Chapter 15
fifteen
WILLOW
Callum was sitting on the edge of the bed when I woke up.
Not his usual routine. By now I'd memorized the choreography of Callum Hayes mornings—alarm, shower, French press, out the door.
A man who ran on rails. But today he sat with a mug balanced on his knee, staring at the wall with the thousand-yard focus of a person replaying a conversation in his head.
Elena. Last night had gotten under his skin and stayed there.
I touched his back. Ran my fingers along the ridge of his spine, feeling the muscles pull tight beneath his t-shirt.
"Hey," I said. "You okay?"
He looked over his shoulder. Those gray eyes were tired. Not the lack-of-sleep kind. The deeper kind—the kind that came from a twenty-year-old daughter telling you truths you weren't ready to hear.
"Elena texted." He took a sip of coffee. "She wants to come by Brew & Bean this morning. Before her flight."
"Cool." I sat up, pushing hair from my face. "What time?"
"Eleven. She was specific about it. Said she wants to see you. Without me."
My stomach did a thing. "Without you."
"Her exact phrasing was—" He checked his phone. "'I want to hang with Willow without you hovering and making it weird.' Direct quote."
"That tracks."
"She gets it from her mother." A pause. "Among other things."
I scooted closer, pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades. He was warm and wound tight and smelled of coffee and soap. "Last night went well. You know that, right?"
"It went better than I deserved."
"Stop."
"I'm being honest."
"You're being dramatic. There's a difference.
" I climbed out of bed, swiped his coffee mug, took a long sip.
He watched me do it. Didn't protest. At one time he would've given me a lecture about germs and personal property.
Now he just watched me steal his coffee with the resigned affection of a man who'd accepted his fate.
Progress.
"I'm going to shower," I said, handing back the mug. "And then I'm going to go charm the hell out of your daughter."
"She's not easily charmed."
"Neither were you. Look how that turned out."
His mouth curved. Not quite a smile—more of a crack in the wall he was staring down. I'd take it.
I got to Brew & Bean by ten, a full hour before Elena was due. Mika was already behind the counter, handling the late-morning crowd with her usual effortless energy.
"You look stressed," she said. "What happened?"
"Callum's daughter is coming by. In an hour. Alone. To hang out with me. Without Callum."
"Oh. So this is a vibe check."
"It's a vibe check."
"You'll be fine."
"You don't know that."
"Willow, you defended her father to her face at dinner and she liked you more for it. The hard part is over. This is a victory lap." Mika nudged a latte toward me. "Drink. Breathe. Stop spiraling."
I drank. I did not stop spiraling.
At eleven-oh-three, Elena pushed through the door.
She wore the same leather jacket from last night, paired with an oversized hoodie and sneakers that were fashionable but not overly trendy.
Her dark hair swung at her chin. She scanned the shop the way her father scanned buildings—taking inventory, cataloging details, forming opinions she'd share when she was good and ready.
"Hey," she said, sliding onto a stool at the counter. "This place is cute."
"Thanks. It's held together by willpower and prayer, but we make it work." I grabbed a cup. "What can I get you?"
"Oat milk latte. Extra shot." She paused. "No judgment if that's a crime in a real coffee shop."
"No crime. Your dad's the coffee snob, not me." I started pulling the shot, grateful to have a task for my hands. "How's the hotel?"
"Bougie. The pillows are insane. I slept for ten hours." She propped her chin on her fist. "My flight's at four, so I figured I'd come bother you before I go."
"I'm honored."
"You should be. I skipped a museum for this."
I set the latte in front of her. She took a sip, nodded—the Hayes nod of approval, restrained and non-verbal. I was learning to read the family dialect.
"So," Elena said. "How long have you worked here?"
"Three years. Started right after I bailed on a really good physical therapy program.”
"No shit? Why’d you bail?”
"It wasn't for me. Or I wasn't for it. Either way, I ended up here and it stuck."
"And you manage the place?"
"I run it, basically. Pete and Linda own it—they're great, older couple, semi-retired. I handle the day-to-day." I wiped down the counter, a reflex, filling the quiet with motion. "It's the thing I'm best at. Which sounds sad when I say it out loud, but it's true."
"That's not sad. Knowing what you're good at is half the battle. Most people at Stanford are faking it." Elena took another sip. "I'm very much including myself in that."
I laughed. I hadn't expected to, but there it was—a real laugh, warm and easy.
Elena was sharp and self-aware and had a knack for defusing her own intensity with honesty.
It was jarring how much I enjoyed talking to her.
And jarring how aware I was of the math.
Three years apart. Same generation. Different seats on the same rollercoaster.
"Can I ask you a random question?" she said.
"Go for it."
"Do you want to own this place? Or is it more of a 'for now' thing?"
The question landed in an uncomfortable spot. “If I’m being honest, I want to own it. That's been the dream since year one. But the gap between wanting and affording is..." I gestured at the espresso machine, which chose that exact moment to emit a wheezy rattle that sounded terminal. "Wide."
Elena eyed the machine. "Is it supposed to sound like it's dying?"
"It's been dying for six months. We're in hospice care at this point."
"Brutal." She looked around—at the patched booth cushions, the menu board I'd hand-lettered, the cooler that groaned from the back.
She was clocking all of it. Running calculations with that tech-brain her father bragged about.
"The bones are good, though. This space has a vibe.
It just needs..." She trailed off, catching herself.
"Sorry. I do the thing my dad does. Walk into a room and start fixing it in my head. "
"Genetic."
"Annoyingly." She smiled. It was Callum's smile—rare and earned and better for the wait.
We settled into an easy rhythm after that. She asked more specific questions about how I met her dad. I told her.
Elena went quiet. Stirred her latte with the little wooden stick, tracing circles. "That tracks. When he's into a thing, he doesn't let go. The problem is when the thing is a person." She looked up. "Which brings me to the part where I'm about to be weird and overstepping."
"Go ahead."
"My mom knows about you."
I kept my face neutral. Or tried to. "Yeah, your dad mentioned she's got people in his circle."
"'People in his circle' is generous. She's got a whole spy network.
It's impressive, honestly. She should work for the CIA.
" Elena set down her cup. "Look, I talked to her this morning.
She had questions. I was vague. But she's going to find a way to meet you.
That's just how she operates. She needs to see things for herself. "
“Why?” I busied myself rearranging cups that didn't need rearranging. "Should I be worried?"
"Worried? No. Prepared? Yeah, probably." Elena chose her next sentence with care. "She's not going to be mean. That's not her style. She's going to be nice. Really nice. And then she's going to say the one thing that gets in your head and stays there. She's good at finding the crack and poking it."
"That's... a specific skill set."
"She's had years to perfect it. All I'm saying is—when it happens, and it will—just remember that her opinion of my dad's love life has a shelf life of about zero." Elena met my gaze, steady and direct. "She's not wrong about everything. But she's not right about you."
I didn't know what to do with that. A twenty-year-old I'd known for less than twenty-four hours was giving me a heads-up about emotional warfare from a woman I'd never met, and the delivery was so calm and matter-of-fact that it landed harder than any dramatic warning would have.
"Thanks," I said. "For the heads-up."
"Sure." Elena shrugged, and just like that, the intensity dissolved. "Also, your oat milk is really good. What brand is it?"
"Oatly. The barista edition."
"Oh, I love Oatly. My roommate buys the chocolate one and puts it in her cereal, which I think qualifies as a war crime, but whatever."
And we were back. Two twentysomethings talking about oat milk while the bigger conversation cooled between us.
Elena's Uber arrived at twelve-thirty.
She stood from the stool, slung her bag over her shoulder, and paused at the door the way her father did—one hand on the frame, a thought forming.
"Hey. Can I get your number?"
"Yeah, of course." I pulled out my phone.
She punched hers in and texted herself so she'd have mine. "Cool. For emergencies."
"What kind of emergencies?"
"The kind where my dad does that thing where he shuts down and stops talking and you need a translator." She pocketed her phone. "I'm fluent in Repressed Hayes Male. Took me twenty years to learn, might as well be useful."
I laughed. She grinned. And then she did a thing that undid me—she hugged me. Not a polite, one-arm, pat-on-the-back hug. A real one. Brief but solid. The hug of a girl who didn't give those away for free.
"It was cool meeting you, Willow. For real."
"You too, Elena."
She pushed through the door, climbed into the Uber, and was gone.
I stood behind the counter with a new contact in my phone and a flutter in my heart that I couldn't name. I'd gained a person. A real one. And gaining her meant I now had one more thing to lose if Callum and I fell apart.
Mika appeared at my elbow. "You good?"
"Yeah." I stared at my phone. "Yeah, I'm good."
Pete and Linda came in at three.