Page 31

Seth cracked a smile. “I think I’d try some of those out instead of my usual pumpkin spice.”

I didn’t need to release a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, because I’d already realized I was holding it. So instead, I just released a breath. “Okay. Cool.”

“I’m really excited about these ideas, too,” Seth said, and it was truly amazing how he could be this animated right after waking up. “I can’t wait to try them. I volunteer as tester.”

He volunteered as tester. Which meant that he really did want to stay friends after this whole adventure.

The thought didn’t make me cringe the way it might have only a few days ago. Somehow his positive attitude was less annoying here in New York than it was in Vermont.

Or maybe it was the context. Maybe it was taking him from “annoying me at work” to “showing me things he was excited about, for good reason.”

Or maybe it was that I actually had things to be positive and excited about for the first time in a long while.

But no need to psychoanalyze myself. I jumped out of bed, feeling a lot more energized than someone who fell into bed after too many drinks late last night had any right to feel. “I’m going to go hop in the shower and get ready. What do we have going on today?”

Seth fell back onto his sad floor pillow. “Sleeping a little later?”

I laughed, assuming he was joking. “I’ll be back in a few.”

But by the time I got back, scrubbed clean and fragrant with Bev’s lavender-lemongrass soap, he was snoring again, one arm draped over his eyes. I stood there and watched him sleep for a moment—that broad chest rising and falling, his lips parted in his dark beard—before shaking myself off. Stop being a weirdo, Abby.

I could sit there in bed and play on my phone or read a book until he woke up, or I could go have something to eat. My growling stomach solved that conundrum for me. I padded out into the hallway, closing the door gently behind me so as not to wake Seth.

In the kitchen, Bev and Benjamin turned to look at me at once, Benjamin at the table with his bowl of oatmeal and a print issue of the New York Times, Bev at the counter with the coffee machine. Neither of them spoke. I said, awkwardly, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Bev said, but her tone was low and deadly. I braced myself for whatever I’d done—had she discovered I was making her precious son sleep on the floor?—but exhaled in relief when she aimed her barbs at Benjamin. “Or it would be a good morning if my beloved husband of almost forty years would get off his tuchus and help me with the French press, considering he used the last Keurig pod.”

Benjamin didn’t even look up from the paper, bless his nerve. “I said I’d help you as soon as I finished my oatmeal. I don’t want to eat cold oatmeal. It’s like eating cement.”

Eating hot oatmeal was also kind of like eating cement, but I didn’t say that. Especially because Bev’s brows had lowered, and thunder was on the horizon. I said, quickly, “Let me help.”

Ten minutes later, Bev was awestruck at the latte I’d made her. “You even did the little leaf art on the top,” she said. “Wow.” She took a sip. “This is excellent.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Is it okay if I make one for myself, too?”

“Please,” she said. “Make ten for yourself if you want.”

“Only if you want me scaling the side of your building from the caffeine,” I said dryly. She laughed.

Once I was done, I sat at the table with them, because to do otherwise would be rude. Benjamin laid down his paper, which gave me a good look into his bowl of oatmeal. Again, I couldn’t see any mix-ins or spices or anything. “How did you sleep?”

“Very well, thank you,” I said. “How about you?”

They exchanged a glance. “Very well, thank you.”

Silence settled over the table, thick and warm as a blanket. I took a sip of my coffee, my cheeks heating up. I had to break the silence before Bev did with some super personal question that would ruin my day. “I actually did some brainstorming overnight,” I said. “I love it when that happens, when you come up with ideas without even having to put in any effort.”

I wondered a moment too late if that would be a black mark on me—Benjamin seemed to be the kind of guy who valued effort—but whatever, too late now. I went on to tell them all about my café, about how I’d always had Christmas specials but was now coming up with ideas for Hanukkah specials. “Oh, those sound delicious,” Bev said. “I don’t know how I’ll choose one when I visit the two of you up there.”

“I’ll make all of them for you,” I said. And then what the hell, I went on and told them all about the Hanukkah festival, too, and how I was down here coming up with ideas for it. “I’m actually pretty excited,” I said, and when had that become true? “It’s going to be, from what I can tell, the first Hanukkah festival in New England outside of Boston. I’m hoping it’ll attract Jewish tourists, but also non-Jews and locals, too. I really like the idea of sharing Hanukkah with people who don’t know anything about it.” I’d seen how much fun that could be here, playing the dreidel drinking game and lighting the menorah with Seth’s friends. “I’m thinking I’m definitely going to hire the latke guy and the apple cider people from the pop-ups Seth took me to—I know apple cider isn’t really a Hanukkah thing, but it was so good I can’t resist. And then there’s this doughnut maker up in Vermont who I think will be perfect if I can persuade them to try out some Hanukkah specials.”

“We’ll definitely have to come up for this! I can’t believe Seth didn’t even tell me about it,” Bev said, and for a moment I could picture it: the four of us at the festival, Bev darting off to booth after booth and bringing back armfuls of sufganiyot and latke platters, Benjamin rolling his eyes but eating just as much as the rest of us, me and Seth strolling behind them hand in hand, wondering if that would be us in thirty years.

A moment. Just a moment. And was that really so bad? It wasn’t like I was deluding myself. I knew it wasn’t real.

It was just a thought that made me feel warm, as if Hanukkah candles were flickering before me, reflecting a glow from the window. Just for a moment.

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I just smiled.