Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Patrick
“Where have you been, little fella?” I greeted the small fox peering at me through the gate at the end of the garden. He’d disappeared for a few weeks, and for some reason I found that I’d missed him.
I unlatched the gate, and he trotted down the path ahead of me. As was now part of the very bizarre routine I had with a strange fox I didn’t know the name of, I took my seat on the step, held my cup of coffee in one hand, and freed up my other to pet his little head where he sat next to me.
My thoughts had been scattered for weeks. I’d been unable to shake off my one-and-done scene with Cooper, and late at night, my brain liked to conjure up a million scenes and scenarios of what it would be like if I broke my own rules.
I hadn’t seen him in the cafe, and the thought of him avoiding me was agitating.
“Do you think you can miss someone you don’t even really know?” I asked.
“Yeah. No. I’m being irrational about this.”
He butted his head into my hand when I paused the scritches behind his ear.
“He’s nothing like Max, I know that,” I said, and the fox huffed.
The poor guy had heard enough of my bitching about my ex over the last few years to have clearly formed a dislike.
“But something about him reminds me of how I felt when I first met Max. The first time I laid eyes on Max I knew he’d be someone important in my life and look where that got me? I should stay well away from him.”
The fox stamped its back foot like an angry rabbit.
“I’m right about this.”
He stamped his foot again and growled like I’d pissed him off.
“Don’t get huffy with me or you can find someone else to scratch your chin.”
That got him to relent. He stopped having his little tantrum and shoved his furry face in the air near my hand so I could provide said chin scratches.
What is my life?
“What’s wrong with you? For the last two weekends, it’s like someone has been gradually jamming a stick further and further up your arse, Patrick. We’re going to lose customers if you keep growling at people,” Jia said, not giving a shit that I was her employer.
Jia had begun working here as a Saturday job when she’d turned sixteen, and now, six years later, she was just sort of here all the time. I never questioned her increasing timesheets. She taught Mandarin online in the evenings and seemed content to juggle the two jobs well.
The bell above the door jingled as someone walked in before finding a table. Jia stepped out, ready to go take their order, but when I spotted who it was, I stopped her. “I got this.”
“You got this? Are you unwell? You hate people.” Jia arched a precisely plucked brow at me.
“Mind your business. Don’t you have a child to make cry or something?” I stalked past her and straight to where Cooper was sitting. I passed him a menu as usual, which he ignored.
He glanced up at me through those thick brown lashes before darting his eyes away again.
“Usual?” I asked.
“Um. Not yet. My brother’s meeting me here, so I’ll wait. If that’s okay?”
“Sure.”
I should have left, but my feet remained planted on the ground.
“You haven’t been in for a while. Been avoiding me?” I asked.
“Um, no. I just had a family thing the other weekend and then my, err, rut. So, this is the first weekend I’ve been free.”
My brain sort of glitched over an image of Cooper in rut. Sweaty skin. Desperate, needy sounds. Begging.
I’d taken meds to skip mine this time since I would’ve had to close the cafe and hadn’t wanted to. The thought of spending a rut with Cooper was more appealing than it ought to be, though.
I had no right to feel so relieved that he hadn’t been avoiding me.
Each day he hadn’t shown up here, I’d regretted giving him my number instead of the other way around.
There had rarely been an hour since our scene in Foxholes that I hadn’t thought about him, and not seeing him had been sending me round the bend.
“Oh. Okay. Glad you’re… okay. Anyway…”
And I finally made my way back over to the counter, where Jia looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “Shut up,” I snipped at her.
“I didn’t even say anything.” She smirked.
I bopped her on the head with a menu before heading up to mind the register in the front for no other reason than to hide from her and my embarrassment.
Around ten minutes later, a much smaller, bouncier version of Cooper sauntered into the cafe.
“Hey, Mr Morgan.” Cooper’s brother grinned broadly at me. I hated people calling me Mr Morgan. That was my dad, not me.
“In the far corner,” I said instead of greeting him. Jia was right, I really didn’t like people.
“Thank you!” he replied before scampering off to where Cooper was sitting looking less than impressed. He ruffled Cooper’s hair before sitting down.
Lacking any self-control, I barely waited a minute before I went over and interrupted them. “What do you want?”
“I’ll have—” Cooper began.
“The same thing you order every weekend?” I arched an eyebrow at him.
“Yes, please,” he muttered.
“I’ll have the fried chicken waffles and a matcha latte, please,” his brother ordered.
A matcha what?
“A what latte?” I frowned in a way that would make it clear he could order a normal fucking drink or do one.
“He’ll just take a normal latte,” Cooper interjected.
Despite Cooper’s usual drink order being a hot chocolate, I found myself making him a green smoothie instead.
He looked tired. Tired and like he probably hadn’t been eating enough vegetables.
He needed nutrients. It wasn’t weird for a cafe owner to force nutrients on a customer, was it? I was just being neighbourly.
When I returned with their drinks, Cooper asked, “What is that, and why is it here?”
“It’s good for you, is what it is, now drink it.” I might have scowled a bit.
“Why is it green?” He grimaced.
“It has spinach in it.” Obviously.
“That does explain the green, but it doesn’t explain why it’s in front of me?”
“You can’t live off fried chicken. Drink it.” I walked away before he could argue with me further.
I couldn’t stop staring at him, and it was a problem.
He didn’t appear to be enjoying the conversation with his brother, and it made me want to kick the little omega out.
When Dave, my weekend chef, put their meals onto the pass, I took the food straight over and dumped the plates on the table in an attempt to disrupt whatever was being said to upset Cooper.
But when I returned to the counter to watch him like a creep, Cooper seemed to be getting even more upset.
Cooper took a large sip of the smoothie I’d made, and his face told me he did not enjoy it.
Then he began tearing a paper napkin to shreds, and like a man possessed with a desperate need to make him better now, I quickly whipped up the most elaborate milkshake our ingredients would allow.
By the time I was done, I saw Cooper wiping some tears from his eyes, and it made me want to burn the world to the ground. What was he doing to me?
I slammed the milkshake down in front of him before handing him a fresh napkin and stuffing the shredded remains of the last into the pocket of my apron.
Is he making you sad? I wanted to ask. I’ll ban him from the premises if you want me to. Kick his little butt to the curb. I had just enough sense to know that would be a ridiculous thing to offer and kept my mouth shut.
“What about my health?” he asked, eyes still glassy and his voice fragile. It was as if the look on his face caused me physical pain.
“You can be healthy tomorrow,” I said before quickly busying myself with clearing a nearby table.
The following weekend, Cooper ordered his breakfast to go, and it irritated me to an unreasonable degree. And like some kind of reverse fruit bandit, I’d added three fucking apples to his takeaway bag.
I’d stayed at the cafe until long after closing, sorting through paperwork and orders in the back. By the time I got home, I was grumpy and exhausted, and the last thing I fucking needed was to open the door to find all of the electrics off.
Using the torch on my phone, I made my way into the cellar to check the fuse box. Everything was as it should be, and that pretty much called time of death on my ability to investigate the issue any further.
I sighed and scrolled on my phone until I found Jack’s number. We’d gone to school together and been friends ever since. He’d started his own business as an electrician, which I was now super fucking glad of.
“Hey, Morgan,” he answered. He’d always insisted on calling me by my last name despite me telling him not to.
“Jack. Angel face, apple of my eye—”
“What are you after?”
“You know the saying ‘the lights are on but no one’s home’?”
“Yes…”
“I have the opposite problem. I am home. And all of my lights are off,” I grumbled.
“Have you checked the fuse box?”
“Yes, all on. And my freezer is probably defrosting upstairs as we speak. Help me, please. I’ll owe you one.”
“You’re such a baby. I’m over in Raynard visiting the kids this weekend, but I’ll check who’s on call and send them over.”
Jack and his husband, Rory, were currently going through some sort of trial separation, and Rory and the kids were mostly living with his parents until they figured things out.
“Thank you. Give Mia and Shay a hug from me.”
“Will do. See ya, Morgan.”
Back in the living room, I was at least able to make a fire in the wood burner to warm the place up while I waited. I was surprised when, less than an hour later, there was a knock on my front door.
I was even more fucking shocked to find Cooper Bailey on my doorstep wearing a navy-blue ‘Jack in an Electrical Box’ T-shirt and a toolbox in hand.
“Um, hi. Jack said your power was out, but the rest of the street is fine, so it should be something up with just your connection. Do you want me to take a look?”
“You work for Jack?” I asked, incredulously.
“Since I left school, yep.” He wiped his palm on his thigh nervously.