The Firefly Café

by Lily Everett

  “Keep your voice down,” Penny hissed, using a corner of her apron to mop up the water she’d dribbled onto the table. Without even turning around, she knew who Greta had seen walk through the café door.

  She didn’t need to turn around … but she couldn’t quite help herself.

  Sure enough, a quick glance over her shoulder showed Dylan at the hostess stand in his dark jeans and white T-shirt, his hard jaw rough with just enough stubble to make him look like he’d rolled out of some lucky woman’s bed. His bright blue eyes scanned the restaurant, and Penny tilted her head in the direction of the corner booth where Matt was hunched over a book.

  Giving her a nod, Dylan headed toward the back of the restaurant, and Penny sent up a silent prayer that she was doing the right thing.

  When she dropped her gaze back to Greta’s expectant stare, Penny pressed her lips together. “Don’t make a fuss. He’s just a man.”

  A man who was about to have a heart-to-heart with her son.

  “Riiiiight.” Greta’s dark eyes snapped with curiosity. “And a Ferrari is just a car.”

  Penny leaned her hip on the edge of the booth, lowering her voice. “He drives a motorcycle.”

  Greta moaned. “You’re killing me, here. If you try to tell me Dylan Workman gives you no special feelings in your lady parts, I’ll have to call Dr. Fairfax to check you for a pulse.”

  “He’s hot, okay, yes,” Penny admitted, frustrated and on edge. “But it’s not that simple.”

  “It could be,” Greta said hopefully. “Dylan could be exactly what you need to break your dry spell.”

  Penny laughed, but it sounded harsh to her own ears. “Dry spell. More like total lockdown. Ever since Trent, the instant I get close to a man, all I can think about is…”

  She broke off, swallowing back the tinny taste of adrenaline and fear, the instinctive flinch.

  “I know, sweetie.” Greta’s strong-boned face went soft with understanding. “What happened to you was awful, scarring—and I can’t imagine how hard it is to trust another man, after that. But Dylan isn’t Trent.”

  “You’re such a closet romantic,” Penny said, shaking her head. But the comparison helped. Dylan wasn’t Trent. For one thing, Trent had never shown much interest in spending time with his own son—and here Dylan was, attempting to mend a fence he wasn’t even responsible for breaking.

  Dylan was … unlike any man she’d ever known, actually.

  “Yes, I have a slight romantic streak,” Greta hissed, glancing around with alarm. “Don’t spread it around, I have a reputation to uphold. My brothers would never let me hear the end of it.”

  Breathing in a deep, calming breath, Penny said, “Want to hear something romantic? Dylan kissed me last night.”

  Greta gasped. “Girl! You are docked at least a hundred friend points for not leading with that information. How was it?”

  A shiver of remembered passion gripped Penny for a delicious heartbeat. “Wonderful, while it lasted—which is basically the story of our whole potential relationship. I mean, what relationship? He’s only here on the island until he finishes the work on the house! I’d be crazy to open myself up to the pain of being left behind.”

  “Sweetie. I say this with love and understanding, but you are one of the most closed-off people I’ve ever known. Your life motto is No Second Chances. If this guy makes you want to take a chance and open up, even just long enough to experience a little joy and pleasure?” Greta cocked her head. “You’d be crazy not to get with him. Yes, for however long it lasts.”

  Before Penny could argue or agree—she honestly wasn’t sure which—Greta’s gaze snagged on something behind them.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Penny saw that Dylan had installed himself in the corner booth, across from Matt. A weird pang hit her heart at the sight of their two dark heads leaned close across the table, the expression on Dylan’s face as serious and intent as if he were speaking to the president of the United States.

  “Maybe I should go over there. Should I?” Penny fretted. “Not that it would help. Matt hasn’t said three words to me all day. I had to threaten to withhold his comic book allowance to get him to come with me to the restaurant today, but I wanted to keep an eye on him.”

  Greta’s dark blond brows lifted almost to her hairline. “If you want to keep an eye on him, you better look quick. They’re leaving. Together.”

  “What?”

  Penny whirled around in time to catch a final glimpse of Matt preceding Dylan out the back door of the café. The back door led out onto a seaside patio deck, usually empty during the heat of the summer noon. What on earth was going on?

  “I’d better go check on them, make sure Matty’s okay,” Penny said.

  “Not so fast,” Greta muttered, jerking her head toward the kitchen where a tall, bald man was glaring balefully at them over a pile of dishes waiting to be served. Chef/owner of the Firefly Café, Alonzo Chappelle was a marshmallow to work for—most of the time.

  Rushing up to the pass-through window, Penny apologized profusely as she gathered up the rapidly cooling plates of food. “I’m so sorry, Lonz! I’ll straighten these orders out, I promise. And then—can I maybe take my afternoon break? Please! I have to talk to Matty.”

  Lonz scowled, but waved her away. “Sure, for Matty. Go, go.”

  Balancing orders for five different tables on her arms, Penny went, as carefully but as quickly as she could.

  Her mother senses, which had been tingling for months, were suddenly clamoring like a fire alarm. Something had been up with Matty for a long time, something more than the regular stresses of adolescence, but this felt different.

  Her son was in trouble.

  But no alarm on the planet could’ve been warning enough for what Penny saw when she finally squared away her tables and slipped out the back door.

  Across the deck, next to the stone wall that separated the patio from the wide, blue ocean, Dylan and Matt faced off like boxers in the ring.

  And as she watched, horrified, Dylan drew back one brawny arm and let fly with a punch toward her child’s face—and Penny was plunged suddenly into the nightmare she’d left her husband and their entire life behind to avoid.

  *

  “Get away from my son.”

  The low, terrible voice from behind him had Dylan pulling his punch before he meant to, stumbling forward just in time for Matt to prove he’d learned the new block by executing it directly into Dylan’s jaw.

  Matt’s knuckles cracked hard into Dylan’s chin, and they both said, “Ow!” simultaneously.

  Seeing stars, Dylan shook it off, vaguely aware of Penny brushing roughly past him.

  “Mom, look what you made me do!” Matt exclaimed, looking half apologetic and half thrilled at getting a shot in.

  “He’ll be lucky if that’s the worst he gets,” Penny snarled, and Dylan gave her a sharp look.

  Her cheeks were whiter than the sand on the beach, but her eyes burned with a poisonous green rage that sent a chill through Dylan’s blood.

  “Wait.” Dylan’s hands dropped lifelessly to his sides. “Do you honestly think I was about to hit him?”

  “I know what I saw.” Penny’s voice was hard and brittle, like ice cracking over a frozen pond. Betrayal and fury strung every muscle taut as she faced him down, ranging herself between her child and the man she suddenly perceived as a threat.

  Fighting an answering surge of betrayal, Dylan deliberately stepped down and made himself less imposing by sprawling into a nearby café chair. “I guess it looked bad, but Penny, come on. Is that honestly what you think of me?”

  Something flickered in her gaze, but before she could reply, Matt spoke up from over her shoulder. “Mom. Come off it. Dylan was just showing me a couple of moves.”

  “Moves?” Penny’s spine was so stiff, he could’ve used her as a battering ram.

  Working his jaw from side to side, Dylan tongued at the sore spot where his teeth cut into his lip. “Yep. H
e’s a natural. But don’t expect a block to work like that every time. You usually have to throw a fist on purpose to get a solid hit.”

  “That’s enough.” Penny’s chest heaved, spots of dark red appearing high on her cheekbones.

  Dylan stared. She was still pissed, even though he obviously hadn’t been beating up on Matt. “What is your problem?”

  Her throat worked. “My problem,” she said slowly, “is with you teaching my son violence and aggression. I don’t know how you live your life, but my son doesn’t need to know how to ‘throw a fist’ or get a ‘solid hit.’”

  The palpable disgust in her voice when she echoed Dylan’s lesson made him recoil slightly. Feeling attacked, he came back with, “Oh yeah? Maybe you should talk to your son, instead of assuming you know what he needs.”

  Penny blinked. Over her shoulder, Matt was frantically shaking his head and making “Abort, abort!” gestures. Dylan raised his brows. He wasn’t about to get caught in the crossfire on this one.

  “What do you mean…” Penny twisted to face her son. “What is he talking about? Is there something you want to tell me?”

  Wiping all expression save a blank innocence off his face, Matt shrugged. “No, not really.”

  Oh, kid. Dylan got it, he did. This was a sensitive subject. But Penny needed to know what was going on with her son.

  Luckily, this wasn’t Penny’s first rodeo. Clearly unimpressed with Matt’s innocent act, she propped her hands on her hips and stared him down until he squirmed.

  “Fine.” He rolled his eyes. “I asked Dylan for a few tips on fighting. Just in case.”

  Hmm. Not exactly the way Dylan remembered the conversation, but okay.

  “In case of what?” Penny demanded, her gaze darting suspiciously between her son and her handyman.

  Dylan held up his hands. “I think maybe this is my cue to bow out. Seems like this is a family matter, and you probably want privacy.”

  To his surprise, Penny squeezed her eyes shut in a full-body flinch. “A family matter,” she repeated, her voice a thready whisper. “Oh, God. Matty…”

  Matt’s face darkened, his hands clenching. “I’ve asked you a billion times to quit calling me by that dumb baby name. It’s like you don’t even hear me! I hate it!”

  I hate you.

  He didn’t say it, biting his lips closed on the words, but they hung in the sea-swept air like a gull riding the wind.

  Visibly shaken, Penny tried to pull herself together. “Don’t try to make this about a nickname.”

  Dylan couldn’t stand to watch another second of this train wreck. But instead of beating a retreat back into the diner, he found himself leaning forward in his chair and resting his elbows on the patio table. “But that is what it’s about, at least partly.”

  The kid shot him an agonized look, but Dylan shook his head. “Tell her. Or I will.”

  “Ugh, fine!” Matt threw himself down to sit on the low stone wall separating the deck from the shore. “Some stuff went down at school, last semester. I got in a couple of fights. Dylan said he could show me how to win, so I took him up on it. End of story.”

  “No way, that’s nowhere near the end of the story.” Penny looked as if someone had bashed the back of her head with a rock. “Honey, what were you fighting about? That’s not like you!”

  Some of the sulk drained out of Matt’s expression, leaving a weariness behind that Dylan hated to see in a kid his age. It reminded him too vividly of himself.

  “Mom, come on. I have no friends. Everyone at that school thinks I’m a fat loser.”

  “You’re not fat,” she said fiercely.

  Matt rolled his eyes. “Not anymore, and thank God for growth spurts. But you know what they call me at school? What they’ve called me ever since we moved here?”

  She covered her mouth with the fingers of one hand, as if she knew what was coming.

  “Fatty Matty,” the kid said, pulling his long legs up onto the wall and wrapping his arms around his knees. “They make fun of me, Mom.”

  “Why haven’t you told me about this before? If someone is bullying you, I’m not going to stand for that, I’ll call the principal, we can fix this!”

  “And that’s why I never said anything,” Matt said quietly. “I don’t want you to feel like it’s your fault, or your problem. It’s my problem, Mom, I have to deal with it.”

  “Not by hitting anyone!”

  “What if someone hits him first?” Dylan couldn’t help interjecting. “I’m not saying Matt should start fights, but he damn well ought to know how to finish one.”

  For the first time since Matt’s confession, Penny met Dylan’s stare. He was stunned by the depth of pain haunting her hazel gaze; in less than two days, he’d gotten used to seeing her eyes bright with laughter.

  “The only true way to finish a fight,” Penny said quietly, “is to walk away. And never look back. Matt, come with me. Now.”

  Responding instantly to the steel in his mother’s tone, Matt jumped off the stone ledge and hurried after her as she turned on her heel and strode back into the café.

  Dylan watched them go, face turned up to the sun and the ocean breeze, and wondered where he went wrong.

  Chapter 7

  After that day at the Firefly Café, life at Harrington House settled into a new rhythm. Penny tried to talk with Matt about fighting, and how uncomfortable it made her to see him solving his problems with his fists, but she could tell he didn’t really get it.

  In fact, Matt spent most of the following two weeks nearly glued to Dylan’s side, helping him with the repairs around the house. Penny watched them working together with a pang in her heart. She wasn’t sure if she ought to be jealous that her prickly teenager was bonding with another adult, worried about what said adult might be teaching him, or just grateful that Matthew had someone he felt he could open up to.

  Oh, who was she kidding? She was a mess of emotions, none of them sensible. But the overriding feeling clutching her heart at the moment was the need to apologize.

  It had been two weeks since that searing hot kiss in the kitchen, and since she’d walked away from their argument at the café, but instead of growing more comfortable around each other, the air between them seemed to be getting heavier. As if the unresolved tension between them had its own density and weight, a gravitational pull that kept Penny constantly orbiting around Dylan in a dizzy circle. They needed to clear the air.

  She waited until Matt left for his volunteer job at the library, on her one day off per week, before going to confront Dylan. She found him outside at the foot of a ladder, staring up at the fresh coat of navy-blue paint on the wooden shutters flanking the second-floor windows.

  “I can’t believe how much better the whole house looks!” Penny said, hiding a wince at the false brightness of her tone.

  Dylan barely looked at her. “Matt’s been a big help,” he muttered.

  Tension throbbed between them like a pulse. “Thanks for letting him tag along after you,” she said quietly, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Dylan shrugged. “It’s the kind of thing I always wished my dad were still around to do with me, or one of my older brothers. I was an oops baby; my brothers are older. They were both leaving for college the summer our parents died, and they didn’t have time to babysit their stupid kid brother.”

  “It’s been good for him. I haven’t seen him this happy in a long time.”

  “You’re not afraid I’m warping his fragile young mind and turning him into a crazed, violent thug?”

  The hurt below Dylan’s sarcasm cut her sharply. “No,” she said firmly. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I know I … overreacted that day. Blaming you. But there are things you don’t know, about me, about my past…”

  “You don’t have to tell me.” Dylan busied himself with shortening the ladder from its fully extended length, the loud clang of the metal rungs running like a knife cutting through the moment. “None of my b
usiness, and in a few more days, you’ll get your wish and I’ll be gone. No harm, no foul.”

  Regret tightened her throat. “Dylan, I don’t wish you gone.”

  The skeptical look he leveled at her through the rungs of the ladder, held before him like shield, reminded Penny she’d spent the past two weeks avoiding Dylan as much as possible.

  “Sorry,” she said awkwardly. “That’s all I really wanted to say, anyway. I’m sorry for how distant I’ve been, when you’ve been nothing but kind to Matt and me. You deserve better.”

  An emotion she couldn’t name flattened his handsome mouth into a thin line, but the lines around his eyes smoothed enough to let Penny relax.

  Until Dylan replied, in the gentlest tone she’d ever heard him use, “No need to apologize for pushing me away. Even if it weren’t your default setting, it would still be the smart thing to do with me.”

  “What?” Penny sputtered, rearing back and nearly tripping into an azalea bush.

  “Because I’m leaving soon,” Dylan explained, breaking eye contact to heave the folded ladder onto his shoulder.

  Penny shook her head, trying to get her heart rate under control. “Not that. What do you mean, pushing people away is my default setting?”

  Wrapping her arms around her torso, Penny held her breath against the urge to run away from the ghost of her past that seemed to finally be catching up with her.

  *

  Out of the corner of his eye, Dylan watched her brace for his answer as if she were expecting a blow, and his stomach rolled at the confirmation of his worst fears.

  Debating how much to say, how hard to push, Dylan trudged down the garden path toward the shed, with Penny shadowing him. “I’m sure you have your reasons,” was what he settled on as he nudged open the shed door with one booted foot and deposited the ladder inside.