I laughed. She grinned. And then she did a thing that undid me—she hugged me. Not a polite, one-arm, pat-on-the-back hug. A real one. Brief but solid. The hug of a girl who didn't give those away for free.
"It was cool meeting you, Willow. For real."
"You too, Elena."
She pushed through the door, climbed into the Uber, and was gone.
I stood behind the counter with a new contact in my phone and a flutter in my heart that I couldn't name. I'd gained a person. A real one. And gaining her meant I now had one more thing to lose if Callum and I fell apart.
Mika appeared at my elbow. "You good?"
"Yeah." I stared at my phone. "Yeah, I'm good."
Pete and Linda came in at three.
I knew it was bad the second they walked through the door. They never came in together on a weekday. Pete handled the supply orders on Tuesdays. Linda did the books on Fridays. The two of them showing up unannounced on a random afternoon, wearing matching looks of gentle dread, was the emotional equivalent of seeing your doctor walk in with a second doctor.
"Willow, sweetheart." Linda touched my arm. "Can we sit for a minute?"
We sat in the corner booth—the one with the cracked vinyl I'd been meaning to patch. Pete folded his hands on the table. Linda kept touching her necklace, a nervous tic I'd noticed over three years of watching her.
"We talked to Gary," Pete said. Gary. Their accountant. The man whose name made Pete's left eye twitch. "He went through everything. The equipment costs, the revenue, the projections for the next year."
"And?" I asked, even though I already knew.
"The numbers don't work, honey." Linda's voice was soft in the way people got when they were trying not to break you. "The espresso machine alone is eight thousand to replace. The cooler needs a new compressor. The plumbing in the back?—"
"I know the list," I said. I knew every item on it. I'dbeen the one filing the repair requests, taping the leaks, coaxing the machines through one more day. "What are you saying?"
Pete looked at Linda. Linda looked at Pete. The silent conversation of a couple who'd been married for thirty-five years and could communicate entire paragraphs without opening their mouths.
"We're looking at options," Pete said. "And one of those options is selling."
Selling. It sat on the table between us. Three syllables that meant: this place you built your life around might not be yours to build in anymore.
"We're not doing anything tomorrow," Linda added quickly. "Nothing's decided. We just wanted you to hear it from us. Not from a letter or a?—"
"I appreciate that." My voice came out even. Steady. A miracle of composure that had no connection to what was happening inside me. "Do you have a timeline?"
"Gary wants us to make a decision by end of month."
End of month. Three weeks. Four at most.
"Okay." I nodded. "Okay. Thank you for telling me."
Linda reached across the table and took my hand. Her fingers were cool and thin andshe held on tight. "This isn't what we wanted, Willow. You know that. This shop—you made it what it is. We know that."
"I know."
"If there was another way?—"
"I know, Linda."
They left. The bell above the door chimed behind them, cheerful and oblivious.
I sat in the booth for a long time. The afternoon sun cut through the front windows, making dust particles drift in the air. The espresso machine hissed. The cooler hummed its death song. Every sound in this building was a countdown I'd been ignoring, and now the clock was visible.
Mika found me in the back five minutes later, perched on an overturned milk crate, staring at the wall.
