Chapter Thirteen #2
The Meet Cute Café & Tea House is an all-out assault on the senses.
Mint-green wainscoting, aggressive floral wallpaper, the scent of sugar cookies fighting something citrusy, while espresso machines hiss and sputter in the background.
A tiny vase of baby’s breath occupies my table.
It’s innocent and unviolated—two things that no longer apply to my deflowered iPad.
None of it compels me to keep sipping my green smoothie, but I do anyway. Apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment.
My banana nut muffin sits on its fancy little porcelain plate, untouched because it knows I only bought it in a desperate attempt to bribe the swamp beast currently doing laps in my stomach.
I am a professional. I do not fall apart in hotel cafés. Especially not over undeserving men.
My finger punches at the screen like I’m poking him in the eye.
Infatuated. What a calculated, choice word. Absolute horseshit.
“You look like you’re trying to solve a cold case. Does the body have a name?”
I glance up.
Sienna Alvarez slides into the chair across from me the way she does everything—no hesitation. No permission. All presence.
And pancakes.
A stack so tall it needs structural support. Scrambled eggs. A cluster of bacon. Maple syrup pooling at the base, a catastrophic failure in drainage management.
She picks up her fork.
“Morning?” I offer.
“Mmm.” She’s already eating.
No ceremony. No shame.
She pauses long enough to sweep those dark, shoulder-length curls into a messy ponytail. I’m convinced her olive skin glow is partly powered by the sun but mostly by my jealousy. And how is it possible for a polo shirt to look that form-fitting on a human? It’s not fair.
Who did she sell her soul to? I need answers.
“Hungry?” I ask, because apparently, watching this pocket-sized powerhouse inhale her meal has reduced my vocabulary to single words.
“Always,” she says between chews. “Once we’re on the water, the sea lions don’t give you a lunch break. They’re very ‘me first’ about their entanglements.”
No complaint. No drama. Just facts, delivered with the emotional inflection of a GPS robot reading off latitude and longitude. A realization hits me: I know nothing about her. Sure, that’s because I’ve spent the entire weekend intimidated by her, but still.
Sienna observes my expression in the same clinical way she probably studies distressed animals in the ocean.
Her gaze drops to my muffin like it’s part of the case file.
“You allergic to carbs or what?”
“I’m not—” I gesture vaguely. “I’m not hungry.”
She points her fork. “Ivy, eat the muffin. Or I will personally inform the sea lions you’re afraid of pastries.”
I snort. Against my will.
“You look like hell,” she says, chewing with the grace of a mangy raccoon.
Oh, joy. The smartest, most stunning woman here is calling me out on the fact that my under-eye bags are actively performing a full Broadway musical.
Working title: “The Shared Room Where It Happened.”
“Thanks, Dr. Alvarez. So glad you chose my table.”
“Not like that.” She dismisses my sarcasm with another bite of bacon. “Like something happened, and now you’re hoping if you sit still no one will realize you’re one wrong word away from losing it.”
“I am not upset. I’m working. And you’ve known me for, what, forty-eight hours? That’s not enough time to learn my coffee order, let alone my emotional baseline.”
“Long enough to see you’re lying to yourself.”
Ouch. Her zero percent tact is one hundred percent correct.
I go back to my iPad. Tap. Scroll. And adjust a text box that was already correct because that’s my coping mechanism now.
Sienna drags a strip of bacon through the syrup moat around her pancake castle.
“You ready to download the drama?”
“No.” I fixate on the tablet in my hands. “There is no drama.”
“Your shoulders disagree.”
I pause, meeting her gaze. “Do they now?”
“Your posture is clear. You’re calculating the best angle to hurl that smoothie at someone.”
I look at my smoothie. It’s thick, green, and heavy. “Thought has crossed my mind.”
“Who’s the target?”
“Nobody. Forget I said that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we need more signups for today’s tour of The Salty Old Sea Hag.”
“Nice try.” Sienna drops her fork with a heavy clink, her eyes locking onto mine.
“You’ve got ‘Men Are Trash’ tattooed on your forehead in glitter pen.
It’s throwing off your whole hyper-competent aesthetic.
” She leans in, lowering her voice. “You wanna talk about Cole, or do I have to guess which felony he committed?”
I open my mouth to deflect. Instead—
“I caught him snooping on my iPad this morning.”
Crap. I didn’t mean to say that. Love that I’m just volunteering information now.
I sit up straighter, because if I’m spiraling, I’m doing it with good posture.
“He was sitting on my bed, our bed, all innocent, as if he wasn’t elbow-deep in my entire production workflow while I washed the shampoo out of my hair.”
My hand finds my smoothie. Lifts it. Sets it back down. Picks it up again as though it’s going to help.
“We’re up for the same promotion and last night we…” I take a giant, freezing gulp of kale and betrayal. “Ugh. Forget it. He got what he wanted.”
“Did he offer a reason, or act like a guy about it?” Sienna asks, brow raised.
“Oh, he tried.” I roll my eyes so hard I see my brain. “Allegedly, the alarm went off, he ‘accidentally’ swiped the wrong way, and oops! My entire campaign deck fell into his lap. Like he was trapped in magical iPad quicksand and he couldn’t escape.
“And you think that’s bullshit.”
“I know it is!”
Sienna doesn’t argue. She uses her fork like a backhoe, shoveling a bite of eggs into her mouth that would legitimately choke a pregnant manatee. She shrugs. “Okay.”
I blink, the fire in my gut sputtering. “Okay? That’s your expert analysis?”
“You believe he lied. That’s what matters.”
“I feel like you’re supposed to have a stronger opinion.”
“I do.” She takes another bite. “Not done eating yet.”
I blink at her. Once. Twice. I can’t process the audacity of this woman.
She chews. Swallows. “Priorities, Ivy. I don’t give advice on an empty stomach. It ruins the delivery.”
“Well, would you believe this isn’t the first time he’s tried to outmaneuver me?” I exhale. “It’s—Gah! I actually thought for a split second… that he wanted me. Not my tablet. Me.”
Sienna goes quiet. Not the “oh shit, what do I say now?” quiet. This is different. Considered. She’s looking at me, really looking, and I realize how steady her eyes are.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks.
“Just say it. You’re going to regardless. You have no filter.”
“See, only forty-eight hours and you already get me.”
She sets her fork down. Breathes. Like she’s buying herself one last second. Her eyes do the unexpected. They falter.
“Ivy, I am painfully—so painfully—attracted to you.”
“I’m sorry, you’re what now? Did you just… are you… You’re gay?”
“Queer. Yes.”
“And you’re—” I point at myself with both hands. “This. You’re attracted to this.”
Sienna leans back, eyeing me up and down as if I’m the morning’s second course. “Oh, hell yes.”
She picks her fork back up, entirely unfazed by the bombshell she dropped.
“Not to make this weird. Though, full disclosure, I’m excellent at that.
” She grins. “But I’ve watched you let those man-children drown out your voice all weekend.
” She stabs the table for emphasis. “And honestly? It’s pissing me off.
You’re too fucking good at what you do to let those clowns mess with you. ”
I stare at her, dumbfounded, making sure my flopping goldfish mouth is closed.
This woman. Who I spent three days assuming was the Final Boss in the video game, “The Cole Hartwell Hookup.” This woman who turns salt-crusted field gear into high fashion. And saves sea lions (plus my rival’s life) without breaking a sweat.
“You’re—” I stop. Start again. “You’re into me?”
I sound like an embarrassing broken record, and my face is on fire.
“Yes. Been stupidly obvious from my end. Apparently, not from yours. Guess I need to be around humans more.”
“I just… have you seen you?”
“Daily.”
She looks at me adoringly.
“Ivy, you’re one of a kind. You walk into a room, and it reorganizes itself around you. You don’t half-ass anything. You care so much about getting it right, you don’t even realize you’re a full lap ahead.”
My throat closes.
“Sienna—”
“I’m not asking for anything.” She waves her utensil dismissively. “Not a date. Not a conversation about it. I’m telling you because for the last three days you’ve treated yourself like the supporting act.” She pauses. “You’re the headline, Ivy.”
She points at my muffin.
“Eat. You look like you’re about to faint, and I am not performing CPR twice in one weekend, even for someone as sexy as you.”
I pick up the muffin.
Put it down.
“Okay, so—wait, no. I need to admit something mortifying. I may disintegrate into a pile of awkward dust—but—I’ll say it.
I’ve been jealous of you. Not a ‘she’s gorgeous’ kind of jealous—the kind where I look at you and feel like a diseased pigeon standing next to a radiant flamingo.
And—and—I was jealous that I thought you were going after Cole.
Because, uh, we had this thing, this seven-hour, mind-blowing, ‘I might never walk right again’ thing.
But you being you, all effortless and cool, I was just—waiting to be pushed aside. ”
I barrel on, barely taking a breath.
“And now—now you go and say you like ME?! Like, I’m the one you want?! Not the ‘she’s fine’ option, not the ‘I guess she’s here’ me? But me, first?! I don’t—I can’t—this is—I was built for second place, not this! What am I even supposed to do with this information?”
Sienna pauses, a slow, wolfish grin spreading across her face. “Damn. So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
I blink. “What? No, no, that’s not what—”
“I’m kidding.”
“Sorry, because I’m not—” I point between us. “I’m not there yet. But give me another week of men behaving like they emotionally peaked in gym class, and I might circle back.”
“Good to know.”
We both laugh, a genuine, tension-breaking sound that earns us a sprinkling of side-eye from the other hotel patrons in the café. Sienna’s face goes serious.
“For what it’s worth, if I thought you were being played, I’d tell you, but I’m not convinced.”
“He was scrolling, Sienna.”
“I’ve learned life on the water is unpredictable,” she says.
“Rescues are messy. Calls come in. People drop what they’re doing and react.
The optics aren’t always clear from the outside.
Sometimes people look like they’re doing one thing when they’re really just trying to keep their head above water. ”
The last pancake bite disappears, her finger chasing the final thread of syrup. She shoves back from the table, pats her belly with a grunt of pure contentment, and stretches her arms overhead.
“Alright, enough carbs and feelings. I’m gonna check on Orson. Make sure he’s sober enough to properly bore everyone with sea lion facts. Last I saw, Blaze had him cornered by three women so drunk they’d proposition a buoy.”
Sienna eyes my muffin, “You’re not eating that, are you?”
I shake my head and slide the plate over.
She grabs it, takes an enormous bite, and points at me while she chews.
“Not the muffin I was hoping for,” she says, deadpan. “But I’ll take it.”
I choke on a mouthful of air. She winks and saunters away.
Sienna’s words about Cole burrow in where I don’t want them. A deeply inconvenient voice whispers:
What if she’s right?
What if you misread it?
What if he wasn’t using your—
Nope.
Nope, nope, nope.
He was on my iPad. Reading my files.
End of discussion.
The apple-shampoo-scented version of me in the shower this morning, the hopeful and stupid one? I leave her there before she can do any more damage.
Cole Hartwell mistook my feelings for weakness. My body for a strategy. That miscalculation is going to cost him everything.
I won’t be second choice again.
That promotion is mine.