He looks around one last time. “You did good, Georgie.”
Then he’s gone, out the door before anyone can turn it into a Hallmark moment. Georgia watches him go, and for a moment, she’s a kid again, half-hopeful, half-scared about his reaction.
She catches me taking more pictures of her and flips me off, then immediately motions me over to the counter. “Don’t you dare use that in one of your projects,” she warns.
“Already uploaded to the cloud,” I grin, sliding onto the stool at the end of the bar.
She rolls her eyes, but she’s grinning. “You here to document my inevitable nervous breakdown?”
I shake my head. “Just the highlights. You’rekilling it,girl.”
She leans in, elbows on the counter. “Yeah, well. It’s still early. Wait until some Yelper accuses us of serving ‘moist’ scones again. Ew.”
“You do good work here, Blake.”
“Not as good as your photography, apparently,” she shoots back, and tilts her head. “Ever since you got that new camera, you’ve become obsessed with it.”
“But you love it so much when I take pictures of you. Especially when I do when you’re not aware of it.”
I glance up at one of my prints hanging on the wall—a shot of Miles, pre-dawn, reading briefs over a mug of coffee. Next to it is Brody, hands in his jacket pockets, staring out at the river, jaw set in that classic Brody way. And then there’s Georgia, the star of the show, arms folded, apron dusted with flour, grinning at the camera like she knows just how fucking special she is.
“People keep asking about the pictures,” she says. “Especially the one of Brody. Are you trying to launch his modeling career?”
I smirk. “If the tech thing falls through, he’s got a future in catalog work. Clearly.”
She laughs but then her voice drops. “He’s happier, you know. Since all of this.”
I nod. “I can tell. He’s the happiest he’s ever been.”
She watches the staff for a moment. “Miles is, too. He’s, like, relaxed? Sometimes he even wears sweatpants—and doesn’t tuck his T-shirt in.”
“That’s just because you outlawed ties,” I tease.
“For good reason,” she says, then glances at the notebook open on the counter, pages stained with coffee and annotated in four colors of pen. “I’m working on the cookbook,” she confides, tapping the page. “Don’t tell anyone, but I think it’s going to be really good.”
“I won’t breathe a word,” I say, teasing. “But in exchange for my silence, you need to tell me what we’re going to talk about later regarding our commitment ceremony.”
“Nope. Saving that for the meeting in an hour.” She closes the notebook and straightens up, voice all bossy again. “You want a refill?”
I glance at my cup, three-quarters full but cooling fast, and I nod. She pours carefully, then slides it over with a smile.
I sip the coffee. “You know, you’re killing it. In every way.”
Georgia flushes, then turns away to field a question from one of the servers. I watch her as she moves through the space, making an espresso, talking to customers, laughing at someone’s joke.
I love her so much.
I snap another photo of her and she catches me, rolls her eyes, and then grins.
God, she’s fucking perfect.
About an hour later, the four of us are seated at a back table atSerendipity—the restaurant, not the boat.
“Okay, question for the table,” Georgia says, eating the last bite of her muffin. “Commitment ceremony. Should we have it indoors, outdoors, or in a haunted bowling alley?”
Brody chokes a little on his coffee. “You’re not serious.”
She grins, wiggling her brows at me. “I’m always serious about haunted bowling alleys.”
