Chapter 7
Caleb
“There is your fourth-in-line godfather.”
At first, I don’t even recognize Kieran’s voice.
It’s even higher-pitched than when he talks to Jensen Ackles.
I glance up from the milk frothing jug I am rinsing.
The door is falling closed behind him with a soft 'click,' the sound of gusting wind suddenly muffling.
His black hair sticks out in all directions and he cradles the golden retriever puppy we found on Thanksgiving in his arms as though it were a baby.
Hairs of its golden fur stick cover his black coat all over.
When are you leaving?
The question that Nic asked Lauren keeps replaying in my mind, with a volume that makes it hard to focus on anything else.
People leave. I know that. Yet somehow, it never crossed my mind that Lauren could leave.
Why does it bother me so much?
All it would mean is there would be one person less continuously trying to get a rise out of me. One less person here at the café.
No more fights about that syrup she insists on bringing here to defile my coffee. No more continuous chattering about the newest hobby she tried out.
More silence and calm. The same way it was before she moved here. That should sound like bliss, right?
“Fourth in line?” I ask him, arching my eyebrow.
Kieran sets the dog down and takes a seat on one of the tall chairs by my counter, taking off his scarf and flattening his hair.
Right next to him is Bobby, one of my regulars and former owner of this café.
A stout man in his fifties, who usually sports a wool cap, along with a flannel shirt tucked into his worn jeans.
An accident at his workplace left him with a permanent limp and walking with a cane that’s leaning against the counter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Choosing a godparent is all about ‘who’s going to care for him if a truck runs me over,’ right?
” I stare at him. Where the hell is this going?
“You know, if anything ever happens to me, Henry is going to be first in line to care for him for obvious reasons.” He shoots me a glare that says duh, while the little creature pulls on his leash until Kieran leans down and picks him up again, trying to lift his chin out of reach of the dog’s tongue.
“Second in line is Nic, though I guess if Henry could not take him in, neither could she.” He taps his chin, then shakes his head. “Anyway, Lauren is third in line.”
That gets my attention. Henry, I understand, being a vet and all, but does he genuinely think I’m less trustworthy than the girls? I'm not exactly eager to care for a dog, yet I'm strangely offended.
“Hey! Why the hell are you putting me below Lauren?” I can’t help but ask, narrowing my eyes at him as I set down the pitcher and dry my hands on a towel that I have hanging over my shoulder. Does he not know she’s apparently leaving?
Either way, I guess it’s not my place to fill him in. Hell, I shouldn’t even care about it.
So why do I?
“Don’t take it personally.” He shoots me a wide grin, then turns to Bobby to explain.
“Lauren is my neighbor. He’d stay in known terrain if anything happens to me.
Also, Lauren has a garden.” His head slowly turns, and his eyes dart to me.
“Now I don’t know about you, Mr. Town Grump—” I get the espresso for his cappuccino ready, almost not hearing him over the sound of coffee beans grinding.
“—but I doubt you have a garden, the patience for a puppy, or the ability to talk to little Van-Van here in the high-pitched baby-voice that, quite frankly. is the only one he responds to.” His octave rises with each word, and he presses a kiss on top of the puppy’s head.
“Yeah, okay, you might be right about one of those. Give or take.” Kieran rolls his eyes but doesn’t point out he’s, in fact, right about every single one of his points. “Another one for you too, Bobby?” I nod towards his empty cup, and he slides it right over.
“Sure. What special do you have today?”
I top his cup off with his usual filtered coffee, then fill one of the stainless-steel pitchers to froth up the milk for Kieran’s cappuccino. “Today it’s apple crumble rolls.”
Kieran’s eyes widen. “Oh, that sounds delicious. Get me one of those too. Please.” The little dog wriggles in his hold, then tries to climb onto the counter. My eye twitches when I see his paw on the freshly cleaned wood, even though Kieran immediately pulls the dog back into his lap.
Deep breaths, Caleb. The dog is innocent, but his owner sure could use some manners.
“No paws on the counter, man,” I say gruffly and shake my head disapprovingly, throwing him a rag that’s soaked in dishwater.
To Kieran’s credit, he quickly cleans the space in front of him. “All right, all right, I’m sorry. Now anyway, I just realized I haven’t introduced him formally yet.”
“I’ve met him.”
“But you don’t know his name yet.” Kieran rolls his eyes, tapping his fingers against the counter impatiently.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“Caleb, this is Vanny. Short for… drumroll, please.”
He glances around excitedly, and Bobby taps his index fingers against the counter to appease him.
“Thank you, Bobby. His name is Dick Van Dyke, named after the one and only Richard Wayne van Dyke.”
“Only you,” I mutter as I pour frothed milk into his espresso. “Only you would go for that kind of name.”
I blink. Is he serious?
“I quite like it,” Bobby says with a grin and lets Dick smell his hand. “And he isn’t wrong. The guy is a legend. Ask anyone in this town and they’ll know who he is. Can’t say the same for the actor Henry’s dog is named after.”
“Which is a gap in education and a travesty.” Kieran sighs. “Let’s be real, if you’ve never laid eyes on human Jensen Ackles, you’re missing out.”
He fixes me with a cold stare, and I roll my eyes. I’m not going to call a dog ‘Dick.’ I’ll think of a nickname that doesn’t allude to male genitalia. “They also know Benedict Cumberbatch, doesn’t mean you have to name a dog after him.”
“Speaking of names…” Kieran watches the exchange between Bobby and me with wide eyes. “How come Caleb calls you Bobby, but Henry calls you by your last name?”
“Because Henry is stubborn as hell.” Bobby laughs and takes a sip of his coffee.
I walk to the other end of the counter to get two apple crumble rolls out of the glass showcase, putting them on two plates, only listening to them with half an ear. Delicious as these rolls are, they have a tendency to fall apart. It’s taking all of my focus to put them on the plates in one piece.
“I’ve known Henry since before he ate solid food. I think calling me by my last name stuck, the same way calling a teacher by their last name would stick, you know?”
“That makes sense.” Kieran glances at me as I set down the two plates in front of them. Then he tilts his head, drawing his eyebrows together confused. “But wait. I thought Caleb grew up here too?”
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Bobby barks out laughing.
I shoot him a warning glare, but what can I say?
He’s always been pretty immune to those.
“I mean, he sure did a lot of growing up, but he first came here when he was, what, eighteen?” He looks at me, raising one of his bushy eyebrows.
But I keep my face schooled. “Yeah, pretty sure he was eighteen.”
I subtly shake my head and cross my arms in front of my chest. It’s a story I’m not too fond of revisiting. One that, despite therapy, manages to pick old wounds open. Bobby’s eyes soften, and he gives me a small nod.
“Wait, how did you two meet?” His eyes jump between Bobby and me. “Where did you live before—”
“That’s a story for another day,” Bobby cuts in, to my relief.
“So, what am I supposed to call you?” Kieran absentmindedly strokes the dog’s head. He curled himself into a ball in his lap, his head nudged into Kieran’s elbow crease.
“Whatever you want, son,” Bobby replies amusingly, and takes a sip of his coffee. He reaches for his fork to dig into the pastry.
“Daddy?”
I almost choke on my spit. Kieran watches him with wide, innocent-looking eyes. Yet the twitching corner of his mouth reveals that he knows exactly what he’s doing.
Bobby grimaces, as if he’s torn between bursting into laughter and giving him a hard slap to the back of his head to make him come to his senses. Ultimately, he does neither of those.
Instead, he turns to Kieran, gives him a slow once-over, head to toe, then arrogantly lifts an eyebrow and leans closer to him.
“You couldn’t handle me,” he says in a low voice, and I wish the ground would open up to swallow me, because I one-hundred percent did not want to hear that. Much less have a picture of the stout man in his fifties wearing a leather harness pop up in my mind, but here we are.
“Bobby, Bobby, Bobby,” Kieran says with a mischievous grin. “You underestimate me.” But when he sees my face, he bursts into laughter. “I’m kidding, Caleb. Don’t look at me like that.”
“I did not look at you like anything,” I reply, and get back to making coffee.
“You so did,” Bobby says, but I choose to ignore them. “There was pure horror in your eyes.”
“Right? We should do that again.” Kieran chuckles and digs into his apple crumble roll, as the bell above my door announces a new customer.
“Welcome,” I say on autopilot, the same way I always do when someone comes in. Usually, I get some kind of reply, though.
I turn my head to see who came in and blink.
It’s a young woman. I’d estimate her to be in her early twenties.
Her eyes still have that hope in the world that tends to disappear once you’re in the workforce and working forty-hour weeks.
She has brown hair that reaches down to the first button of her tailored, deep red coat, disheveled from the wind outside.
I’ve never seen her before.
Fuck, I hope she’s not another vengeful ex trying to hurt anyone from Wayward Hollow.
If it were two weeks from now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see strangers in town.
It’s when the Christmas season here starts.
Locals have been coming here to enjoy our town’s Christmas decorations for decades already.
Then, a few years back, a video about it blew up on some social media platform, and ever since then, Wayward Hollow has its yearly week of fame.
Usually, it starts around the time they build the Christmas market booths.
Since last year, Harry has had them set up early for the sole purpose of letting tourists who only come here to take pictures pose with them. It's the first good idea I’ve known him to have. At least that way they don’t clutter the Christmas market when it’s open.
But she doesn’t seem like an influencer. She’s not dressed to the nines, doesn’t have perfect make-up and has no cloud of pretentiousness surrounding her. Usually, at least one of these is the telltale sign.
She freezes in the doorframe, blue eyes wide open, staring at me with more fear than a deer in headlights, mouth agape.
Bobby and Kieran continue their banter, oblivious to the stare-down happening.
Confused, I tilt my head. She seems familiar. But I can’t put my finger on where I could know her from.
Not in a ‘I might have seen her in a movie before’ kind of way, but in an uncanny valley way. As if I should recognize her.
Suddenly she appears to shake off her freeze, turns around without a word and storms back out, the door falling shut loudly behind her.
“What was that?” Kieran asks, turning around. But she’s long gone.
I shake my head. “I have no fucking idea.”