“Made a deal with Hayden about supplying the house roast to his ice cream parlor when he opens,” Iggy said, beaming.
I raised an eyebrow. “Won’t he be competing with you?”
Iggy shook his head. “No. Most of my business is early morning, he’s not opening until at least noon and thinking about knocking it back to one in the afternoon. We’ll only have a couple hours overlap a day, and they’ll be our slowest hours anyway.” Iggy shrugged. “Maybe I’ll close at two instead of three when he opens up. He wants to make a Grinding ice cream, too. Like, an official thing. He’s got big plans to sell pints of it, maybe even national distribution,” he went on. “Wants to help me do the same with the house roast. He says it’s the best coffee he’s ever had.”
“Does Wes know he’s sharing his boyfriend with you?” I teased.
“It’s not like that. Everyone’s a little in love with their barista. Wes understands.”
Maybe that was it. Baristas were easy people to fall a little bit in love with.
… not that I was even a little bit in love with Iggy. Ilovedhim, he’d been an important part of my life and he’d only changed in ways that made me love him more, but I wasn’tin lovewith him.
I wasn’t allowed to be.
“What if I don’t?” I asked, pushing that thought aside to smirk at him. “What if I’ve got a jealous streak?”
Iggy snorted. “Move over,” he said, tugging on the edge of the hammock. “And I’ll show you why you shouldn’t.”
I wasn’t entirely clear on how I was supposed tomove overin a hammock, but that didn’t stop Iggy climbing in on top of me, laughing as it swung wildly on the frame, grabbing my shoulder for balance and jamming his knee into my gut.
“Ow,” I complained. “That was my liver, I need that.”
“Your liver’s on the other side,” Iggy said, squirming into place on top of me. “You still can’t tell left from right.”
“Then it was probably something else important,” I said.
“Your pancreas, I think,” Iggy agreed.
“That sounds important.”
Iggy shrugged. “I don’t know what it does.”
I laughed, giving up and wriggling to get comfortable again, shifting us around so Iggy was mostly beside me instead of mostly on top of me. “I don’t know what it does either, but I don’t think I’d have one if I didn’t need it.”
“You’ll be fine,” Iggy said. “This is what you deserve for running me over.”
He was still getting mileage out of that. I couldn’t blame him—Ihadrun him over. I didn’t plan on forgiving myself anytime soon.
“How’re you feeling?” I asked, taking his hand and working his wrist gently, looking for signs of pain.
“Still twinges here and there,” Iggy said. “Concussion feels all cleared up.”
“Good,” I said, tucking loose hair behind his ear. “I like your brain just the way it is.”
“Unscrambled?”
“Unscrambled,” I agreed, running my fingers along the shell of his ear, a smile spreading across my face as I touched him. “We’ve got Seth’s bachelor party tonight.”
“I know,” Iggy said. “But we don’t have to get ready right now, do we?”
“Not yet,” I said, pulling my phone out again.
Maybe it was stupid, but I wanted something to remember this by. I didn’t have any photos of Iggy from when we were kids—camera phones hadn’t been a thing then. Grandma probably had a couple of us together, but her things were in storage now.
I wasn’t making that mistake again.
“Smile for me,” I said, holding the phone out and turning to nuzzle his cheek. “Think about… chocolate fudge sundaes and long walks in the woods.”
