She exhaled loudly, like I was inconveniencing her. “What do you want?”
What the fuck? Every other time I’d been in here, the young barista had enthusiastically regaled me with detailed updates of her favorite K-drama.
“Is everything okay?” I asked against my better judgment.
Ella crossed her arms. “I’m very busy, so if you’re not going to order…”
“Right, well, I’d like an extra large iced latte with strawberry cold foam. I also want to pay for Lucy’s coffee in advance.”
She paused her angry tapping on the checkout screen. “What?”
“Whenever she comes in, I want to make sure her order is free. I could buy a gift card that you keep for her?”
“Oh. That’s…nice.” She grabbed a gift card and wrote Lucy’s name on it. “How much do you want to put on it?”
“Let’s start with two hundred.”
Her jaw dropped. “Dollars?”
I nodded. “Just let me know when she’s running low and I’ll put more money on it.”
“I…okay.”
I stared at Lucy’s shop through the coffee shop window. Leo had told us she liked to sleep in and never opened her shop on time, but I couldn’t look away. I didn’t know how it was possible to miss someone I barely knew, but my chest ached at her absence.
Ella called my name. When I went to grab my latte, the barista fixed me with a piercing glare. “You know you can’t just win Lucy over with lattes, right?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah, I know.”
Her words stuck with me as I headed out of the shop. The few brief relationships I’d had were more acquaintances-with-benefits situations. There had been no depth to them, and any mistakes I made could be fixed with gifts or money. But Lucy was so much more than that.
I started walking in the direction of the school only to stop short when I spotted a white-haired man crouched down by my car. He was holding a measuring tape with a cat by his side. The cat placed his paw on the measuring tape, and the man nodded before standing.
“Excuse me? This is my car. Is there a problem?”
The man scribbled something on his clipboard. “You are in violation of town ordinance twenty-four point two, subsection C, which states that all cars must be within six inches of the curb when parallel parked.”
What? I prided myself on being an exceptional parallel parker. “I’ve always heard you should be within a foot of the curb. How far away am I?”
He thrust a parking ticket at me. “Six and a half inches.”
“You’re giving me a ticket because I amhalf an inchtoo far from the curb?”
He crossed his arms. “Rules are rules. I understand youvisitorsdon’t always understand how things work in our town here, but it is my job as mayor to ensure no one causes problems.”
Oh. Lucy had told me a lot of stories about the town mayor during our road trip. I dug deep to suppress my irritation and turn on the charm.
“I’m King. You must be Felix,” I said, holding out my hand.
The man scowled. “What? No, I’m Stanley O’Sullivan. That is Felix.” He gestured at the cat.
My brow furrowed. I could have sworn Lucy had said the mayor’s name was Felix.
“My mistake. I apologize, Mayor O’Sullivan. I’m certainly not here to cause problems. Since I wasn’t aware of the parking ordinance, maybe—”
Stanley cut me off with a dramatic flourish of his clipboard. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” As he marched away, I swore he muttered, “And you’ve caused enough problems.”
I glanced down at the cat. “Well, that could have gone better.”
