That was almost enough to make them laugh. Then again, Ollie had always been the one person who could pull them out of a funk. It was part of why they’d been friends as long as they had. Jules dropped their bag onto the chair across from him and flopped down without grace. “Worse. My mom let someone stage the house with fake fruit and beige throw pillows.”
Ollie winced like he’d just bitten into a lemon tart. “Oof. Beige? That’s practically a hate crime.”
“Right?” Jules slumped forward, their arms folded on the table. They buried their face in the crook of their elbow, muffling the next words. “Everything smells like lemon cleaner. I feel like I’m living in an open house brochure. I’m not meant to live in a showroom, Ollie. I worry I’m going to smudge something every time I move, and I don’t dare pull out my pastels for fear of the dust going everywhere.”
Ollie got up long enough to grab a second cinnamon roll. He slid it across the table without a word. It was warm, flaky, andsticky in all the best ways—comfort food in pastry form. There were definite perks to having a friend who moonlighted at the bakery just so he could say he didn’t need to rely on his family’s bookstore to survive.
“You’re a saint,” Jules muttered, peeling back the outer layer.
“I know.” Ollie leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two legs while still sketching with his free hand. “You want to talk about it, or do you want to pretend everything’s fine and I’ll just keep feeding you sugar until you pass out in public?”
Jules chewed slowly, weighing the options. “I’d prefer you open a portal big enough to suck me into another realm.”
“No can do,” he deadpanned. “If you want to talk, I’ll be here. Otherwise, you can drown your sorrows in cream cheese icing.”
They sat in easy silence for a few minutes, broken only by the occasional scratch of a pencil on a napkin and the soft hum of indie music playing over the speakers. A couple at the counter debated over scones and someone in the corner flipped through a book while they waited for a latte the size of their face.
Jules took another bite, then pointed at Ollie’s sketch. “That a cat?”
“Supposed to be. Don’t judge me. I’m testing ideas for a drink called The Meowcchiato. It’s gonna have a chocolate pawprint in the foam.”
Jules snorted. “You’re ridiculous, and I love it.”
“I aim to please.” And he really did. Since he learned to create latte art and started posting it online, people had flocked to the bakery just for his drinks. Jules would never tell Ollie, but Jamie, the owner of Brew & Barrel, would love nothing more than topoach him away from here. If not for the fact that their little town couldn’t support three coffee shops, they’d suggest Ollie consider adding a coffee bar at Shelf Care Central.
More silence. More cinnamon roll. Then Ollie asked, too casually, “So…have you figured out the housing situation yet?”
Jules’s stomach twisted, and not from the sugar overload. So much for letting them wallow in self-pity.
“Kinda,” they said. A bold-faced lie. They took a sip of their tea to buy time. “Still feeling it out.”
Ollie raised a brow but didn’t press. Just waited. He was annoyingly good at that. Life would’ve been so much simpler if one of the apartments over his parents’ bookstore was open, but Jules was pretty sure the tenants who were there would never move out.
Eventually, Jules caved. “Keaton offered his spare room.”
“Hold up.” He blinked rapidly, mouth gaping. “Keaton Anderson?”
Jules nodded.
Ollie nearly choked on his drink. “Wow. Okay. That is…not what I expected.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” Ollie said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “you have a type, and he’s exactly it.”
Jules groaned. “I do not.”
“Oh please. Tall, broody, and emotionally constipated with calloused hands? You’re practically vibrating with anxiety just thinking about living with him. Are you going to do it?”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” He grinned broadly. “So, are you moving in with him? You could be Lorelei to his sexy Luke.”
“Luke wasn’t the one pining,” Jules pointed out. Ollie was still early in his binge ofGilmore Girlsand loved adding them to every conversation. Unfortunately for him, Jules had watched every episode at least a half-dozen times. “And no, because he only offered to be nice.”
“Nice,” Ollie repeated, drawing the word out like it tasted suspicious. “That’s what we’re calling it now?”
Jules gave him a look. Ollie and Sam were the only ones who knew about Jules slipping Keaton their phone number, and they were eager for Jules to get their happily ever after. “He’s not interested. Like, zero percent. I put myself out there, and he never called. End of story.”
