Fret Me Not (Brunch Bros #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

It was a truth universally acknowledged in Crane Cove that Edith Nelson knew everyone’s business about a half hour before they did. The former school secretary was a fount of information. From first dates to divorces, new jobs and firings, births to deaths, Edith Nelson knew everything that happened in the sleepy coastal town and could spread information faster than the antiquated phone tree the town still used because cell phone service was too unreliable for an emergency alert system.

Sam Shoop was counting on this. He needed it to be true. Because if it wasn’t, his next best option was to hole up in his cabin in the wooded hills outside of town and become a local myth. The Musician Who Haunts The Hills .

That wasn’t a bad song title.

Sam stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, took out his phone—with its one glorious bar of service—and opened his notes.

For most people, the lack of service in Crane Cove was a deterrent. For Sam, it had been one of the main draws. Where else could he claim he hadn’t responded to calls or texts due to lack of service and still get a great cup of coffee?

Nowhere.

Fuck, he wanted a cup of coffee. If he stopped at Stardust now, he could still catch Edith at Knot and Purl right as her mid-morning knitting circle ended. Knit Around And Find Out was, in his humble opinion, the best name ever given to a gossip circle pretending to make socks and hats.

Sam turned around quickly, tapping out the few spare lyrics rattling around his skull, and collided with another body. His phone popped out of his hand and fell to the sidewalk, clattering as a full iced coffee dropped on top of it. Dark brown liquid spread in a rapidly widening puddle.

“Fucking hell,” they cursed in unison.

Sam stooped down and scooped up his phone, shaking some of the coffee off. “It’s mostly waterproof. It should be fine.”

“I can’t say the same for me.”

Sam looked up from trying to dry his phone with the hem of his shirt. The woman he’d collided with was trying—and failing—to brush spilled coffee off her sweater and leggings. Her white shoes were splattered brown and the liquid surrounded her feet like a river moved around rocks. Unease rolled through him.

Of all the people in Crane Cove, why did it have to be this woman?

It wasn’t the first time he had collided with her. They couldn’t seem to avoid each other. Every time he came to town, he ran into her. Literally. The last time had been Labor Day weekend when their grocery carts smacked into each other like bumper cars at a county fair in the canned goods aisle.

What was her name again? Mazey? Stacy? Casey? Lucy? Daisy? The answer sat on the tip of his tongue alongside the answer to why she looked so fucking familiar he wanted to scream.

The first time he’d met her, she had been leading a dance lesson for his friend Graham’s wedding party. Or at least he thought that was the first time he’d met her. She’d said hi to him like she knew him, and the familiarity had grated on him. Because of his music career, people had a parasitic parasocial relationship with him, and he’d been coming off weeks of terrible creativity-induced insomnia. Sam had bristled, but instead of falling over herself to say she was a fan and felt like she knew him through his music, she’d rolled her eyes and gone back to her job. For the next thirty minutes of the lesson, Sam had stared at her, the feeling that he’d met her before only growing stronger, but he couldn’t fathom from where. And now it had been months, and he was pretty sure it was too late to ask.

Sort of like how he was going to have to fumble through this interaction because he’d forgotten her name too many times.

She crouched down and picked up her quarter-full iced coffee.

She sighed, eyeing the mostly empty cup mournfully. “I was looking forward to this.”

“You could get another one,” he suggested, and the flash of ferocious annoyance that zipped across her pretty face zinged through his body.

“I don’t have time.” Her tone was clipped, like she was biting her tongue instead of letting him have it. Sam kind of wished she’d let him have it. And then she wrapped her lips around the straw and sucked, the rattle of too much air and too little liquid echoing down the street.

“Then why are you standing here talking to me?”

“Because you’re such a sparkling conversationalist.” She raised an eyebrow, inviting him to disagree with her. He did, but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.

Seconds of silence ticked away like hours.

She broke first. “Always great seeing you, Sam. We should run into each other again sometime.”

“Wear a poncho next time,” he said, and nearly fell over when she smiled, a single chuckle sneaking past her teeth. The eyeroll that accompanied the laugh sent a strangely pleasant tingle through his stomach.

“Right. Moisture-wicking clothing. I’ll get right on that.” She saluted him with her cup, then turned and walked away, ponytail bouncing as she did. There were streaks of faded purple and pink on the underside of her blonde hair, a hidden treasure of color.

Sam couldn’t help but watch her go, his eyes sliding from her hair down her body to her hips, her ass, and finally her long legs. They held his attention like magnets. What would they look like draped over his shoulders? Or wrapped around his hips? How would they feel clenching around his head while he?—

Sam squeezed his eyes shut. Apparently taking the summer off from sex had rotted his brain.

What had he been doing?

Coffee. Coffee, then Knot and Purl. Not standing on the sidewalk panting after the dance teacher.

When she reached the corner, she raised her hand and waved behind her head, like she knew he was still looking.

He really needed to get laid.

He really needed coffee.

Stardust looked blissfully empty as he walked past one of the large, street-facing windows on his way to the door. Sam wasn’t sure if his need for coffee would have outweighed his desire to avoid crowds.

The bell over the door tinkled merrily as he entered, and the sound dovetailed nicely with a loud “God-fucking-dammit” from behind the espresso machine. Sybil Morgan, owner and operator of Stardust Coffee, appeared from behind the machine like a redheaded nightmare. It was easy to see why and also hard to believe that at some point in the last two years their mutual friends Graham and Eloise had tried to set them up. Eloise claimed they both had “black cat energy” while Graham said Sybil was “asshole proof.” No matter the reason, the suggestion had gotten as far as a race car with four flat tires, and their one date—if sitting on opposite sides of Graham and Eloise at a movie could be called a date—had probably sparked his current predicament in town.

“Rough morning?” Sam asked, pretending to look at the menu like he didn’t order the same drink every time.

“I burned myself on the fucking steam wand,” she grumbled, shaking her right hand like it would fix the injury. “London Fog?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say yes, but instead he asked, “The blonde that was just in here—what did she order?”

“An iced seafoam latte.”

“What’s that?”

“A caramel latte with a sea salt caramel whipped cream, heavy on the salt.”

“Is it any good?” he asked.

Sybil fixed him with one of her sardonic stares. “Would I put something on the menu that wasn’t good?”

“No, you would not.” Sam reached for his wallet. “I’ll take one of those and my usual.”

She took his credit card and inserted it into her card reader. The thing looked ancient, and Sam remembered Graham shuddering when he said Sybil still had a flip phone.

“Thinking about switching things up?”

“The salt thing isn’t for me,” he clarified, then added, “It sounds good, though.”

Sybil smirked and handed him back his card. “Who are you buying coffee for?”

A hot blush bloomed over Sam’s face, radiating down his neck and up to the tips of his ears.

“No one.”

“Uh-huh. Does no one have a name?” she asked, dropping a bag of Earl Grey tea into a cup of steaming water.

Sam glanced around, looking for something to change the subject. His eyes landed on a lavish arrangement of purple, orange, and pink flowers in an orange glass vase. It ate up a lot of real estate on the end of the bar.

“Who sent the flowers?”

Sybil’s answer was the hiss of the steam wand. He got it. Not wanting people in his business was the genesis of his morning errands.

Sam rooted around for something else to talk about, but came up short. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Sybil; she terrified him, and he respected that about her. They weren’t really friends, some strange shade of acquaintance, but he didn’t feel the urge to make small talk with her. And she didn’t try either, which was one of the things he did like about her. Sometimes he wondered what it was like to be like his friend Peter, who didn’t understand small talk because he simply didn’t believe in it. All conversation was valuable to Peter Green. The actor could have a meaningful conversation while going through a drive-thru.

“One seafoam, one London Fog latte,” she announced when she placed them on the bar. “And be forewarned, the twins are trawling for donations for the Boo-wery.”

Sam stared at her. “The what?”

“The Boo-wery. They’re having a fundraiser for the county humane society the weekend before Halloween. Raising money to redo the dog yard or the kennels or something.”

“And I care because…”

“Because they’re going to ask you to donate something to the silent auction,” Sybil explained, “and Chase and Cole have powerful puppy dog eyes.” Her sigh was heavy and resigned.

“What did they get you for?”

“A gift basket,” she grumbled.

Sam picked up his drinks. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

He popped the door open with his hip, then he held it open for a couple about his age who were headed inside. The man said thank you without so much as a second glance, but the woman stared at Sam, her body moving forward while her head tried to stay in the same place. Sam knew that look of disbelief too well. She recognized him, but her brain couldn’t reconcile seeing him in this setting. Sam let go of the door and walked away as quickly as he could without being obvious. The shock never lasted long, and he didn’t want to be around when it wore off.

Knot and Purl was at the other end of the historic section of downtown Crane Cove, just before the street changed from brick to pavement. The store was stuffed to capacity with skeins upon skeins of yarn. Wool, alpaca, cotton, angora, silk, mohair, cotton, in all the colors of the rainbow were nestled into cubbies, sorted by type and weight. Sam took a deep breath, letting the smell of fibers fill his lungs. In a perfect world, his house would look like this, but he knew having that much yarn was called hoarding if he wasn’t trying to sell it.

He’d timed his entrance perfectly. The knitting circle was packing their projects away into their bags, the cacophony of chatter at a gentle roar as everyone talked over each other. Plans for coffee or lunch were lobbed across the room, someone promised to share a recipe, and the entire thing was wholesomely overwhelming.

Delores, the owner, spotted him first. “Sam!” she chirped, smiling broadly at him, a pink sweater for either a baby or a doll clutched in her hands. “I was about to call you. Your order came in.”

There were two beats of silence as his brain rearranged his haphazard thoughts and plucked the memory of ordering the custom yarn from the bottom of the pile. He hadn’t been able to find the exact shade of green he wanted to make a hummingbird hat for Annie, his best friend’s girlfriend. It was destined to be a Christmas present and his own weird way of signaling to Jordy that he was happy she was around. Sam hadn’t exactly been receptive or supportive when Jordy had told him he’d fallen in love. There was a song forming in his notebook—more lines scratched out than actually written—about how strange atonement felt.

The funny thing was, he had a good feeling that if Annie knew what he’d said, she’d understand and forgive him. She was that kind of person. The kind of warm, kind-hearted, generous person he’d hoped if Jordy ever decided to settle down that he’d meet.

Of course, until Annie, Sam had never thought Jordy would settle down.

“Oh, good,” Sam said, heading for the counter while keeping one eye on the knitters, searching for Edith Nelson. “I was wondering when that would come in.”

“It’s beautiful,” Delores promised, “I’ll go get it from the back.”

She puttered off to her stockroom, and Sam tried to make himself look as bored as possible. Approachably bored. The kind of bored that made nosey old ladies inquire about his relationship status and would he like the phone number of one of their very single grandchildren?

That was another thing he appreciated about Crane Cove. The speed with which the older generation had adapted to his bisexuality. After he’d turned down a couple of granddaughters setups, someone had asked him if he was gay, because they had a very lovely grandson. Sam didn’t know why he’d explained his sexuality, but he had, and that only doubled the number of offers.

They could understand that his preferences were fluid, but they couldn’t understand that he wasn’t interested in dating.

Edith Nelson sidled up to the counter, holding a skein of yarn that looked more like an excuse than a legitimate purchase.

“Good morning, Sam,” she said cheerfully, smiling at him in the wide way that made him suspicious.

“Morning, Edith.”

“How are you? I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks. We miss you in the knitting circle.”

He couldn’t understand why. He’d never said much.

“I was traveling,” he explained, “for work.”

“And how is your little music career?”

Sam bit down on a sigh. If he wanted the advantages of relative anonymity, he needed to accept the anonymity part. When he said he was a musician, the vast majority of Crane Cove senior citizens assumed he was of the struggling variety. That he toured in a van and was his own road crew. And Sam was perfectly happy not to correct those who didn’t know the status of his career. Mostly.

“I’m working on a new album,” he answered honestly. Working being a loose term for feeling like every word was blood squeezed from a boulder.

“Good for you,” Edith said, patting his shoulder patronizingly. Her eye caught the two coffees on the counter. “Double-fisting it today?”

“The, uh, seafoam isn’t for me. I’m dropping it off at the dance studio.”

“Sybil has you doing deliveries?”

“No, I wanted to do it.”

“That’s very sweet of you.” Edith nodded, and Sam could see the windup coming. “Speaking of sweet, my granddaughter, the one I told you about, the nurse, is coming to?—”

“I’m seeing someone,” Sam blurted. Not the calm, cool, collected, and slightly mysterious way he’d wanted to relay the information, but it was out there.

Edith blinked. “Oh? What’s her name? Or his. No judgment here.”

Sam said the first name that popped into his head. “Lacey.”

Surprise, followed by a soft, wry smile, passed over Edith’s face. “Isn’t that nice,” she commented. “Been going on for long?”

Delores reappeared just in time, placing a paper bag on the counter. “There you go, Sam. Edith, are you ready to check out?”

Edith blinked at her, then started, remembering the yarn in her hands. “Oh, right, this.” She plopped the skein onto the counter, and Sam gathered his bag and two coffees.

“Have a good day, Edith, Delores.”

The explosion of frantic whispering as he walked away buoyed his spirits. Sam inhaled deeply once he was outside, then exhaled slowly. With any luck, that was the most he’d have to do to stop the constant barrage of inquiries about his relationship status.

The Crane Cove Performing Arts Studio, which Sam thought could seriously benefit from a shorter name, was a short walk from Knot and Purl, just outside the historic section of downtown.

A large picture window showed…whatever-her-name-was laying down six orange circles in a neat line on the floor in fr ont of a mirror that spanned the length of the room. She stepped back, examined the line, seemed to think better of it, and pushed every other circle back several feet into a second row. This earned a nod of approval, and Sam’s mouth quirked up in the corner in response. She glanced up at a clock on the wall, and then out the window.

Right at him.

Sam froze. Even with a legitimate reason to be standing on the sidewalk outside of the dance studio, it was creepy as hell that he had been watching her through the window inside of walking directly inside like a normal fucking person.

Her hands rested on her hips as they stared at each other, her like they were having a staring contest, and he like a deer in the headlights of a midsize sedan driven by someone texting. Finally, she jerked her head toward the door and snapped the spell between them.

“I know I said we should run into each other again, but you following me to work wasn’t what I had in mind,” she said when she opened the door, her eyes flicking suspiciously to the coffee cups in his hand. “I didn’t have time to get a poncho yet.”

Sam opened his mouth to point out that the first cup hadn’t been his fault, but then closed it. Arguing about earlier events probably negated the nice gesture he was trying to make.

He extended the coffee to her. “I promise to stay at least a foot away at all times.”

She grinned and accepted the cup, stepping out of the doorway. Sam filled the empty space, and she let go of the door, letting it close behind him.

“Thanks for this,” she said, and took a long sip. “Fuck, that’s good.” Another sip. “I don’t think she likes me very much.”

“Who?” Sam asked, looking around the empty small lobby-slash-waiting room. Chairs lined each wall, and if it weren’t for the performance photos in cheap black frames, it could have doubled as a dentist’s office. At least the dentist office he’d grown up going to. The one he went to in Los Angeles was more like an expensive spaceship.

“Sybil.”

“She doesn’t like anyone very much,” he countered.

“Must like you. She made you a replacement coffee for me,” she pointed out.

Sam snorted. “Sybil made it for me because I paid for it. If I showed up without my wallet, she’d kick me out.”

“Hmm. I thought you were friends.”

“Friends by marriage.”

“The dreaded in-law.” She wiggled her eyebrows in jest, then turned and went back into the mirror-lined room. Sam followed her.

“What are the orange circles for?”

“We’re pretending to be pumpkins today.” She handed him back her coffee, and he took it, purely by surprise. She grabbed a cardboard box from the corner and brought it back to him, tipping it forward to show him the green scarfs inside. “These are going to be their stems.”

“Pumpkins?”

“It’s fall. They’re four and under. This is my best chance at getting half of them to stand still for more than twenty-five seconds.” She put the box back then sidled back to Sam, plucking her coffee from his fingers.

He didn’t know too many women who could sidle. Her movements were almost feline in their fluidity, and his brain whirred trying to find ways to describe her properly. The horrible, nagging hum of recognition buzzed at the back of his brain, like he’d been through this entire exercise before. Too little sex and too much deadline were playing tricks on his mind.

“Do you like kids?” Sam asked for no particular reason than to keep the conversation going. It felt good to have his brain moving again.

She shrugged. “They’re cute, but teaching them anything feels like an exercise in futility. Most of the time I think their parents are paying us so they can watch their kids torture someone else for half an hour.”

“But they’re cute,” he reminded her.

“I understand how our species continues,” she conceded, and then added, “Barely.”

The door opened before Sam could fire off another question, and a couple of kids, trailed by their chatting mothers, burst inside. Organized chaos ensued, as shoes were changed and outer layers stripped off.

“I think that’s my cue,” Sam said, stepping out of the line of fire as small children tripped over themselves to look at the orange “pumpkins” on the dance room floor.

“Save yourself.” She sighed as the circles became toys. “If we bump into each other again, can it be with lunch next time? Nothing with a red sauce, though.”

“A dry salad,” he promised, backing through the door into the lobby. He nodded at the seated mothers, who stared at him, mouths slightly agape, and exited the building before they could ask him for anything.

Not a bad morning, he decided as he walked back to his car that was parked at the other end of the downtown area. A peaceful, quiet life in Crane Cove was back on the horizon.