“Your favorite kind, right?”
She laughs.
I laugh.
It’s true.
“Next, please,” I say, waving her inside with a smile.
Which promptly dies a horrific death involving all the worst things you can think of when I see who’s standing in line behind her.
“We’re full, go fuck yourself,” I tell Chandler.
“Sabrina,” my grandfather chides.
He’s standing just behind Chandler, his stooped, white-haired form easily hidden by Chandler’s bulkier figure.
And it doesn’t surprise me in the least that Grandpa would’ve forgiven him, no matter how much I know it hurt him to see the café leave the family.
Grandpa forgives a lot.
He truly is the best man in the entire universe.
“Sorry, Grandpa.” I smile at him, but put that smile away when I turn back to Chandler. Justlookingat him makes my blood pressure rise. “We would have a spot open for you, but it’s a rule that if you’ve tried to get married within the past month, you have to sit out speed dating.”
Grandpa eyes me, clearly knowing I’m making up that rule on the spot and clearly thinking I should practice forgiveness too.
I shrug at him. “Onecouldsay I’m trying to spare someone’s ego when no one here wants to talk to him, but fine. Hundred dollars for a ticket, please.”
Chandler chokes. “Ahundred dollars?”
“Oh, you spent everything off the sale of the café already? Pity.”
“The sign saystwenty-five.”
“It’s a hundred,” Devi says as she comes up beside me. “Twenty-five is the senior rate.”
“Better come with a blow job,” Chandler mutters.
“I hear there are machines for that,” I reply perkily.
I expect another look from Grandpa, possibly accompanied with a soft but chidingSabrina, but it doesn’t come.
Why?
Because he’s squinting at something across the café.
You didn’t think theonlyreason I called Grey’s grandmother was because he bought my café and was threatening to ruin it, did you?
Please.
“Who’s that?” Grandpa asks.
“Who?” I ask back.
“The woman who’s staring at me. She seems—she’s not from here. But I feel like I know her.”
I look behind me. “Madeleine Cartwright? That’s Grey’s grandmother. Have you met Grey yet? He owns the café now. I think you’d like him.”
