Chapter 8
The problem is that Kay didn”t say anything until she”d already pushed the swinging door to the back room halfway open.
Raine sighs heavily and pulls back, quickly tucking himself back into his jeans while I hop off the prep table and do my best to put myself back together.
It”s too late, Kay might not have gotten a good look at the details, but there”s no way she doesn”t realize what she just walked in on.
”You okay, baby?” Raine whispers low, his eyes seeking mine and looking far more concerned than frustrated at being interrupted.
I can”t say the same for myself. I was really looking forward to feeling Raine”s cock inside me again.
That”s what I get for leaving the front door wide open, I guess.
”April, what”s going on here?” Kay”s eyes narrow as they move from me to take full stock of Raine”s imposing figure standing beside me with his arm possessively wrapped over my shoulders.
”Maybe give us a minute?” I look up at him and offer my best I can handle this smile.
He doesn”t look convinced, but he does bend to kiss me tenderly before reluctantly stepping away.
”I”m going to go visit gran,” he tells me, but his voice is a stern warning to the woman standing in front of us. ”I won”t be out of hearing range.”
His voice is icy as he glances at her on his way past, making it clear that he considers her a threat and that he intends to make sure she doesn”t cause any trouble.
”Kay, what are you doing here?” I huff in exasperation, doing a second check of my skirt to make sure it”s in place before leaving the back room and walking into the cafe.
”What am I doing here? What the fuck were you doing, Ape? I came all this way to visit you, and I find you fucking some stranger in my sister”s coffee shop!”
Something snaps inside me.
”This isn”t Mia”s coffee shop, Kay! It was never going to be Mia”s coffee shop. Mia fucking hated coffee, the only reason she didn”t get fired a thousand times when we worked at Cuppa Joy was because she was fucking Joy”s son.”
Kay gasps.
It”s not like she didn”t know her sister, I”m sure that”s not news to her. I think she”s shocked that I”m done letting her get away with projecting her delusions onto me.
”I can”t believe you would talk about Mia that way.” Her voice drops to a shocked whisper but it”s laced with anger. ”She was your best friend. You were going to open the cafe together; she shared her dream with you and you think that you can just cut her out of the picture now? Because you moved halfway across the country and opened up this little hole in the wall without her?”
In the five years since Mia died, I”ve let Kay latch on to me. I”ve let her project her grief and loss on me because I felt so fucking bad for her. Because I”ve felt guilty for not going to that party with Mia-- I would have been sober, I would have driven. Mia would have gotten home safe and spent our work shift the next day hung over and telling me about whatever guy she hooked up with the night before while I did all the work.
But dammit, I worked hard to open this coffee shop. I saved for years and bought second hand equipment from going out of business sales. I lived out of my car for almost a year while I explored possible locations for my new business and for my new home.
I thought Kay would snap out of it, that she”d eventually acknowledge the truth and stop giving Mia credit for my dreams and now-- for my accomplishments.
”Stop, Kay. Just stop,” I flip the sign in the window to closed, but I leave the door open, knowing Raine”s just a couple doors down, visiting Mable at her little museum.
”The coffee shop was always my dream and you know that. You always knew that. You knew that Mia didn”t give a fuck about coffee. She liked the idea of being included in the business and when she started attaching herself to my dream, I let her do it.
”We were friends, but we weren”t best friends and honestly, Kay, if Mia was still alive, we wouldn”t still be friends. I think you know that just as well as I do.”
”Yeah, well, that”s pretty obvious, isn”t it? If you”d been a better friend, my sister would still be here, wouldn”t she?”
”What the hell does that mean, Kay? Are you seriously saying it”s my fault that Mia”s dead?”
”You were supposed to go with her that night, right? But you had better things to do, didn”t you? You”re the reason she was driving herself home after she”d been drinking. If you”d been a better friend, I”d still have my sister!”
My heart aches for her but I can”t do this anymore. I can”t be the scapegoat for her grief.
”Mia”s dead because she decided to get behind the wheel when she knew she was too fucked up to drive. She knew better. She could have called me for a ride, she could have called someone else, she could have called a Taxi or an Uber or a fucking tow truck. She could have passed out in the back seat and driven home when she sobered up, or she could have stayed put and slept it off at the house where she was partying.
”She didn”t do any of those things, Kay. She made a bad decision and I”m sorry for how it turned out but it”s not my fault and I am done letting you steal my life away from me to give it to someone who never wanted it.”
Unloading all that might make me feel better, but apparently, it”s not the moment of catharsis for Kay that it proves to be for me.
While I feel lighter than I have since Mia”s funeral-- the first time Kay mentioned the cafe being Mia”s dream, not mine-- Kay”s face goes dark with rage.
She grabs one of the vintage soda bottle vases off the nearest table and hurls it at the floor. It shatters into pieces, leaving the stem of silk flowers that was in it lying in the wreckage.
She lunges for the vase on the next nearest table. I”m so stunned that I just watch while she slams another bottle onto the ground, still calling me names and screaming about how I don”t deserve any of this but my temporary paralysis lets go when she spins around and heads for the espresso machine.
”You are such a fucking bitch.” She spits at me. ”You were supposed to be Mia”s friend and you”re up here in the mountains, making lattes and fucking lumberjacks like nothing ever happened. Who was that guy you were humping in the back room, anyway? Is he the reason you picked this piece of shit little town in the middle of fucking nowhere? Is he your sugar daddy? Is the rent due?”
I manage to get between her and the Pavoni. I”m doing my best to force her back, yelling at her to calm the fuck down, when the sound of heavy footsteps running up the boardwalk have us both looking toward the open door instead.
Raine
”What the hellis going on down there?” Gran demands as the sounds of yelling and breaking glass interrupt us.
Another loud crash and the sound of breaking glass has me heading out the museum door.
”Go help her, Raine.” My grandmother waves her hand at me, ushering me out the door without expecting me to wait for her.
There are only two empty suites between Gran”s museum and April”s cafe and at a dead run, it doesn”t take but a few seconds to get to the door that”s still standing open just in time to hear Kay questioning April”s relationship with me.
”I”m her fiancé,” I bark as I fly through the door. Assessing the situation inside in an instant, I jump the counter, putting myself between the girls and April”s fancy coffee machine.
I know that thing cost her more than a lot of people pay for their cars and it”s pretty clear this Kay chick has been busting the place up.
”Let go of April, now,” I order.
Kay”s clutching at April, one hand in her hair, and another twisted in her clothes while April tries to pry the younger woman”s hands off of her.
”Fuck you,” she screeches at me. ”She”s the reason my sister is dead.”
April manages to get herself free and without hesitation, I pull her behind me.
”I think you know that”s not true; from what I hear, your sister made a big mistake, but April had nothing to do with it. It”s time to stop making April responsible for filling in the empty space where your sister should be.”
Kay lets go of April and steps back, glaring at me like she hates me.
”What the fuck do you know about it?”
Pulling my girl into my arms, so that April”s back is to my chest, I wrap her up and hold her tight. Making sure she”s safe and taking some strength in the feel of her against me again.
”I know something about death,” I answer the seething girl facing us. ”I”ve seen the way grief can make people rewrite the facts so they”re left with memories that they can live with. I”ve seen the way it can tear people apart when they should be coming together to support one another through hard times.
”I know you didn”t come all this way to visit your sister”s friend, or to support her success. You came up to my mountain to start a fight because you don”t want to accept that your sister”s the only one to blame for not being with you anymore and you”re mad at April for moving on with her life when you haven”t. But that”s not fair to your sister, or to you, and I”ll be damned if I”m going to allow you to keep making April feel like she has to be responsible for your grief as well as her own.”
The girl stands there, working her mouth like a guppy while she decides if it”s worth continuing to fight with either of us.
”You don”t know anything,” she tells me, but her voice is sullen, lacking the rage she was venting when I came in.
”I know that April is part of this community now and there”s not a damn person in town that”s going to let a stranger come in and destroy the business she”s worked so hard for.”
”Not to mention that the closest thing we”ve had to coffee on this mountain before she got here was that swill coming out of McAllister”s tavern there,” Gran adds.
I hadn”t noticed Gran standing in the doorway and now she jabs her thumb in the general direction of the tavern on the other side of the road, her voice sounding more emotional than I”m used to.
”It wouldn”t be wise to get between mountain folk and good coffee.” Gran levels a warning tone at the girl who”s suddenly become aware of the crowd that”s gathered outside the door.
Behind Gran, Current Jones stands beside his pregnant wife, Ginger, with more than a few others standing with them.
All the yelling must have brought them over from the pizza and brewpub next door.
At the bottom of the steps, I make out Ash and Hyacinth McAllister standing behind Ash”s grandmother, Alice, who”s alternating scowls between my grandmother and Kay.
”You should leave, Kay,” April straightens up in my arms. ”Go home, find a good grief counselor, move on. But don”t contact me again.”
Kay sweeps the crowd that”s gathered outside the little cafe.
”You heard my fiancée,” I gently push April aside so I can take a step toward the unwanted guest, ”it”s time for you to leave.”
”What are you going to do?” She scoffs as I move forward, ”throw me out?”
My head swings toward the door, a grin stretching across my face before I turn back to Kay.
”I”ve never put my hands on a woman and I”m not going to start with you,” I assure her, ”but my grandmother doesn”t have the same moral code I do.”
With that said, Gran marches all four foot eleven of herself across the room and grabs hold of the younger woman”s arm.
It”s hard not to laugh at the look on the girl”s face when she discovers that my grandmother is deceptively strong for her size and age.
”You heard that, didn”tcha, Hawk?” Gran crows at the local deputy who has joined the crowd and moved up front. ”Get a good look at her, she”s not welcome back here and if you catch her bothering my granddaughter again, I expect you to shoot her.”
There”s a combination of cheers and laughter from the audience and maybe Kay was expecting our local law man to step up in her defense. Instead, Hawkins tips his hat with a low dip of his head and a smile toward Gran as the whole town stands by and lets an eighty-year-old woman forcibly drag a girl in her early twenties to her car, telling her a few choice words along the way.
The crowd waits till the stranger”s car has backed out of the lot and disappeared around the curve that leads out of town.
Drama over, the crowd from the Brick and Porter envelope the deputy and Terra Diaz, pulling the town”s newest celebrity couple into the pizza place in a cacophony of congratulations and what-the-hells.
”You okay, baby?” I pull April into my arms, kissing the top of her head and then catching her lips with mine when she turns her face up to me.
”Thank you,” she tells me, her pretty face shining at me like I”m a goddamn hero.
She looks down at the broken glass still littering the floor and sighs, ”I need to sweep that up before I can go.”
I”m about to jump on the task for her when I hear a labored sigh from the doorway.
”Oh Mable! Thank you so much, I”m so sorry you got dragged into all that,” April gushes, side-stepping broken glass to go hug gran while I retrieve the broom and dustpan out of the back closet.
”It”s no problem, sweetie,” I hear Gran telling her while I sweep up the mess. ”I”m sorry about your shop. Did she break anything important? I can have the deputy track down her information if you need to press charges.”
”No, Mable, she just broke a few of the vases.”
”Raine? Could you help me get back to the office, sweetheart?” Gran calls at me as I finish dumping the broken glass.
”Just give me a minute with the boy and then I”ll let you have him back.” I hear Gran saying to April as I rejoin them at the door.
”Lock up, baby, I”ll be right back. Gotta get you home so we can finish what we started.” I whisper in April”s ear and then let Gran take hold of my arm as she pretends to be too frail to walk back to the museum on her own.
”I take it April and that girl have some history between them.” Gran makes the observation with a pat against my arm.
”Yeah, April had already told me about her. I don”t think she expected her to show up here though.”
”Well, that was a good speech you gave her.”
Gran lets go of my arm as soon as we reach the door of the museum.
”Hopefully she”s the type that”s smart enough to know good advice when she gets it.”
Bending low so I can kiss Gran”s cheek, she pats mine with a soft smile.
”Better go get your girl, Raine.” I get a soft kiss on the cheek in return for the one I gave her.
”I”m proud of you.”
She whispers it so quietly, I wonder if I heard the words at all.