Chapter 2
SUTTON
Idon’t wake up thinking about him.
That feels important to note.
I wake up thinking about the fact that my downstairs neighbor has once again decided seven in the morning is the appropriate time to practice what I assume is competitive furniture dragging.
Then I think about rent. Then coffee. Then the faint ache behind my eyes that means yesterday was louder than I wanted it to be.
Only after all of that does Shepherd Haynes drift in, uninvited, which is irritating.
He’s like a crumb of toast that found its way under the collar of my favorite sweater; itchy, annoying, and completely avoidable if I’d just been more careful.
I push the thought of him away, but it keeps coming back, those steady eyes and the way he didn’t rise to my bait.
I also think about the one-hundred-dollar tip he left on the table when they left. I couldn’t tell if he was flaunting how much money he has or if he took pity on me, the poor bartender wench who needs a man to take care of her.
I swear under my breath and then swing my legs out of bed.
I pad into the kitchen, stepping carefully around the loose floorboard by the sink.
My apartment is quiet in the way that only old buildings get with settling noises, pipes clicking, and the distant hum of someone else’s life bleeding through the walls.
It’s nothing if not familiar.
And for me, it’s safe.
I make coffee strong enough to qualify as a personality trait and stare at the chipped mug in my hand. It has a thin crack running from the rim down the side, glazed over so many times it’s practically decorative.
I don’t remember where I got it, but I remember why I kept it.
Does Shepherd Haynes drink coffee?
“Get a grip,” I mutter, because I am not about to let a football player with decent manners ruin my morning.
While I drink my coffee, I lean against the counter and try to organize my thoughts. It’s Friday. I’m working a double. The Alley will be busy with the weekend crowd, which means decent tips if I can keep my patience intact.
Simple facts.
Tangible realities.
There’s no room for tall, broad-shouldered football players with surprising manners and even more surprising restraint.
“Stop it,” I tell my reflection in the small mirror that hangs by the door. My reflection, unsurprisingly, looks unimpressed.
I grab my jacket and head out to the only place my body knows to go without thought or plan. Funky Junk, my favorite thrift store smells like dust, lemon cleaner, and something faintly floral. The bell over the door jingles when I step inside, and I feel my shoulders drop a full inch.
This place does that to me.
“There you are, Miss Sutton! I wondered if I would see you today.”
The voice is gentle and slightly wavering, like an old song played on vinyl.
Frank stands between two shelves of mismatched dishware, his weathered fingers tracing the rim of a vintage ceramic bowl.
His cardigan has a coffee stain on the sleeve, and his khaki pants are pressed with military precision; a habit from his Navy days, he once told me.
“Hey, Frank,” I say, feeling my first genuine smile of the day spread across my face. “Finding any treasures today?”
He chuckles, the sound like rustling paper. “Oh, this bowl here. My Ellie had one just like it. Used to make her potato salad in it every Fourth of July.” His eyes go distant for a moment, traveling somewhere I can’t follow. “Forty-seven years of potato salad in this bowl.”
I move closer, examining the blue and white pattern. “It’s beautiful.”
“Here.” He reaches into his pocket with arthritic fingers and pulls out a butterscotch candy wrapped in crinkly gold cellophane. “For the prettiest bartender in Portland.”
I accept it with a nod. Our ritual. I’ve never asked why he carries butterscotch candies, but I like to think Ellie favored them.
“Thank you, Frank.”
“Sutton!” Mari’s voice rings out from behind the counter. “I see you lurking by my dishes. If you’re here to steal my good mugs again, I swear to God—”
“Nah, I’m just browsing,” I call back, winking at Frank and giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Besides, you know I only go for the chipped ones.”
Maribel Cruz owns the shop. Which is a generous way of saying she presides over it like a benevolent dragon guarding a hoard of other people’s junk.
She’s in her late forties, maybe early fifties, with sharp eyes and a softer heart than she lets on.
We met years ago when we were both volunteering at one of the city’s homeless shelters.
She knew I was looking for a cheap table and she talked me out of buying something structurally unsound.
Now, she knows my name and my schedule, and even worse…she knows when I’m lying.
“Uh-huh,” she says, emerging with a cardboard box tucked under one arm. “I unpacked some new stuff. Thought of you immediately.”
“That’s never ominous,” I say, weaving through the cluttered aisles toward the back of the store.
Mari stands surrounded by cardboard boxes, her salt-and-pepper hair pulled into a messy bun.
Silver bangles jingle on her wrist as she gestures to one of the boxes by her side.
She lifts the lid, revealing several teacups.
None of them are matching and they’re certainly not pristine.
Some are chipped, some are cracked, and one has a hairline fracture running right through a faded blue pattern.
I exhale and tilt my head as I smile at my friend.
“You’re enabling me, you know.”
She grins. “You say that like I’m ashamed.”
I reach in and pick one up, turning it over in my hands. The crack doesn’t go all the way through. It’s been repaired at least once though, poorly. I suppose someone cared enough to try.
“Twenty percent off for emotional damage,” Mari says.
“I didn’t say anything about damage.”
She arches a brow. “You didn’t have to.”
I snort and set the cup aside, then immediately pick it back up because I am nothing if not predictable.
We make tea in mismatched mugs—hers chipped, mine worse—and settle into the two chairs behind the counter that have definitely outlived their original purpose. I turn mine just enough to see the door and then sip my drink like I’m British royalty.
“So,” Mari says, blowing on her tea, “you came in early. That usually means one of three things.”
“Please don’t list them,” I beg.
She smiles sweetly. “Man trouble, money trouble, or you’re about to pretend you don’t care about something you very much care about.”
I take a sip. “I hate that you know me.”
“You keep coming back, though,” she responds. “So, that’s on you.”
I stare into my cup longer than necessary before letting out a frustrated sigh. “My life is one giant money problem so no change there.”
“Why do I feel like there’s a but coming?”
“But…there was a guy at the bar last night.”
Mari doesn’t react. She’s good like that.
“Let me guess,” she says calmly. “He had opinions.”
I laugh despite myself. “God, yes. Don’t they all?”
I tell her the story, not theatrically, not dramatically. Only the facts.
My rant.
The customers.
The line that crossed from annoying into something colder and sharper. The way my chest locked up before I even realized what was happening.
“And then,” I say, “this guy steps in.”
Mari hums. “Uh-oh.”
“That’s what I said. Internally.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing,” I admit with a shrug. “That’s the problem.”
She tilts her head, her brows furrowing. “Explain.”
“He didn’t puff up. Didn’t make it about him. Didn’t tell me to calm down or smile or be grateful.” I shake my head. “He just backed me up. Like it was…the obvious thing to do.”
Mari studies me over the rim of her mug. “And that bothered you?”
“Yes.”
She chuckles. “Of course it did.”
I scowl. “You know, you’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am,” she says easily. “I’m just not on your bullshit’s side.”
I groan and lean back in my chair. “You want to know the worst part?”
“You know I do.”
“He turned out to be a football player.”
“There it is.” Mari’s brows lift, not in awe, but interest. “And?”
“And I’d spent the last ten minutes loudly talking about how professional athletes are overpaid clowns in expensive pants.”
Mari barks out a laugh. “Oh, Sutton. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I swear to God, I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.”
“Well, I’m guessing that didn’t happen.”
“No. And the guy just…smiled and told me I wasn’t wrong.”
That’s the part that sticks.
Not the money.
Not the fame.
His calm demeanor.
His kind personality.
And he wasn’t at all hard to look at.
“He didn’t argue,” I say quietly. “Didn’t defend himself. Didn’t even seem offended.”
Mari sets down her mug and crosses her left leg over her right like she’s trained for conversations like this. My thrifted therapist…
My thrift-apist.
“That’s what’s messing with you then? That he wasn’t offended and didn’t argue with you?”
“Yes.”
“Because?”
“Because men with power don’t do that,” I say. “They use it. Or they pretend it doesn’t exist. Or they punish you for noticing.”
She watches me carefully. “And he didn’t do any of those things.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“So now your brain doesn’t know where to file him.”
I hate how accurate she is. “Are you sure you weren’t a therapist in your past life?”
“Positive,” she responds with a nod. “If I was anything in a past life, I was a gay blacksmith in the highlands of medieval Scotland. Pretty sure I had an affair with my apprentice and was beheaded, but I can’t be sure.”
“I…” I stare wordlessly at Mari as if my entire brain glitched. “What?”
She shrugs like what she just said is everyday conversation. “It was a past life regression therapy session I went to once. Kind of cool.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“So,” she urges. “You don’t know what to think of this football player?”
“Right. Yeah.” I shake my head, trying to refocus my thoughts. “I just don’t like exceptions.”
“Translation, you don’t like gray. You prefer black and white.