by Amelia Wilde
Tuesday morning, I drop Rosie off bright and early.
Today is the biggest day I’ve had since Serena left. That was a day.
I don’t like to think about it.
By seven, I’m standing inside The Coffee Spot, pulling down the butcher paper I taped over the windows. Martin pulled all the plywood down yesterday, revealing the gleaming exterior. It gleams exactly as much as bricks can gleam with a few fresh coats of white paint on them, covering up a disgusting brown shade that someone thought was all the rage.
The last thing I put up is the banner.
It’s huge, neon, unmissable. Up at the top, it has The Coffee Spot’s logo. Then, below that, it says GRAND OPENING THIS FRIDAY.
Yes, I had to make a couple of assumptions when I had the sign printed, but it turns out Friday is as good a day as any to have a grand opening.
Once the banner is in the window, I put up a smaller sign in the corner of the largest pane of glass: HELP WANTED. I can run this place on my own if I need to, but I’ve seen the situation Ellery’s in. Not interested.
It’s eight o’clock exactly when I see her hair flash in the sun on the other side of the street.
She looks refreshed. Perky, even. Her ponytail bounces as she walks, but she keeps her eyes on the sidewalk in front of her.
Right up until she’s about to go inside. She turns, looking over her shoulder. Then she does a double take.
Her expression is unreadable.
Back in the shadows of The Coffee Spot, I know she can’t see me, but a thrill runs down my spine anyway. We’re not on good terms. She doesn’t want anything to do with me. But I know that note was for me. I’m willing to answer.
I’ll give her a minute, though. She’s got to get things ready for a late opening. Three shops down, I see people swiveling their heads toward Medium Roast. One of them, the ancient man who’s hard of hearing, points with his cane.
I wait to see what he’ll do.
As I predicted, they make their way to the sidewalk in front of Medium Roast. These people have been waiting. They want their morning coffee, and they wanted it two hours ago when the store usually opens. So they’re going to hover right outside.
And what is there to look at?
My store.
I see them notice the banner.
I see them reading it.
The old man raises his hands to his mouth.
I hear the word from all the way inside the shop.
It’s a long, sustained boooooo.
19
Ellery
“Morris, what was that?”
I ask him as soon as he shuffles in. I’m between customers, putting a new carafe over on the serving counter. Morris slams his cane against the floor. “People these days, Evelyn. They have no respect.”
He comes up to the counter to pay for his coffee. “Did something happen?”
Morris raises his bushy eyebrows. “You saw the sign, didn’t you?” He jabs one finger across at the banner hanging in the window. “Grand opening. Somebody’s opening another coffee shop, right next to this one.”
Don’t I know it.
“I saw that,” I say neutrally. It’s one thing to be totally bewildered by what Dash is doing in private, but I wouldn’t dare embarrass Aunt Lisa by saying a word about it to customers. I have plenty of other things to say to them, like we’re out of coffee and I hope you like decaf espresso. “This Friday, huh?”
He makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “I’ll never go there. That city slicker’s never getting a dime of my business.”
I hand Morris a to-go cup and consider him while he turns away to fill it up. This doesn’t exactly make sense. I know for a fact that some of our regulars wish Lakewood had a McDonald’s. Cheaper coffee and they usually don’t run out. “How do you know it’s a city slicker?” I shout at Morris’s back.
He shrugs one shoulder. “City slickers, Evelyn. They always think they know best.”
“But how do you know—”
“Anybody with a banner that fancy has to be from the city. Look at that hideous thing.”
I look out the front window toward Dash’s store. It’s a nice banner. The logo for the shop—and shit, it’s a cute name, too—looks professionally designed, unlike the sign for Medium Roast, which was carved in someone’s barn as a favor to Aunt Lisa. How long have they had the shop now? Five years? Maybe it’s closer to eight. Either way, it needs a fresh coat of paint...or three.
“It looks nice,” I say in spite of myself.
Morris is already shuffling back toward the door. “People these days,” he spits. “No respect. Could have chosen any other building.”
It only gets worse.
The tourists are largely oblivious—most of them will be gone by Friday—but the locals are in a tizzy. Mary Marshé clutches her latte cup and looks at me with huge, bugged-out eyes. “What are you going to do, Ellie?”
“Sell coffee,” I tell her with a smile.
She leans in, whispering. “But you can’t always do that. What if the new place is a hit?”
“We’ll figure something out.”
“I hope you can,” she says, her hand fluttering to her chest. “I hope you can.”
By the afternoon, things have taken a turn for the crazy. The regulars are stopping downtown to see the banner, but they’re not just looking. Oh, no. They’re standing in front of the shop, calling things across the summertime traffic toward Dash’s place.
I hope he’s not in there. As pissed as I might be that he chose that building, he did do me a favor. I feel bad that people don’t at least look excited when they walk by. Most of them are scowling, then turn around at the end of the block to walk by and scowl some more.
At four, when I close up shop, I lean against the counter and look across the street. Three tourists are standing outside his shop, checking it out. The facade has been repainted. It looks good. Medium Roast could use a face lift, too.
There’s a flash of movement in the dark store, a black t-shirt behind the reflection in the window.
I owe him.
That’s the bottom line.
He did something for me, and all he asked in return was that I stop by. I want to talk, he’d said, standing in the middle of my store after he’d told me he was about to become my arch nemesis.
Fine. I’ll talk.
The alley door seems like the best idea. Who wants to answer questions from the tourists about The Coffee Spot? Not me.
Because I’m a coward, I walk down the block and cross at the crosswalk, buying some time. If he’s gone by the time I get there, he’s gone. Nothing I can do about that.
In the alley, I raise my hand and knock on the bright blue door set into the white bricks. It’s confident when my hand makes contact the first time but weak and nervous by the third. God, I am the worst. Aside from Dash. He’s the ultimate worst.
I’m about to lose my nerve when I hear the lock turn behind the knob.
The door swings open.
He stands inside, one hand in the pocket of his jeans, a surprised half-grin on his face. All of my indignant anger—what was left underneath the vague pity, anyway—melts away into something gooey and nice.
“You stopped by,” he says, gaze searing my skin everywhere it touches. For an instant I’m right back behind the counter of Medium Roast, daring to brush up against him, my nipples hard and barely hidden by my teal shirt.
I raise one shoulder, the hint of a shrug. “You asked. Plus, I owe you for working that shift.”
He looks like he’s about to argue, but changes his mind. “Consider your debt paid,” he says, and something in my chest falls. Do I hate it when I owe people? Yes. Yes, I do. But there was a kind of electric pull when I was in debt to Dash. It meant that I’d have to see him again. “I don’t know about that.” There’s a quiver of uncertainty in my voice. “You also said you wanted to talk.”
His eyes light up. “I’ve got an empty store if you want to take a load off. N
obody will ask you to make coffee in there, I promise.”
I try my best not to sound too eager, but I’m filling up with a kind of morbid curiosity. I want to see the place that’s going to do Aunt Lisa’s shop in.
And I want to see more of him.
“Okay.”
He steps back, beckoning me forward. “Hurry up,” he says, a laugh underneath his words. “Don’t want them to see you with the competition.”
20
Dash
Ellie has the scent of coffee clinging to her clothes, to her skin, to her hair, and it moves into my own shop with her. I’m into it.
“You smell like success,” I tell her while I shut the side door and lock it.
She makes a face. “Not even a little.” Ellie takes a deep breath in. “This place, on the other hand...” There’s a flicker of worry in her eyes. Is it about me, or the store, or both? I only half believe she’s standing here right now when people have been booing my banner all day. “So clean. So fresh.”
She looks clean and fresh, despite having worked a whole shift at Medium Roast. “Are you telling me you like this better?”
“Than a coffee shop that’s been drowning in grounds all day? Yeah,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “Yeah, I really do.”
This is interesting. Ellie has been working her ass off at Medium Roast for...I don’t know how long, but long enough. She attacks each day with a ferocity normally reserved for things like heated sporting events. But she’s standing in front of me right now, giving a little shudder at the thought of the shop.
“What’s on your mind, then?”
She blinks, cocking her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“You came over to talk.”
A smile curls at the corners of her pink, perfect lips. “You asked me to come over and talk. I figured you had something in mind.”
Ellie gives the tiniest exhale, and in the space of a moment it’s like all the air in my storefront has been lit on fire. She must feel it too, because she bites at her lip, shifting her weight from one foot to the next. It has the effect of making her hips sway in slow motion, and holy fuck do I want my hands on those hips.
We’re standing in the side room by the alley. It’s more of a long hallway, though the high windows let in plenty of light and the low furniture I’ve had set along the walls make it cozy as hell.
It’s also inviting as hell for the things I’d like to do with her.
“I have a few things in mind.”
I know how it sounds. It sounds like a come-on.
That’s because it is.
Ellie blushes a little, turning to look around. “Like what?”
The words come out of the last remaining working part of my brain. “Shop. The shop.”
She grins up at me, and I swear to God, she arches her back an inch, putting those glorious breasts on display, even under her standard t-shirt. “What about it?”
Get your head in the game. “What’s in it for you?”
Ellie crosses her arms over her chest, which is one of the more significant disappointments of my lifetime. “Let me get this straight. You wanted me to come over here to tell me I should be doing something else?”
“No. I wanted to ask you if you should be doing something else. You’re…” I can hardly string the words together. “You’re tenacious. Driven. You could have survived the other day without me, even though I’m pretty sure you don’t like coffee.”
Ellie laughs, a short burst that’s like sunrays coming through the window. “I think about that day a lot.”
She’s being flirty. Isn’t she? “Me too.”
“I think about how...” her eyes are alight. “...nice you were behind the counter. You saved the day, and I still don’t get why. Why would you do that when your whole purpose in life is to ruin mine?”
“That’s not my purpose in life,” I shoot back. “I started this project before I knew you, and I don’t let things go unfinished.” A pain stabs at the center of my chest. “Unless it’s out of my hands.”
She wrinkles her brow. “What could possibly be out of your hands?” Ellie raises her own hands, gesturing to everything around us. “You’ve got a new store, a slick setup, a daughter who’s so cute it kind of makes me sick...you have everything.”
I’m all emotion, no thought. I’m so hard my pants feel like a prison. I grit my teeth to keep the words in. They escape anyway. “You’re out of my hands.” I run those empty hands through my hair, taking one step closer. “I came here to finish what I started, and here you are, standing in my way.”
Ellie lets out a belly laugh, but her eyes have gone dark with some other emotion. “Me? Standing in your way? I don’t think so. Medium Roast is never going to be able to compete with this. Your place will put us right under. You’re the one standing in my way. And the worst thing of all—” She stops, giving a sharp shake of her head.
“The worst thing is that you’ll be out of a job?”
“The worst thing is that I can’t stop thinking about you,” she bursts out. “You were so fucking helpful and sexy, and you’ve been driving me crazy, over here in your t-shirts. I felt bad for you because all the regulars think you’re scum and you are scum, but only sometimes.” Her face is getting redder and redder. “Saturday? That was simple. I wanted you to be there, and you were. You saved my ass when nobody else was willing to step up to the plate, and I can’t forget that. I can’t forget you.” She whirls away from me, turning toward the doorway into the main shop, and a frustrated growl bursts free from her. “God, this is so fucking stupid. I want you, and I always want what I can’t have—”
Two steps.
That’s all it takes for me to close the distance between us. Touching her is like touching a live wire. I pull her in. She gasps, arching back a little, and I have one fleeting moment to see the surprise—see the heat—in her gray eyes before I’m not looking anymore.
I cover her mouth with mine, claiming those lips at last.
Fuck the consequences.
21
Ellery
My entire body turns into a firework of pleasure when Dash’s lips meet mine. Not a single ounce of me wants him to stop. A tiny voice in the back of my head reminds me that he’s the man who’s going to ruin my aunt’s shop for good, but a far louder one smacks that voice across the face.
His hands are on my waist, on my hips, and he pulls me close like he’s been waiting his entire life to do this.
On some level, I know that’s not true. He has a daughter, and she didn’t come out of nowhere. God, I’m an asshole. I never asked him what her name was.
“Wait. Wait…” I push my hands against the muscled expanse of his chest.
“What?” He’s still bending toward me, inches away.
“What’s your daughter’s name?”
His eyes are so green, like high summer in the fields outside Lakewood. “Rosalyn,” he says, his voice heavy with impatience. “But I call her Rosie. So does everyone else. Why?”
“I never asked,” I breathe against him. “I thought I should ask.”
“Ellie?”
“Yeah?” I spread my fingers out against his shirt. I want to take fistfuls of the fabric and yank it over his head.
“Shut up.”
He kisses me again, so hard I gasp. When was the last time a man kissed me like this? It wasn’t Sol, the boyfriend I had right after college, the one who ran so fast in the opposite direction after The Incident that I didn’t even get a forwarding address. He was a slow kisser, which is fine. It’s not fine in comparison to kissing Dash. It’s like getting top-shelf alcohol for the first time. Once you’ve had that, the cheap shit only leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Dash tastes minty and strong, and my whole body responds to his touch, little tendrils of electricity rushing down from my hips to my toes. I should have known it would be this way. I should have known that kissing him would be like flinging myself right into the center of a thunderstorm an
d letting that lightning scatter through me like a midnight cloud.
“God,” he growls, “I’ve wanted to do this since I saw you dancing that day.”
“Oh, no,” I groan. “Don’t remind me about that.” He plants little kisses down the line of my neck toward my collarbone, each one a tiny explosion all on its own.
“Why not?” More kisses. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Tell me you can stop, and I’ll stop.”
“I can’t,” I admit. “Not at night.”
“Night is the worst time,” he agrees, and then he comes in for another lingering slow burn of a kiss that has me melting right through my shorts. That’s what it feels like. I hope the situation isn’t that dire. Otherwise, it’s going to be an awkward stroll back to my car.
Dash pins me up against the doorframe, and I get a good look at the inside of the store for the first time. “Shit,” I murmur up against his mouth.
“What?”
“This place is nice,” I say.
“This is nice.” He plays his hands over the curve of my waist and dips lower, only to rise up again underneath my shirt, his palms on my bare skin. Frustration grows in my chest. I want more from Dash Huxley. I’m not the kind of girl who sleeps with a man on the first date. All my life, I’ve been the type who has best friends who turn into boyfriends who turn into lovers, and it’s always a crushing blow when it inevitably falls apart. Dash is none of those things. We’re not best friends, and he’s not my boyfriend, but if he pulled down my shorts right now I wouldn’t stop him.
I wouldn’t stop him for a second. Right here in this shop. That’s how much he’s taken over my nights, my dreams.
There’s only one thing between us.
Two things.
Two coffee shops.
He works his hand up under my bra, his tongue finding mine in my mouth, and when I think I’m going to scream he takes one of my nipples between his thumb and forefinger and rolls it in his grasp.