“Anne,” Mom snapped.
I jerked my attention back to the fudge. Slowly, we poured the molten chocolate onto the cold marble slab, careful not to slop over the iron frame. As Mom scraped the bottom of the kettle with a spatula, the door opened. I flashed a look toward the entrance, expecting the little girl. But it wasn’t a child with her family in tow.
It was Joe Miller.
I swallowed a groan. Because of course he could be counted on to show up now, when I was catapulted back in time to my awkward, clumsy teenage self, with chocolate on my apron and sweat stains under my arms. I clunked the kettle onto its stand.
The noise made him glance over. “Anne.” Like he couldn’t be bothered with more than my name.
A muddled dream memory (me burrowing into his chest as if I could crawl inside him, the weight and heat and smell of him in the dark) made me flush. “Joe,” I said just as shortly. “Hailey, hi!” I said to his sister, a round-faced girl with her brother’s sturdy build and dismissive gaze. “What are you doing here?”
“I work here.”
“Get your apron on,” my mother said.
“Bike give you any trouble?” Joe asked me.
“Sorry, what?” So much for impressing him with my witty repartee. Not that I wanted to impress him. (I totally wanted to impress him.)
“Your bike. Is it working okay?”
I thought of the way I’d found it this morning, leaning by the door, wiped free of spiderwebs. “I…No, yeah, no problems. Except I was late. But that wasn’t your fault. Do youknow how much time you can spend watching dance videos to ‘About Damn Time’? Which is pretty ironic if you think about it.”Please stop talking now, my brain begged. “Anyway, thanks for putting air in my tires. Or whatever.”
His eyes crinkled. “Least I could do.”
Which is what he said to my mother the night before I accused him of letting my dad fall off a roof to his death. I cringed. Another case of my feelings overwhelming my good sense, my mouth outrunning my brain.
I needed to apologize.
“Well, I appreciate it.” I took a deep breath. Squared my shoulders. “Listen, Joe, at Dad’s wake…What I said…”
“No worries.” He leaned against the counter, his deep brown eyes intent on my face. “Nice basket,” he added. “Colorful.”
Nice…?My bike basket. The same one I’d had at age ten, rainbow-striped with bright plastic flowers that glowed in the dark. My embarrassment transmuted into something safe and familiar.Jerk.
“Color makes a statement,” I informed him loftily.
His gaze drifted from my hair to my leopard-print platform Vans. The creases deepened beside his eyes. “So it does.”
Hailey, growing bored with our conversation, scowled at her brother. “I don’t see why I can’t stay home.”
“Because you can’t.” Joe nodded to Zoe. “Cup of coffee, please.”
“Coming right up.”
“Working is good experience,” Joe said to his sister. “And you need to save for college.”
“What if I don’t want to go to college?”
He sighed, as if this were an argument they’d had before.I felt an instant’s sympathy for him. “You still need money. And you need to get off your phone. Learn responsibility. Get out of the house.”
He sounded like my mother.
“Excuse me.” A customer in a pinkmama needs wineT-shirt raised her voice. “Is that gluten-free?”
My mother gave her a straight look. “It’s fudge.”
“Gluten-free and all-natural,” I assured the woman, summoning my best parent-teacher conference smile. “Made from butter, cream, and the best Belgian chocolate. Would you like a sample?”
