Page 41 of Harvest Heat

“Jonah? No. Why would he?”

“No reason.”

She raised her brows.

“So why are you here?”

“To get coffee.”

“You already got your morning coffee.”

“True, but I want more.”

“You never come back for more until maybe midafternoon.”

She blew out a breath. “Fine. I stopped by Cloud Nine to go over next week’s order, and Caleb was… I don’t know… evasive when I asked him about the festival. I was curious if you knew what was up with him. I’ve never seen him so serious.”

“Why would I know?”

Tessa shrugged. “I thought maybe you two had talked about working together again.”

He narrowed his eyes and studied her. “You thought I’d pissed him off.”

“No. Not really.”

“Well, I don’t know what’s up with him. I’m just trying to get my own work done and be left alone.”

“Ooh. So you’re in a pissy mood too. Are coffee patrons being difficult today?”

“Tessa, I’m really not in the mood for an interrogation.”

“All right. Would you make me an iced coffee?”

Rhys sighed. “Yes.” It had taken him a while to accept the trend of iced coffee, but he’d finally been convinced he had to get behind it, and he loved how Tessa raved about how his iced coffee was the best she’d ever had.

When she left and headed out the door, he noticed she didn’t turn left to head to the bakery. She walked toward Cloud Nine. Was she going back there? He groaned when he saw her step into the Reading Room. She and Jonah were going to compare notes. Great.

Was Caleb really in a bad mood too? Was it because Rhys said they had to keep their relationship professional? Did Caleb want him as badly as Rhys wanted Caleb? That didn’t seem possible. Rhys felt like one kiss had addicted him to Caleb’s lips. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Normally, when he was making coffee, he was one hundred percent focused, but even while creating the perfect pour-over, his mind kept throwing up memories of Caleb’s arms around him, his lips, his tongue.

How long was it going to take him to get over this? Could he get over it while he was working with Caleb? He had to, or he was going to lose his mind.

Maybe Caleb just didn’t sleep well, or something had happened that morning. No way was he in a bad mood because of Rhys ending things before they really started. Caleb probably didn’t want the town gossiping about them any more than Rhys did.

Rhys was too nervous about seeing Caleb to have anything other than one of his comfort meals, so he made himself scrambled eggs and toast. At 6:30, he reluctantly knocked on the back door of Cloud Nine, hoping no one had seen him park in the small lot behind the store.

Caleb opened the door a moment later. He had on a striped apron over a T-shirt with a hole in the sleeve. The apron had a big coffee stain across the Cloud Nine logo. Caleb’s hair was a mess, and he looked like he needed sleep, but none of that took away from how hot he was. The man would look good in anything.

Rhys’s gaze dropped to his lips, and his pulse sped up.

“Are you going to come in?” Caleb asked.

“Oh. Right. Yes.”

Caleb moved back as Rhys entered, and Rhys was absolutely not sad that Caleb hadn’t grabbed him and kissed him as hard as he had last night. That was the opposite of what Rhys had asked for, even if it was what he wanted.

“I guess we should get to work,” he said, trying not to look at Caleb. He couldn’t meet Caleb’s gaze, and he definitely didn’t need to be looking at Caleb’s body.

“All right, I’ve got the cinnamon-infused maple syrup heated up so we can work on our maple drink tonight.” They’d decided to work on three different drinks, then perfect the one they thought had the most potential.