“How very nice for Ayla.” She rolled her eyes and I thought seriously about throwing her over my shoulder and taking her home with me right now. I wanted to know the way jealousy tasted on her.
“But she wants to be closer to family now,” I went on. “Since her husband’s parents live here on the bay and their surrogate is expecting twins this winter.”
Sunny sucked in a breath. “Oh. That’s—well, that’s exciting for them.”
“Very exciting.” I thumbed a bit of rain off her cheeks. “So, I showed my cousin around the restaurant this morning in a weak attempt at wooing her for the general manager job since I definitely don’t want it and cannot keep doing it.”
Sunny nodded slowly. “How did that go?”
“She’s going to think it over.” I tucked a wisp of hair behind her ears. “Still jealous?”
“I am notjealous, Beckett.”
“Salty, then.”
She glanced back toward the open door, her lips pinched in a pout that I wanted to kiss more than anything else. No, I wanted to bite it more than anything else. “I’m not salty. I just had some questions.”
“Yeah, I have some questions too.” I felt the mist on the back of my neck, my forearms. I didn’t care. “Why don’t you tell me about the defensive lineman I saw you snuggling for an entire fucking hour this morning.”
“An hour?” She gave me a wide, face-splitting grin and I let myself drown in it. “Are you keeping track of how much time I spend with other men now? That seems a little obsessive, even for you.”
I traced the line of her skirt, my thumb sliding under the t-shirt as I went. “Tell me about the guy, Sunny.”
“You should know it was two guys.”
My hand stilled. I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah, two guys. One is my former boss Leary who might be grumpier than you, if that’s even possible. But he loves dogs. Which is very important to me.” She studied me carefully, like she was waiting until I was halfway to cracking a molar before finishing the story. “And the other is his great-nephew Mars. Leary moved in with Mars after selling the tavern. Leary can’t drive anymore with the glaucoma, so Mars, who I met for the first time today, played chauffeur.”
I closed my arms around her shoulders, pulled her tight to my chest. We were wet now, both of us, just enough to be slippery, and it didn’t matter. Everything else faded away until the world was nothing more than a low hum of electricity. I wasn’t sure but I was beginning to think this was the first foreign prickle of contentedness. Which was hilarious, of course, because my life was in shambles and the stakes couldn’t be higher. But I had this beautiful blast from the past in my arms, and right here, right now, I believed in my marrow that everything would be all right if I could just hold on a little longer.
“What’s the story with this Mars guy?”
“The jealousy is cute,” she said into my shirt. “I’m beginning to see why you had so much fun with it.”
“Answer the fucking question, Sunny.”
“Impatient we are this evening,” she said under her breath. “Lives in Boston. Harasses Leary into taking his medication. Eats like he’s training to climb Everest. Does something where he’s too expensive to keep on staff.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, I know thetoo expensive to keep on stafftype because I’m thetoo expensive to keep on stafftype. They’re all terrible. Egotistical assholes, every last one of them, and it would do you well to ban the guy from your café.”
She stretched up on her toes and pressed a kiss to my lips. “By that logic, I’d have to ban you.”
I shook my head but I couldn’t help smiling at her. “I’d just try to buy the building again. Eventually, I’d succeed.”
chaptereighteen
Sunny
Today’s Special:
A Pickled Power Struggle
I lovedand hated special event nights at the café in equal parts because no one wanted to leave. It was a gift, an incredible, dream-come-true gift to have customers who wanted to sit in my shop and drink tea all night long—and I’d personally bludgeon everyone if they didn’t go home within the next five minutes. I was beginning to forget what the outside world looked like and whether I’d existed before locking myself inside this nine-hundred-square-foot universe.
Ah, that outside world. The place Beck had slipped off to more than an hour ago after making some noise about checking on Chef Bartholomew’s sherry supply. I’d figured, perhaps foolishly, that he’d come back and bait me with some comments about whether I was out past curfew or why I shouldn’t ride my bike at this hour. But he hadn’t come back and now the chance that I’d slip up and accidentally toss some limes directly at the people lingering around their empty mugs increased by the minute.
Really though, I was happy to have the patrons. Even if my dogs had probably rearranged the entire house and chewed the legs right off the kitchen chairs. I’d brought them home after Leary’s visit, knowing they’d tolerate open mic night but be much happier alternating between bursts of sleeping, backyard zoomies, and some light redecorating. At this point, I envied them.
