by Amelia Wilde
“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, he of the mystery last name, 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—” An 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 quash 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 swal
lows 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.
“Unbelievable!” I shout into the empty store.
This would happen to me. Mr. Sex On Two Legs moves to town, seems into me, and then turns out to be my worst enemy.
I lock the door and check it twice. There can be no lights, even now, because it would bring people flocking. Even now, they’re out there on the sidewalks, looking for any sign that businesses are open. A bunch of them are. Not me. If I have to make one more latte today my soul will explode like an overworked espresso machine.
Cleaning in the dark it is.
I pull out the disinfecting spray and start with the big things first. Dash did his best to keep up with me, but there are still random mugs littered everywhere. Can you believe that? Some people still wanted to sit at the tables in here and on the sidewalk and drink out of a real cup, never mind the hordes. There’s still smoothie mix spattered everywhere. Smoothie boxes were harmed in the making of the first summer weekend in Lakewood. How did I not know? Even the waitress at Good Eats knew about the big Fish-Off. She did seem a little bewildered by the size of the crowd. I’m going to look into that. Maybe we made a list of the top ten random towns in New York to visit.
I scrub and scrub, my back aching. The mats on the floor do an okay job of buffering my feet from the hard tile floor, but I’ve been tamping down espresso into portafilters since the dawn of time, and it’s taking its toll.
How could he?
The thought rattles around in my brain, echoing again and again in time with the sanitizer. I have so many questions. Why didn’t he tell me that he was moving here to be my direct competitor? Why did he bail me out today if he’s only going to open a shop across the street? People will be into the novelty. This place will go under in a second. It’s barely hanging on as it is.
It was only a little awkward at Good Eats, when I shoved the rest of my sandwich into my mouth, got up, and left. Not quite yet, he’d said. And I’d mumbled never through the sandwich and walked away with my head held high.
When the bathroom toilet is scrubbed, and the floors are mopped, I wash my hands in the sink for a luxurious several minutes and get on the phone. First call, Leonard. He answers on the first ring.
“Ellery,” he says, sounding wary.
“I got your delivery,” I tell him. “Thanks.”
“But?”
“You know what I’m going to say. This weekend’s the first big Fish-Off in Lakewood history. I’m totally slammed, and it’ll be the same tomorrow.”
“How much do you need?”
This is beginning to sound illicit. I eye the bags on the front counter. “If you don’t want to keep driving back here every two hours, I’ll need at least five bags of coffee. Same of espresso.”
“They’re micro-batches, Ellery, I can’t just—”
“Leonard, look. I appreciate the craft here, but at this point, I’m making a daily announcement that we’re out of coffee. How do you think that looks in a coffee shop?”
There’s a pause. “Not good.” He half-stifles a sigh. “I’ll get on it tonight, okay? I’ll swing by again in the morning. How’s your aunt?”
“She’s doing all right.” I think. “Thanks, Leonard.”
No sooner have I hung up the phone than it rings again. Medium Roast doesn’t get a lot of calls as a general rule, so my guess is pretty good.
“Medium Roast, Lakewood’s Premier Coffee Shop,” I say into the phone.
“Ellery,” answers my aunt. That’s all it takes. Things are not good down in Bradenton.
“Aunt Lisa,” I say, injecting every ounce of chipper into my tone that I possibly can. However tired I am, she sounds a thousand times more exhausted. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine, I’m fine.” There’s a lingering pause. “Fred’s mother isn’t doing well. She’s having trouble healing. You know, her hip—” A lump comes to my throat at the sound of her struggle. She’s always been the one helping other people, not burdening them with her problems. I don’t know how to assure her that it’s no burden. “It’s hard on Fred. You know how he is.” I do know. It must be killing him that he can’t fix this.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur into the phone. “Are you doing all right? You know, I’m sure my dad would come down if—”
“No, no,” she says with a subdued laugh. “I’d never want to take David away from his work.”
“His work is a farm.” Yes. My father did quit his job as a software developer to become a farmer when I was halfway through high school. Don’t ask me why. Something about loyalty to the land. “I’m sure the animals can survive for a few—”
“How’s everything at Medium Roast?” Her tone turns wistful. “I wish I was there. I always loved the summers in Lakewood.”
“It’s…” God, I’ve never been so torn in my life. I want to tell her that things are crazy. I want to ask her for a little more leeway with the suppliers. But is now the best time, when she’s clearly looking for good news? “It’s busy,” I say, settling somewhere in the middle. “We’ve been running out of cups and lids.” I chuckle a little to make it seem zany instead of worrisome.
It makes Aunt Lisa laugh. “You never can tell with that shop,” she says as if she’s talking about a wayward child who she still loves dearly. “Customers don’t seem to mind. Gives the place a little character.”
“Yes, but—”
“I’m working on the financials for last month as soon as I get a minute,” she barrels on. “Your paychecks are coming through all right?”
Before she left, she set up a new direct deposit system for me. It was easy because there are no other employees. “Yes, they’re fine. But I think we’re going to need a few more people on staff. Honestly, Aunt Lisa, it’s—”
“I know. Busy on the weekends, dead during the week. It’s a tough call.” I can practically see her thinking face over the phone. “If you can find a person to help you on the weekends, that might be all right.”
“It’s not only the weekends, but—” How do I phrase this gently?
Someone calls for her in the background. “I’ll be right there, Fred. Anything else, Ellery? I’m sorry we don’t have much time to talk.”
“No. Nope, everything else is fine.”
“I love you, sweetheart.”
“Love you—” There’s a click as she hangs up mid-sentence.
I stand in the silence and stare across at the boarded-up storefront across the street.
All of this pales in comparison to the biggest question of all.
Why do I still want him?
14
Dash
Rosie claps her hands and squeals when Norma opens the door.
That didn’t take long.
“Thanks for doing this,” I tell her. “It’ll take a couple of hours to go over the
renovations.”
Norma smiles at me. “It’s what I do,” she says, reaching out her hands for Rosie. “We have a good time.”
She’s not lying. Rosie babbled about “Noa” all the way home yesterday evening. I tried to keep up the chatter while I stewed about Ellery.
Our dinner date ended abruptly, which was my fault. I should have said something else about the shop. Come at it from a different angle. But after a day standing behind the counter at Medium Roast with her, I can’t understand for the life of me how the place is still open.
Ellery is by far the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen, but sex appeal can’t help the fact that the store is ridiculously understaffed. She’s walking a tightrope every day when it comes to getting supplies. It has to be frustrating, but she never complained. It can only be good for her if I open up another shop. I smoothed over a lot of disgruntled feelings yesterday. Ellery is working in a powder keg. At the very least, I’ll take some of the pressure off.
And if Medium Roast has to close? It’ll be all right. She can come work for me if that’s what it takes.
I park in the alley behind my new store and walk around to the side door. From here, I can see the corner where Medium Roast is. There’s a crowd for sure, but it’s a little less intense than yesterday’s. A little. Through the front window, I can see Ellery, hands flying, keeping up. She doesn’t look panicked. Not from here. Something tugs at my chest. I want to go in there. In fact, I will go in there, after this meeting. But she’s not going to accept my help again. Not now that she knows the truth.
“Mr. Huxley,” comes a voice from over my shoulder. “You made it!”
“I sure as hell did,” I say, sticking my hand out for Martin to shake. I met him once in the spring when I hired him and his crew to rework this building. For a long time, it was a clothing store. It sat empty for a couple of years during my grandfather’s decline. “Finally.”
Martin steps out next to me, looking toward Medium Roast. He shakes his head. “That place,” he says. I’m not sure what the correct answer is, so I nod along. “You ready to see inside?”