Chapter 32
Ava
The barista blinks at me, waiting.
I study the board, overwhelmed, and settle on my usual.
“Yes,” I say, my phone pressed to my ear. “Can I please have a triple-shot oat milk cappuccino with one pump of vanilla, one pump brown sugar, extra dry, and dusted with cinnamon?”
He punches it all in quickly, and unlike some people, he doesn’t even need a notebook.
“Anything for breakfast?” he asks. “A sandwich?”
I stare at the case. “The bacon one. That one.”
The barista smiles. “You got the last one. Anything else?”
Oh, what the hell. “Can I get extra bacon?”
“You got it.”
He rings it up, I pay, and he points toward the pickup counter. “Your order will be ready down there. Next.”
I drift toward an isolated patch behind the massive crowd clustered at the counter. I swear, half of New York wakes up here.
Kali balks in my ear. “Did you just order a breakfast sandwich? Myra is going to flip.”
“That’s why you can’t tell her.”
“As if I would,” Kali scoffs. “I know who signs my checks. But she’s freaking out. No one knows where you are.”
I shift my weight, still in my beloved ballet slippers that Harrison wrote off as a walking liability.
I track the baristas behind the counter, mentally counting how many orders stand between me and bacon. “Just tell her I’m somewhere with caffeine.”
“You know she’ll be scouting every coffee shop from here to Nantucket.”
“She promised me a week off,” I say. “And I’m damn well taking it.”
Kali sighs. “She’s been hassling me every hour on the hour. I’m pretty sure she’s got a direct feed to my phone’s location services. Which, by the way, yours is offline.”
The truth is, I shut it off a while ago. Just in case Pierce somehow had a lock on me.
And as much as I love and trust Kali, the girl lives on Instagram.
She can find anyone, anywhere, anytime. All it takes is one tag, and suddenly the internet knows what coffee you drink and which direction you’re facing.
So, if she knows, so do they.
“Is there anything I can tell her?” Kali asks, sounding desperate. Myra is making her life hell.
“Nope,” I reply.
And I hate to admit it, but as much as I was aggravated when Harrison first told me I couldn’t tell anyone where I was, it’s been oddly liberating.
It’s been three days since I last saw Lumberjack.
Not that I’m counting.
But my week here is already half over, and the small, reckless flicker of hope that I’d see him before I leave is fading fast.
I spent one full day sulking in my room, raiding the absurdly well-stocked fridge and binge-reading my books. It’s strange to admit, but I’m starting to feel like my old self again.
The version of me who had no idea what the hell she was doing with Pierce Maddox.
I glance at my reflection in the window and barely recognize myself.
Ponytail pulled high.
Ball cap tugged low.
Sunglasses big enough to block nuclear radiation.
Then I notice him on the other side of the glass.
Tall. Scruffed. An attractive man in a crisp white shirt, jeans, and a trench coat. Reading a newspaper like it’s still 1997. Sunglasses that look suspiciously like we shop at the same spy store.
My pulse stutters.
Harrison?
No.
I thought I saw him yesterday, too. In the grocery store.
The towering height. The broad shoulders. The beard.
And the day before that, at the Excelsior. When I accidentally hit the button for the pool instead of the gym. The doors slid open, and I could have sworn I saw him duck through the hallway.
But when I checked the pool, it was empty.
I’m seeing him everywhere.
Chasing after the ghost of lumberjacks past.
I hate that he’s under my skin.
That he keeps slipping into the vulnerable places I swore I’d locked him out of.
Parts of me that were supposed to be sealed shut.
And yet…
There’s a pull. A low hum beneath everything. That quiet, relentless sense that whatever existed between us is still lingering.
Still unfinished.
Kali’s voice cuts in, bright and exasperated.
“And you won’t even believe how Pierce keeps carrying on with the staff. Insisting they’re hiding you somewhere. Like what are you, a luxury robe?” she huffs. “If you need me to bring you anything at all…”
At this point, I’m barely listening.
I’m too focused on the way the guy just clenched his jaw. The tension. So familiar it makes my pulse misfire.
Like Harrison would.
Ugh. I’m never going to get a moment’s peace until I know for sure.
“Sorry, Kali, gotta go.”
“Wait—”
I disconnect and head closer just as the man shuffles off.
My body reacts before my brain catches up. I’m already halfway out the door, ready to chase him down, when a voice cuts through the noise.
“Viviana. Order for Viviana.”
Okay. This is a crossroads.
Am I choosing my past? Or my future?
A man? Or coffee?
My feet stop cold.
Chasing a man feels wrong. On so many levels.
So instead of sprinting down the length of Broadway, heart in my throat, hoping to tackle Harrison, I spare myself the embarrassment. Because it’s probably not him at all.
And even if it is, he doesn’t want me. He’s made that perfectly clear.
I turn around, march my butt back to the counter, collect my breakfast, and indulge in my day.
Some days, I follow my gut.
It hasn’t always been kind to me.
Today, I choose coffee.
Another call comes in, and my smile is instant. I let it go straight to FaceTime.
“Hi.” I wave, melting a little more every single time those three faces fill my screen.
They call me every day. Sometimes more than once. And I swear, it brightens my whole world in a way nothing else has ever managed to.
Harrison is never in the shot, and I sip my coffee and pretend that doesn’t matter.
Connor, Ollie, and Snook cram in close, immediately fighting for control of the phone.
“One at a time,” I remind them, laughing.
The boys step back without protest, letting Snook go first. Always. I’m fairly certain that particular rule was drilled into them by their father.
She hands the phone to one of them so her entire body fits in the frame, then beams at me, practically vibrating with glee.
“Guess what we’re doing today?”
“What?” I ask, moving to a standing café table and settling in. This is absolutely going to be a long call, and I’m not cutting it short for anything.
“We’re going to the library,” she announces proudly.
My smile goes wide. I pull out the sightseeing bingo card in my bag, of all the must-see places you’re supposed to check off when you visit New York. “It’s on my list,” I show her.
“It’s my favorite place in the whole, wide world.” She stretches her arms as wide as they’ll go.
“Mine, too.”