He was halfway across the café when Polly finally glanced up and frowned at him.
He stopped beside her chair. “Hey, Sunshine.” Then he looked at her mother and the woman’s fiancé. “Hi.”
“Joel! Hi.” Olivia Mack stood and hugged him like they were old friends, even though he could count on one hand the number of times they’d been in the same room.
When she pulled back, she turned to the man beside her. “Joel, you remember my husband, Jonah?”
Joel’s brows shot up. “Husband?”
“We eloped last night!” Olivia sat again and squeezed Jonah’s arm. “We just thought, why wait? We’re in love, and we knowthis is forever. I tried to call Polly but, well, she rarely answers my calls.”
Polly suddenly stood. “I’m going to order a coffee.”
“Excuse me,” Joel said, before following her to the counter. “Are you okay?”
“This is the ‘deliriously happy’ part of the cycle. Newly married, still believes it will go the distance.”
“But you don’t believe it will?”
“Wouldyou? If it never had before?” She shook her head. “Sometimes she guilts me into having a fragment of faith in her marriages. Every so often, I do. And that faith is always trampled on.”
Basil stopped opposite them. “Well, well, if it isn’t my favorite café rival.”
“I’m not in the mood, Basil. Coffee, double shot. No, make it a triple.”
Basil threw a towel over his shoulder. “The last time I sold you coffee, you asked if I ground the beans or just stepped on them in socks.”
Joel bit back a laugh. What bad luck had caused him to miss that one?
Polly rolled her eyes. “And the last time you bought a croissant from Bloom, you called it a crescent moon of disappointment.”
“Well, I don’t know?—”
Her palms hit the counter. “I need coffee, and if you do not serve it to me, I will climb over your counter, kick your barista off the machine, and make it myself.”
He gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
He huffed before writing something on his order pad, tearing off the sheet, and shoving it on the coffee machine.
“I think you hurt Basil’s feelings,” Joel said quietly.
“Basil can kiss my ass.” She shot a look over her shoulder. “I give it a month.”
Joel followed her gaze. “They look happy to me.”
“That’s why it’s called the honeymoon period.” She looked from her parents to his table. “Are you guys talking about…”
“Yes.” He didn’t need her to finish her sentence to know she was asking about the women.
“Any news?”
“Not yet.”
She nodded. It took under a minute for her coffee to appear in front of her. Basil must have put a rush on it.
Before walking away, she faced Joel. “Thanks. For coming over and checking on me.”
