and stands at the espresso machine, poised to steam it. I hit the big green button. The drawer flies open. Ellery starts the drink.
“One fifty back,” I tell the woman, putting it gently into her hand. Then I lower my voice. “Tips appreciated.”
With a trembling hand, she shoves the bill and coins into the stuffed tip jar. “Thank you,” she says, then slinks away to wait for her drink near the display case. It’s empty, but I imagine on a good day it has baked goods inside.
Ellery steps to my side, the to-go cup in her hand, and reaches for a top that she presses expertly on, making sure it’s solid all the way around. There is practically no room back here, between the front counter with the register and the back counter, and being this close has my heart racing. Among other things.
She beams down the counter at the woman, then presses the to-go cup into my hand. “You’re closer,” she whispers.
“Got it.” I hand over the drink, but when I turn around, Ellery has taken up a position behind the register.
I step back over. “Do you want to run the register or make drinks?”
“Both,” she says, keeping her voice low, like mine. “This is my job.”
“You’re doing awesome,” I say, turning slightly away from the line of people. “Only it looks like a fucking disaster zone in here. Let me help out.”
“I’m not a damsel in distress,” she answers, but she looks back behind her at the jumble of frothing pitchers and blender parts and smoothie spills on the countertop.
“No damsel in distress could dance like you.” Pink comes to her cheeks layered on top of the flush from how hot it is behind the counter. She opens her mouth to say something and then doesn’t. “But here’s the point. You need help. I’ve got time. Plus—” I cock my head toward the register. “I sort of already started. I can’t leave a job unfinished.”
Ellery looks at me for a long moment. “Who are you? Seriously. Is this one of those game shows? A skit show? One of those shows where they trick people?”
“Trick people into having a better time at work? That would be a great prank.”
“No, you’re—” Ellery laughs out loud. “You’re way too attractive to be doing this.”
“So are you.”
“Shut up.”
“Register or drinks?”
She takes a deep breath. “The register is slowing me down, big time. I’ve got to wash my hands every time I handle money, and—” No wonder there’s a little sheen of desperation in her eyes. Whose idea was this? The space might be limited, but there’s room enough for another person or two. At least someone to stand at the register and take orders. For now, that person needs to be me.
“I’ve got it,” I tell her as another couple steps up. The woman sighs heavily, crossing her arms.
“You don’t have to do this,” Ellery says.
“I really do.”
“You don’t—”
I put a hand on her shoulder and turn her so that both of us are facing away from the customers. “Ellery. This is a dire situation. I’m stepping in.”
“Fine,” she hisses. “But if you do that, then you have to take me out to dinner.”
Excitement shivers along my spine. “This seems like a great deal for you and—”
“—a great deal for you, too.”
“Right.” I nod along. “These people are getting restless. Let’s get them their drinks and get them out of here. What do you say?”
Ellery nods, but then a frown crosses her face like a cloud coming over the sun. “About that—”
11
Ellery
Here’s another silver lining: this insane influx of customers has stripped me of most of my inhibitions. Why not tell the hottest man I’ve ever seen to take me on a date? If he’s on one of those shows, the jig will be up when they have to shoot in the new location.
I don’t really believe the theory about the prank show. I’m starting to, slightly, but it’s the heat. And the line that’s still out the door. It has nothing to do with reality.
Dash smiles, a half-smile that nearly does me in right there in terms of propriety. “About what?”
He’s so close to me that it would take practically no effort to reach out and tug his shirt over his head. With our backs turned away from the customers it’s almost like we’re in a private room.
“Hello?” The man at the counter calls, knocking his knuckles on the laminate. “Coffee?”
“It’ll be one moment, sir,” Dash says over his shoulder, and then he’s back. “You said about that.”
I snap back into this bizarre and strangely sexy reality. “Right. About that—we’re probably going to run out of espresso.”
“Didn’t that happen yesterday?”
“Unless another delivery comes before close, it’ll happen again,” I intone. “Also, the lids.”
“What about them?”
“We’re going to run out of lids for small cups.”
His eyebrows fly up to his hairline. “How do you not have enough lids?”
“I don’t handle the ordering.”
“But you handle telling people you’re out of lids, right?”
“People are sometimes too busy to place the right kind of order. They are in Florida right now. We are in New York.”
“We are in the strangest coffee shop I’ve ever—”
“Hello?” says the man again.
“We’ll come back to this later,” says Dash. “Ready?”
“Break,” I say, then laugh out loud. We’ll be returning to the issue of supplies sooner, but he’ll see. He’ll see.
We move into a kind of slow-motion dance behind the counter. Dash plays the part of the stoic dancer who stands in one spot, and I play the part of the coffee fairy, flitting to and fro behind the counter, grinding beans, making lattes and cappuccinos, pouring iced brew. We run out of that once every fifteen minutes. By three o’clock, we’re out of ice.
Normally I fight off the frustration one wave at a time.
“Why is it like this?” Dash says, leaning close while the grinder is running, covering his words.
“Like what?” I shrug. “This is normal.”
“Stop.”
“Because Lisa set up the deliveries five years ago and hasn’t updated them.”
“You could update them.”
“I can’t. These are all people who will bother her, and she doesn’t need that.” Dash’s eyes flick around the shop. “I can manage.”
“Not if people keep coming in like this.” I catch a flicker of something in his expression that I can’t quite put my finger on.
“Looks like they’re going to.” They’ve been coming and coming all morning. Is something going on in Lakewood this weekend? If it’s this huge, how could I not know about it? I guess there are more people wearing vests with tons of pockets, but maybe that’s the style now. I don’t know.
It’s hard to care too much when I keep having to squeeze by Dash’s muscular body every time I go to grind more beans. The brewers are working overtime, putting batch after batch into the carafes, but the people keep coming.
I start to get bold. One trip across the store, I brush against him. It’s a pain to suck it in and hold my breasts away f
rom his body every second of the day, so I let them touch. A little. Nothing else. Nothing more.
He doesn’t seem to notice.
The next time I go over to the industrial grinders, I linger another moment. The cameras will love this. I could be in better form—the sweat soaking in at my hairline surely isn’t the stuff of dreams—but Dash is dogged at the register, taking orders one after the next.
I stop at three fifteen to give him a crash course in running credit cards. Those get swiped through a separate slot above the keyboard, but otherwise, it’s a simple process. Do I lean a little too close? Yes. Does he pull away? No. No, he does not.
“And then you hit the big green button,” I say.
Under his breath, he murmurs something that ends with your button.
I lean closer, pretending to peer at the cash register. “What did you say?”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “I said, you are driving me slowly insane, Ellery.”
“What’d I do?”
“Look,” he says, running a finger over the register’s keys. “I will take you to dinner. You have my word. I never promise something I’m not going to follow through on.”
A pleasant heat rises in my gut. This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be flirting with Dash, who has appeared in town with no prior history. He could be anyone. He could be after anything. Worse yet, I owe him one. People have been streaming in and out of Medium Roast all day, and not one of them offered to help. He’s gone above and beyond. He’s even wiped down the counters and, somehow, swept away some of the dirty dishes between others. “That’s good to hear,” I say, then pat him on the shoulder and stand up. I’ve got to get back to my post.
He takes the next order and follows me. The air crackles between us. I know that if we were alone, he wouldn’t keep six inches around us, but there are people on every inch of the floor space. “I’ll take you to dinner.”
“I know,” I say over the whine of the steam wand. “I asked you.”
“And you are driving me crazy,” he says, his voice even lower. “If you brush against me one more time, I’ll be forced to take drastic measures.”
I want to know how drastic those measures would be. Dash reaches around, his arm hidden behind my body, and puts one hand on my waist, right above my hip. “Drastic measures,” he repeats.
I behave myself until the store closes.
It’s a near thing.
12
Dash
Ellie slams the door shut behind the final customer and locks it with a triumphant whoop. Not one moment goes by before someone tugs on the handle, then presses his face into the glass.
“You open?” the guy shouts.
“Closed,” Ellie shouts back, raising both hands in the air in a classic not my fault pose. Sorry, she mouths then whirls away from the door. Her hand comes down like lightning on all the switches, throwing the shop into darkness.
Relative darkness. Golden afternoon sunlight streams in through the front windows catching in her hair. That little tease. Sure, it was close behind the counter, but she didn’t have to do that. She also didn’t deny what she was doing.
Ellie sags into one of the chairs by the window and leans back, closing her eyes. I swallow down a filthy comment. I would very very much like to see her this way, only in my bed. Clearly, the heat is getting to me, because the fantasy is getting powerful.
“Can you get a contact buzz from standing in a coffee shop?”
“No,” she says, without opening her eyes. “I’d know.”
I move across the shop and sink into a chair across from her. It is not comfortable. “What was that?” I say, taking in my first full breath since I stepped in here hours ago.
“Saturday,” Ellie says with a coy smile.
“It’s like this every weekend?”
Her eyes go wide. “I sure as hell hope not.”
I put both hands on the table between us. “You’re not on a prank show, right?”
She laughs, the sound lighting a flame in my chest. “That’s my line.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously,” she says, stretching her arms above her head. “This is my life.”
I rub both hands over my face. I don’t plan on working in my shop alone for a single day. How can she be doing this all by herself. “You must love coffee.”
“Sure,” she says slowly, looking at me with narrowed eyes. “Why?”
“To own a coffee shop.” I shake my head. “That was exhausting.”
“Oh, I don’t own the shop,” Ellie says. “This is my aunt and uncle’s shop. I’m working here as a favor to them.”
My jaw drops. “This is not a favor,” I sputter. “This is a full-scale bailout.” I look around, half-wondering if they’re hiding somewhere in the shop and I haven’t seen them yet. “Oh, right. Florida. You said they were in Florida.”
Ellie gives me a steady look. “Do you really want to know all this?”
“Of course I do.”
“It’s fine if you don’t. I’m the woman who serves you coffee. A lot of people want to have a cute, chatty relationship with me.”
That’s the last thing I want. Even if it doesn’t make sense, even if it will certainly end in heartbreak, I want a lot more from Ellie. “I don’t want that.” She looks like she doesn’t know whether to smile or frown. “I want...dinner.”
Ellie pumps her fist in the air. “Yes.” Then she leaps up like the day never happened at all. “Let’s go.”
“Pretty good, right?”
Ellie takes another bite of her sandwich. It’s a triple meat sandwich. The guy behind the counter at the deli knew what she wanted the moment she walked in the door.
Me? I have a classic BLT. “Yeah,” I tell her. But the sandwich is not the main event. “I want to talk about the coffee shop.”
She groans. “Maybe I should go back to secretly flirting with you.”
“It wasn’t much of a secret.”
“You didn’t want to talk about coffee then.”
“No,” I say as if it’s not a complete lie. “I still wanted to know what the hell was going on. That was chaos.” The store is still chaos. Ellie said she’d go back to clean it for the morning.
She shrugs both shoulders and takes a long sip of her pop. “It’s a labor of love.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means that my aunt and uncle probably aren’t the best at running the coffee shop.”
“But you know what to do.”
“I’ve tried to step in,” says Ellie, picking up her sandwich. “But I was given explicit instructions not to change things, so I haven’t. I’m doing the best I can to keep it running.” A strange determination burns in her eyes.
“You’re living by the skin of your teeth.”
“It’s not my whole life,” she says. “It’s only temporary, my time at the shop. If I can keep it going, all the better for everybody.”
I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. Guilt. Intrigue. Relief. All of it’s rolled into the hunger the BLT is barely taking on. Underneath is another more animal layer. I don’t dare indulge it while we’re eating in public. “What will you do when you’re not running it?”
She looks down into the plastic basket. It’s still loaded with chips. “I want to be...a photojournalist.”
I didn’t see that coming, and I should have because she has all the necessary physical skills. She can definitely get down into those tight angles. Get the shot. The best shot. The money—
“What do you do?”
“I—” A pain stabs at the center of my chest, out of nowhere. “I used to be an investment banker.”
Ellie squints at me across the table. “What are you doing in Lakewood, then?”
“I moved here.”
“I remember. But for what? There aren’t any software development companies here. Unless you’re starting your own, in which case...that’s lonely.”
I don’t have to be lonely if you’re here. I q
uash that cheesy, ridiculous part of my brain. More guilt. Guilt rising. Guilt reaching red alert. It’s because of Ellie, but I shouldn’t feel guilty. The new shop is my mission, and I’m going to follow through. But she did tell me about wanting to be a photojournalist. Plus, there’s the little matter that my storefront is going to be right across the street from hers.
How do I say this?
I hedge.
“I needed something new for my daughter and I.”
Ellie looks awkward, but forges ahead. “Did you—your wife—“ She takes another bite of her sandwich.
“Divorced. She ran off with a guy who’s obsessed with tea.”
“What?”
“Yeah.” I wave a hand in the air. “It was a fairly fucked-up situation. I wanted to go somewhere else.” Here goes nothing. “I’m here to start a shop. I inherited the building from my grandfather, so it made sense.”
Ellie swallows another bite of her sandwich. “What kind of shop?” Her face lights up. “Did you buy that car wash outside of town? I hate that place, and someone new bought it. Was that you?”
I clear my throat. “No, it’s—” Spit it out. What’s the worst that can happen? You spend the rest of your life avoiding this woman? “It’s a coffee shop.”
She laughs out loud, a big belly laugh. “You’re something else. Seriously, what kind of shop is it?”
I give her a long, steady look.
The smile fades from her face.
“You’re kidding,” Ellie says softly.
I shake my head.
She falls back into her seat, covering her face with both hands. “Oh, God,” she cries from behind her fingers. “I’m sleeping with the enemy.”
I try to stop the words, I swear it. “Well,” I say, and she peeks out at me, mouth half open. “Not quite yet.”
13
Ellery
Unbelievable. Un-be-lieve-a-ble.
I unlock the front door of Medium Roast. My foot hits something tucked into the recessed doorway—three bags of coffee beans, two bags of espresso beans. I scoop them all up in my arms and go in, kicking the door shut behind me.