Looks at me.
"Mila."
"I know."
"The fifty?—"
"I know, Ell."
"And it's masked, so you don't?—"
"I know."
She's quiet for a moment.
The café smells like it always does in the morning—ground coffee beans and the first wave of baked goods from the oven, Elowen has apparently already turned on, brown butter and warm vanilla, and something that might be cinnamon, the specific combination that smells like someone decided to make a room feel like a good decision. My own vanilla undercurrent blends into it almost seamlessly.
I've been working here long enough that I can't always tell where the café ends, and I begin.
"It's in six days," I say.
Elowen nods slowly.
"So."
I look at her.
She looks at me with the expression of a woman who has been waiting a very long time for this exact moment and is extremely committed to not making it weird by showing how much she's been waiting.
She's been waiting.
She put the lucky coin in my pocket. She brought up Bridgerton. She's been building toward this moment since before I knew the moment existed.
"I need to find a dress," I say.
The expression she's been holding back arrives all at once—bright and warm and deeply, privately victorious, the face of a woman whose faith in the universe has been vindicated on a Tuesday morning in a small-town café.
"I know exactly where to start," she says.
Am I surprised?
Of course, Elowen Bloom, trust fund florist, has opinions about where to find a masquerade gown in under a week.
I take the card back. Slide it into my pocket. Feel the coin there beside it, warm and heavy and old, the four-leaf clover pressed into the metal by hands I'll never know, in a tradition that came from two different cultures and arrived at the same conclusion.
Lucky season.
Maybe.
I take my jacket off, hang it on the hook behind the counter, and go wash my hands for the morning shift.
Let’s hope I’m lucky enough to wing this…
CHAPTER 4
The Elowen Touch
~MILA~
