Elsie
Chapter Three
Ihadn’t thought it was actually possible to die of caffeine deprivation when I threatened Will Hughes with it, but I was starting to think I’d been wrong.
My head pounded from withdrawal of my favorite—and only—drug of choice, and what’s more, I didn’t have the energy to type even one measly word onto my untouched manuscript.
I desperately needed those energetic jitters that usually sent me on a six hour—non-stop writing bender until my body called out for more of that evil bean juice.
This was good, I thought. I was curing my addiction. Maybe I’d become one of those girls who could drink matcha instead. No more coffee shops for me, nope. Maybe I’d even take a yoga class and—
“Ughhhhhh,” I groaned pathetically, clasping my head in my hands.
Nope. Matcha wasn’t going to cut it.
I needed to head out for coffee, and fast. And if I died on the journey, then at least that bastard Will Hughes would have my death on his conscience.
If he even had one of those.
I opened the front door, wincing again at how I nearly tore it off its hinges each time I dared to open it.
That, along with a dozen other things falling apart at the seams in Mr. Briggs’s house, made me realize why those women were so insistent on giving me Will Hughes’s number. The house was a hazard.
Suddenly, my ‘good luck’ at landing a flexible rental that didn’t require any in-person meetings seemed a lot more like I failed a gullibility test.
But the moment I stepped out onto the porch, the earthy September air that enveloped me was like a reset to my overactive mind.
I breathed it in, listening to the jingle of wind chimes in the neighbor’s tree.
Even the squirrels seemed unbothered by my presence as they continued darting their way across the yard, scurrying up into the trees whose leaves had somehow already begun changing.
It was something I never had time to notice in Boston. When would you have time, with life and the city itself ushering you forward every moment of every day? If I paused mid-walk back in the city to stare up at a tree, someone probably would’ve body-checked me out of the way.
Being here was like being in another world. It wasn’t still, exactly. But slower. More allowing for a girl to take her time.
And maybe it would be just what I needed to regroup. At least for a little while.
As I strolled through the town, I noticed that, remarkably for its size, Colbridge had all the essentials.
A grocery store—not one I’d ever heard of, leading me to believe it was unique to Colbridge alone.
A bookstore, the perfect place to turn to when I ran out of writing inspiration.
A post office, a bank, a gas station, and a variety of random stores I wasn’t sure were essential, but were quaint.
Even though there wasn’t a Target, Colbridge had a general store that—a quick peek inside showed me—was surprisingly well stocked.
I’d halfway been expecting that I’d need to drive twenty minutes anytime I ran out of something and was pleasantly surprised when I realized I could hole up in town for the next few months while I wrote.
The one tragic downfall was that there truly was only one coffee shop in the entire town. And that was the one belonging to Will Hughes.
I stared up at it in misery, wondering if I might as well go, tail between my legs, and make my best attempt at peace, if only for the sake of caffeination.
Maybe he’d throw it in my face, but I’m sure if I kept my mouth open, I might be able to get at least a little bit in my bloodstream, right?
“How can there be no other coffee shop?” I groaned, lamenting in the center of town under the late morning September sun.
At the twelfth-hour of despair, my salvation came in the form of an angel crossing the street at that very moment. A messenger from the gods, perhaps, considering the creamy, beige colored beverage she was carrying in her manicured hands.
Coffee. I almost moaned at the thought, beelining my way toward her to ask where she could’ve gotten it from.
I got a better look of her the closer I got, pausing when I realized that not only was she holding the very coffee I’d been fantasizing about for days, but she also happened to be the most elegant, chic woman I had ever laid my eyes on.
She looked flawless in the most effortless way, as if she woke up ready for the runway, while still somehow looking at home against the casual backdrop of Colbridge.
Sunglasses were perched atop her wavy blonde hair, still glossy and unruffled despite the breeze. She wore a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, paired with jeans that looked overtly casual in the way only outrageously priced designer jeans could pull off.
Whereas I was wearing an old pair of boot cut jeans I’d found thrifting and a Hanes green sweatshirt.
Yeah, it would probably be best for my ego if I didn’t stand directly beside her.
“Excuse me!” I called, waving a hand out to get her attention.
She turned, looking around perplexed until her gaze landed on me, half-jogging toward her.
“Hi, sorry.” I stopped, breathless in front of her. “I was just wondering where you got that coffee.”
Please say somewhere else besides Will’s. Please. Please.
“Oh, hi,” she said, smiling at me. “You must be the new girl.”
“Yes, I am,” I confirmed, not even caring how fast word spreads in this town anymore. “Lovely town you have here. But, a surprising lack of establishments that serve coffee.”
She let out an easy laugh, pointing to something behind me.
“I’m not sure if you know, but you’re about a minute walk from one.”
I turned, staring at the coffee shop with a frown before looking back at her.
“Yeah, see, the thing is—Will and I didn’t really hit it off…” I told her.
“Hit it off?” She arched a brow, and I had no choice but to grin sheepishly.
“I may or may not have gotten banned from going there. Hard to tell. But either way, it would be preferable to find somewhere else to get coffee.”
“Let’s see.” She tapped her chin. “The bakery has decent enough coffee.”
“Great.”
“But not as good as Will’s.”
I sighed.
“And, the gas station has…something resembling coffee. But sometimes it tastes like tar.”
I guess it was pretty ridiculous to avoid the coffee shop completely. It would be paying more attention to Will Hughes than he was worth, going out of my way to avoid him. I should just bite the bullet and put it all behind me. It wasn’t as if he’d turn away a paying customer.
I stared down at her coffee longingly, noticing the not-so-subtle rock that had made itself at home on her ring finger, tightly snug against a silver wedding band. I stared at it a beat too long, feeling unease churn in my stomach.
I’d had one of those once.
The engagement ring. Though obviously I didn’t get to the whole wedding band part of the deal.
I stared down in envy as images of Andrew flooded my head.
She flexed her fingers, no doubt thinking I was some type of deranged weirdo who had a concerning fascination with her hands.
Hopefully she’ll assume I was just staring at the coffee—not that it would make my hyperfixation any more normal.
“Will’s just a grump sometimes.” She cleared her throat, the tension of the moment passing away as if it hadn’t happened at all. “Don’t take it personally. Come on, I’ll walk you in.”
“And if he bites my head off?” I said a bit airily, still trying to recover from the taunting sight of the diamond engagement ring.
I needed to get a grip. If I had a meltdown every time I saw an engagement ring, then I might as well board up the windows of Mr. Briggs’s house and become the town recluse, because clearly I wasn’t fit to be walking around the world with such a fragile sense of self.
“I won’t let him.” She winked, already crossing the street, clearly expecting me to follow. “I happen to know him pretty well.”
I’m sure everyone in this town knew each other ‘pretty well.’ Heck, in the short amount of time I’d been here, I already had an enemy and multiple acquaintances. I could only imagine the bonds between people who had lived here their whole lives.
“Sorry if I offended you, then—” I paused, frantically looking back and forth before we crossed the road. But shockingly, there wasn’t a single car in sight. “I really have nothing against Will. It’s just—”
“He can be an ass?” She laughed. “Trust me. I know. Unless you’re part of his inner circle, he tends to keep people at a distance.”
I let out a quiet hm, thinking it over.
Honestly, I thought it was complete bullshit.
You didn’t need to be best friends with someone to treat them decently. And whoever this woman was, it was clear she was part of that elusive inner circle in question, which meant she probably had no idea what a jerk he came across as yesterday.
Demanding I lose his number. Acting as if I would call on him for any errands I needed done. Ridiculous.
If I saw him again, I would tell him—
“Are you okay?” The woman’s voice interrupted my fully fleshed out battle scene I’d imagined between me and Will.
I paused, face flushing.
“Yes, why?”
“Because your face sort of contorted, and it looked like you were mouthing things under your breath.”
Yeah, I guess I wasn’t going to win any medals in the art of subtlety.
“Oh, sometimes when I’m angry I act out things I wish I had said in arguments,” I told her, figuring I might as well own up to it before she came to her own bizarre conclusions. “I didn’t realize I was doing it now, though.”
She narrowed her eyes in confusion, nodding along as if my explanation made perfect sense before opening the door to the coffee shop for me.
I was vaguely aware of the bells jingling before I was hit with the overwhelming scent of coffee.
I was instantly aware why there hadn’t been many cars on the road—because half the town’s population was here.
Armchairs around an unlit fireplace. Swivel stools at a countertop. Tables. A few couches. They were all filled with people.
“This place is huge,” I said to the woman beside me.
“Yeah, it used to be a house, but Will’s family renovated the bottom floor into the coffee shop,” she explained.
She looked instantly at home, waving and smiling to people as we maneuvered through the crowd toward the register.
I stared up at the menu written across a chalkboard with little artistic designs all across the border.
“Not just a coffee shop, then?” I looked over to the blonde woman, noticing that there was quite a variety of food options as well.
“More or less the town gathering place,” she said with a smile. “You want to get a coffee?”
“At this point, I’d even take the beans to crunch on. That would work, right?”
“How about we get you a real one?” She laughed. “On me, to apologize for what was probably a weird introduction to town.”
“You’re an angel,” I told her gratefully.
I sort of only had three months’ worth of funds to work with, and no income coming in. Needless the say, the pressure was on—and the clock—to finish something that could be passed off as a novel.
I looked around the coffee shop, amazed at how bustling it was.
It would’ve been the perfect place to set up my laptop and spend a day writing.
Huge windows I could imagine myself sitting beside, spending the day people watching and daydreaming until inspiration struck.
The comfiest looking chairs I’d ever seen.
And coffee that smelled better than any I’d ever encountered.
I was in my element.
And all at once, my anger faded.
Everything was fine. Blissful. Paradise. Until—
“What are you doing here?”
And there went my happy place.
I turned in the direction of the voice, already recognizing the owner before I even saw his face.
Just like yesterday, he was wearing the same backward baseball cap and the same infuriating scowl.
“Am I not allowed to be here?” I asked lightly, trying not to let him know how off-kilter he made me.
He was handsome, which made him even more irritating. He probably had gotten away with being a jerk his whole life based on that fact alone. I’m sure some girls even thought his whole attitude was charming.
I rolled my eyes at the very sight of him.
If I were being honest with myself, I’d admit that this rage I felt toward him could probably be pinned down to some psychology term I wasn’t familiar with—something about misplaced anger or deflection or something?
—because after all, hadn’t I been with a handsome asshole myself in the not-so-distant past?
Hadn’t I blinded myself to his faults and condescension and the belittling way he spoke to me?
I’d be damned before I let another man do it again.
“I never said you weren’t allowed to be here,” he said through gritted teeth, apparently as irritated by me as I was by him.
“You implied it. What with the ‘lose my number’ speech you threw out at me yesterday.”
“Will—” the woman tried to cut in, but Will kept going, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You told me you were making it your mission in life to avoid me.”
“After you basically bit my head off for having the nerve to have been forcibly given your phone number!”
“Which you didn’t hesitate to use,” he countered with a head tilt.
“Will—” she said again, but it was a futile attempt.
“A mistake I won’t be making again.” I huffed, blind to anything except the man in front of me.
The one whose hazel eyes I was locked in a stare-down with.
“I won’t hold my breath,” he said, “since it took you less than a day to change your mind about showing up here.”
I let out a noise of affrontment before turning to the blonde woman in apology.
“I knew this was a bad idea,” I told her. “Sorry for bothering you.”
“No, don’t go,” she said, face falling.
“Let her go.” He looked over at the blonde, as if finally realizing she was standing there with us. “She’s just passing through town, anyway.”
“Will.” She frowned in shock. “You really are being an ass. Can you give the poor girl a break? She just wanted a cup of coffee.”
She said it as if she hadn’t believed me, and I snorted, amused that I was the sole recipient for this man and his attitude problem.
“It’s okay,” I told her, holding a hand up to stop her pleas. I had a feeling buying coffee from him would be like making a bargain with the devil. “It was nice to meet you…” I trailed off, realizing I hadn’t gotten her name.
“I’m Ava.” She held out a hand for me to shake. The left one, with the sparkling engagement ring that sort of made me want to die when I looked at it too long. “Ava Hughes.”
I shook it carefully and then watched the hand of the first normal person I’d met in this town move out of my grip and directly onto the chest of the man I’d spent the last twenty-four hours fantasizing about hitting over the head with a cartoon baton.
Fantastic.