5. Bella
Chapter 5
Bella
I walk over to the far end of the coffee shop counter, beverage in hand.
“Iced coffee with cream for Nate!” I holler.
A guy in his forties walks over, collects his drink, and tells me thank you. I dart over to the register and take over for my coworker and best friend, Lauren, who’s been dying for a pee break for the last ten minutes. I would have done it sooner, but we’ve been slammed since the second we opened.
“I’ve got this,” I tell her.
She offers a tired smile and pats her pregnant belly. “You’re a lifesaver.”
She scurries off, and I take over the early morning rush of customers.
It’s almost two hours before we make it through the bulk of the rush. When I look up and see just a couple of customers in line, I let out a breath. Then I grab a rag and wipe down the counter and the few tables that are empty in the lobby of the shop .
When I’m back behind the counter, I glance down at Lauren’s swollen ankles.
I wince. “You okay?”
She looks down at her feet and chuckles. “I’ll survive. It looks worse than it is.”
“Break time?”
Lauren closes her eyes and hums. “God, yes.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Always. Can you make me your special hot cocoa?”
“Absolutely. Go sit and rest.” I whip up my best friend’s favorite pregnancy snack: hot cocoa with extra whipped cream and a slice of chocolate chip banana bread.
I make the cocoa with the special blend I came up with when Lauren first found out she was pregnant. We’re both coffee addicts, and when she realized she had to cut down her caffeine consumption for her entire pregnancy, she was heartbroken. So I started making her my special hot cocoa. I roast the chocolate longer to give it a deeper, richer, and slightly bitter flavor so it tastes closer to coffee.
Lance, Lauren’s husband, walks in from the back room with a massive bag of coffee beans slung over his shoulder. He sets the bag of beans on the floor in the corner, then slides his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
He glances at the mug and plate in my hands and smiles. “Break time for Lauren?”
“Yup. You okay with manning the counter?”
“Absolutely. Thanks for taking care of her.”
I smile. “Always.”
I sit down next to her in a small booth in the corner of the coffee shop, pull her feet onto my lap, and rub her ankles. She groans as she takes a bite of the banana bread.
“Is it the bread or the massage that’s making you make that sound?” I laugh .
“Both,” she says with her mouth full. “Seriously, if this thing with Lance doesn’t work out, I’m marrying you.”
“I heard that,” Lance says from behind the cash register. The two of us laugh.
“Lance is a dream guy. You two are going to live happily ever after,” I say.
She aims a blissed-out smile at her husband. He grins at her and winks.
She pats her belly. “You know what isn’t a dream? Carrying my husband’s gigantic spawn for the next four months.”
Lance finishes helping a customer and then walks over to Lauren. He leans down and kisses her forehead.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I know you’re uncomfortable.”
Lance’s eyebrows crash together in concern as he gazes down at his wife. He looks so guilty; it’s honestly kind of sweet.
She smiles up at him. “I’m kidding. You know how happy I am.”
He flashes a relieved smile and kisses the top of her head. “I booked you a prenatal massage this weekend at that spa your sister recommended.”
Lauren’s face lights up. “You did?”
He nods. “Massage, pedicure, and facial.”
She reaches up and pulls Lance down for a kiss. When they break apart, they’re both beaming at each other.
“So sweet. You two make me sick,” I joke.
Lauren chuckles and sips her cocoa as Lance walks back to the register. “How are you holding up?” she asks me. “You’ve been putting in late shifts at Spanky’s every night and working here almost every morning.”
I yawn. “Surprisingly well. Turns out I need only about five hours of sleep to operate like a human being.”
Her hazel eyes shine with concern. “Lance and I appreciate you helping us at the coffee shop so much. But you know you can take a break, right? You don’t need to help out every morning.”
I pat her leg. “I do though. I need the money.”
She undoes her long, blonde hair from her messy bun and ties it into a ponytail. She shakes her head like she’s annoyed. “I swear to god, if I ever see Matt again, I’m going to kick that jerk in the balls for what he did to you.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “I should have known better.”
She grabs my hand. “Hey. Don’t you dare blame yourself for what he did. You moved from Denver to Toronto for that jackass. You bought a house with him. You supported him and cheered him on while he focused on his hockey career. And how did he repay you? By cheating on you. Multiple times.”
I shake my head. “I still can’t believe it.” My cheeks heat with embarrassment. “Like, how did I not know?”
“Because he was a sneaky motherfucker,” Lauren says without missing a beat. She squeezes my hand. “Seriously, stop blaming yourself, Bella. You couldn’t have known.”
I nod despite how I truly feel. I should have noticed that something was off. Matt was always cagey with his phone. He never let it out of his sight, even when we were just hanging out at home. And he never let me use his phone, even for little things, like to look up directions or check the time.
Looking back, that should have been red flag number one.
Red flag number two was the way he handled his female fans.
Being the girlfriend of a hockey player for almost four years, I knew that overzealous female fans came with the territory. But sometimes we’d be out and female fans would come up and kiss Matt on the cheek or slip him their phone number or ask him to autograph their boobs. He was always happy to play along.
I tried to brush it off at first, but after years of seeing my boyfriend flirt with other women in front of me, I finally told him how much it bothered me. But he just brushed it off.
“It comes with the gig, babe,” he said to me. “You know how a lot of women act around athletes. They lose their minds. It’s harmless. Besides, I don’t want to alienate fans. I need their support if I wanna make it to the next level.”
So I bit my tongue while I watched my boyfriend openly flirt with other women…and eventually discovered that he had been cheating on me with a lot of them.
I think back to the day I found out.
I surprised him at his hotel during one of his away games. When I knocked on the door of his room, I expected him to answer. But instead, two women in lingerie met me at the door. And there he was, lying on the bed naked…
My chest tightens. I shove the memory out of my brain.
“You should sue his ass for all the money he owes you,” Lauren says, pulling me back to the present.
I shake my head. “Nothing he did was illegal. Unfortunately.”
Lauren gives me a pitying look.
“I was stupid enough to follow him to Toronto. I was stupid enough to use all my savings to buy a house with him. I thought we’d be together forever. I thought he’d make good on his promise to me…” I trail off when that ache in my chest deepens.
When Matt and I were together, he promised that he’d help me open my own coffee shop. Having my own cafe has been a dream since I was a teenager.
Lauren squeezes my hand. “You’re going to own your own coffee shop someday. And it’s going to be amazing.”
She glances around the cozy seating area of Sweetie’s Coffee Cafe. We started working here in college together. The owners are a kind older couple who don’t micromanage the workers. They promoted Lance and Lauren as managers and let them run the day-to-day business how they want. And they were nice enough to let me start picking up shifts here again after I moved back to Denver.
Emotion flashes in my best friend’s eyes as she looks at me. “You’re gonna make your dreams come true, Bella. I know it.”
I sigh, my shoulders sinking. That dream feels impossible now.
“All I need to do is win the lottery,” I joke.
Lauren frowns. “Don’t say that. It’ll happen.”
I let out a sad laugh. “How? I spent my life savings buying a house I couldn’t afford in the first place with a boyfriend who lied about wanting a future with me. Now I’m a broke twenty-seven-year-old who can’t even pay for my apartment.”
Before she can say anything, a half-dozen customers walk in. I hop up and help Lance at the counter. A few minutes later, Lauren joins us.
“So, how is it living at your aunt’s place?” Lauren asks as she steams milk for a London fog.
“A million times better than staying with my parents,” I say. “Except for my neighbor.”
“What’s wrong with your neighbor?”
I tell her how he woke me up with his music blaring the other morning .
“Ugh. Noisy neighbors are the worst.”
“He’s also a hockey player. He plays for the Bashers.”
Lauren makes a disgusted face. “Double ugh.”
“He’s a regular at the bar I started working at, too.”
“No way, seriously?”
I nod. I tell Lauren how my boss at Spanky’s said that a lot of the Bashers players come to unwind after games and practices.
“What the hell? It’s like the universe is tormenting you by surrounding you with hockey players,” she says.
“My boss says they’re always nice and polite and tip generously.”
I think about my random run-in with Braden last night. It was honestly kind of fun talking to him about music. For a moment, I forgot he was a hockey player. But then he mentioned hockey, and a group of pretty young women—puck bunnies, probably—walked in, hollering for his attention.
And just like that, my mood soured. I instantly thought of Matt and all the awful things he did behind my back.
I was pretty snippy with Braden as I served him the shots he ordered. But that didn’t phase him. He seemed kind of amused by it. And I can’t believe he tipped me one hundred percent. Especially after I was so snippy with him.
Lauren raises her eyebrow. “How generous of a tip are we talking?”
“He tipped me fifty bucks on a fifty-dollar tab.”
Her hazel eyes widen. “Really? Wow.”
“Yeah, I was pretty shocked.”
“Was he hot?”
I look at Lauren. She shrugs. “It’s a legitimate question.”
“Of course he’s hot. He’s a hockey player. They’re all hot. ”
My brain pulls up the image of Braden from last night wearing a backward baseball hat, jeans, and a t-shirt. Even in such a casual outfit, he was still ridiculously handsome.
I think about how his chest and shoulder muscles flexed under the thin cotton fabric of his shirt as he crossed his arms. And how those jeans did a terrible job of hiding just how thick and ripped his thighs are…
Lance walks over to us. “Do you still need help moving the furniture in your bedroom tomorrow?” he asks me.
“Yeah, if that’s okay?”
“Sure thing.”
I tell him thanks and restock the utensils and napkins where the customers pick up their drinks.
“Maybe you can get your new neighbor to help you do all that heavy lifting,” Lauren teases.
I roll my eyes. “We’ve had one argument and one kind of pleasant conversation. Not the greatest track record. The less we see each other, the better.”