For the fuckingcafé.
But I can build something better. I can, and I will, and I’ll do it with bees all over the place so that the Cheese Turd never dares set foot in here again.
Forallof our sakes.
18
Sabrina
Work is awful.
I hate it, and I hate hating work. Even on the hardest days when things break and customers are cranky and food trucks don’t come in on time and I burn myself with coffee or a hot pan, I generally love my job and still wouldn’t trade it for the world.
But since Chandler finally showed his face this morning, nothing’s the same.
Grey’s moody and quiet through finishing his puzzle.
When he’s done, he leaves it on the table with one piece missing in the middle.
Zen barely says a word. Willa murmurs to me that Chandler needs to eat a bag of dicks. Cedar kicks me out of the kitchen, and he’s so furious that I don’t argue, even though it means I fake my way through being cheerful while running the counter with Willa during the lunch rush.
At least two dozen people ask me if I’m okay. I lie and put on a perky face and say that I’m great.
More ask me if I’ve heard from Emma.
My shift takes forever to end, and when it does, I pick up Jitter and the two of us head to one of my favorite summer spots for those rare moments when I want to be alone.
I crunch over the short path from the two-car parking lot to the gazebo that overlooks both downtown and the lake and train station, and then I have to clear snow off of the picnic table inside to get a place to sit.
Good sign that no one else has been here. Also a good sign that everyone else will stay away.
Jitter’s in heaven. He can lay in snow forever.
I know I won’t make it more than half an hour—not when it’s this cold and I’m sitting still—but I need to recenter myself.
When I hear a car on the road behind me, my shoulders twitch. When it stops and a door shuts, I get ready to pretend I’m already freezing and bolt.
Except Jitter beats me to it, and the only thing he’s doing is woofing once in absolute glee and darting off to greet his new favorite person.
“Go away,” I say.
Grey ignores me, carefully navigating the trail I cut with my snowshoes and still sinking into the path halfway up his calves while Jitter hovers near him. When he reaches the gazebo, he lifts a Bean & Nugget coffee tumbler. “Peace offering.”
“Are you giving up on turning my café inside out?”
He sighs and sets the tumbler on the picnic table bench between us.
I smell vanilla and cinnamon.
That’s low.
That’sverylow.
“We could build something better together,” he says without looking at me.
“You realize how insulting that sounds to someone who’s incredibly proud of how hard she’s worked to make it what it is today?”
“Didn’t mean it that way.”
