2. Noelle
TWO
NOELLE
Across the street, Crosby’s Bean works its usual magic.
The scent drifts over—espresso, toasted almond syrup, and that hint of chocolate that makes you believe dessert should always come in a cup.
Add in the faint spice of cinnamon and clove, and it’s basically Thanksgiving pie disguised as caffeine.
My willpower lasts about as long as the leaves on the sycamores before I cave and cross.
The bell over their door jingles as I step in, and there he is behind the counter.
Elliot.
He’s tall, lean, always wearing some obscure band tee under his apron. He’s got the kind of messy blond hair that says I’m too busy being brilliant to care , and a smile that’s crooked but not so much that it can’t turn every page in my romance section blush-pink.
“Afternoon, Noelle. The usual?” he asks, already reaching for the almond syrup.
“Yes, please,” I say, leaning on the counter without being obvious about it, but I’m exhausted. “I need something to sip while I commit financial crimes on a dress I’ll wear once.”
His eyebrow quirks. “Ah, wedding?”
“Unfortunately.”
He grins, setting the cup on the counter. “Then I’ll add an extra shot. You’ll need the strength.”
I pass him a bill and tuck the change into the tip jar, our fingers brushing for the briefest second.
Just like the meet-cute in my most current WIP.
Unlike the book, Elliot doesn’t make reference to my bean that has my knees weakening.
I leave with myiced almond mocha , condensation beading on the plastic lid, and step back onto the sidewalk.
Half a block down,Mr. Hanley is walking his dachshund,Sir Biscuit, who’s wearing a cranberry plaid sweater.
“Looking sharp, Biscuit,” I say, giving him a scratch behind the ears before straightening up to smile at his owner.
“Where you off to, Miss Pembrooke?” Mr. Hanley asks, his voice gravelly in a way that makes you want to listen.
“Dress shopping. Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need it,” he says, and for a second, I believe him.
As I keep walking toward Madison, I think of Sofie, Nalani, and Claudia, my besties.
They all offered to come with me today, but I couldn’t do it.
Not yet. This is the test run—the trial by fire, where I figure out what I’m wearing before the group commentary starts.
They’d mean well, but I know myself. I’d feel too seen, too pinned under their shared excitement, when deep down, I’m … not. At. All.
I cross Madison, passing the glossy window displays of places Lauren would die to be seen leaving—all beige mannequins in beige dresses for beige women who somehow never spill wine on anything.
I keep going until I hitDesigner Revival, the vintage boutique I’ve been eyeing for weeks but never had the excuse to step into.
The door gives a soft chime as I push it open, and the air smells faintly of cedar and perfume that’s clung to silk for decades. Everything is color-coded, fabrics swishing against each other on brass racks, sequins catching the light from a vintage chandelier overhead.
“Looking for something special?” a woman with a tape measure around her neck asks, appearing from behind a rack of cocktail dresses.
“A dress. Wedding guest. Preferably something that won’t make me feel like a placeholder.”
She tilts her head, studying me for a beat. “Evening or day?”
“Evening, and very upscale.” I wave my hand up and down my fit. “Not my typical.”
Because my normal is corduroy trousers the color of spiced cider, worn soft at the knees, and a cranberry turtleneck that fits like it was made to curl up in with a novel.
My boots are weathered leather, the kind that have walked me through rain-slick sidewalks and over bookstore dust without complaint.
My hair’s half-up, twisted with a tortoiseshell clip because I was restocking the front table not thirty minutes ago, and around my neck hangs the gold pendant I found at a Chelsea flea market, the one I wear like a talisman.
It’s all comfort, all Pembrooke Books—warm, familiar, exactly me.
Which is why slipping into a floor-length silk gown feels like trying on someone else’s life.
“I think I have just the thing.”
She disappears into a row marked “ Evening ” and comes back with a floor-length emerald-green gown. The silk is liquid in her hands, bias-cut with a low back and cap sleeves. It’s the kind of dress Lauren would never pick for me, which is precisely why I like it.
“It’s vintage Halston,” she says, like that should mean something to me. “Late seventies. The color will make your skin look like you spent a week in the sun. Try it.”
I take it into the fitting room, my pulse stupidly fast for someone who isn’t auditioning for a part in her own life.
After peeling off my clothes, I slip it on, the fabric cool against my skin. When I turn toward the mirror, I barely recognize myself. The dress hugs my waist, skims over my hips, and drapes like it’s known me forever.
I grab my phone before I can overthink it and hit the FaceTime group chat.
Sofie answers first, her voice sharp with curiosity. “You found something.”
Nalani’s and Claudia’s faces pop up seconds later, the screen splitting into familiar chaos.
I step back so they can see all of me in the mirror. “Okay. You ready?”
Claudia’s jaw drops. “Oh my God, Noelle.”
“Shut up,” Nalani says, grinning. “That’s it. That’s the dress.”
Sofie leans closer to her camera, eyes narrowing in appraisal. “You look like … like you’ve been holding out on us. Your tits are amazing.”
I laugh, shaking my head, but I can’t hide the way my cheeks hurt from smiling. “So … I should buy it?”
Three voices in unison: “Buy it.”
I end the call and take a few more moments.
I run my hands down the sides, smoothing the silk.
For a second, I’m not the girl on the sidelines.
I’m not the sweet bookstore owner who keeps her curves a secret and tucks her love of naughty paperbacks between Tolstoy and Austen so customers have to dig for them.
I’m not even the almost-something to a boy who never saw me that way.
I’m the woman who walks into a wedding and makes people wonder why they didn’t notice her sooner.
The saleswoman peeks in. “Well?”
I give her the kind of smile you wear when you know you’ve got it right. “I’ll take it.”
I float out of Designer Revival on cloud nine and a half, garment bag swinging lightly from my fingers. I’ve got the dress. The dress. My face actually hurts from smiling, and I don’t even care if strangers on Madison think I’ve lost it.
And then— impact.
Something hits me in the side, hard enough to jolt me forward. My almond mocha—still half full—slips in my hand. The world slows to an awful drip-drip-drip as I watch coffee seep into the creamy paper garment bag.
I don’t even look up. My entire focus is on the growing brown bloom spreading across the perfect, untouched dress inside.
My stomach drops as my mind races. I know I have a book back at Pembrooke— Mrs. Lillian’s Complete Guide to Stain Removal and Fabric Sorcery —but right now, all I can see is four-hundred-dollars’ worth of vintage Halston marinating in espresso.
“Oh my God,” the culprit says, breathless.
I still don’t look up. I pinch the bag away from me, like that will magically reverse the damage. My mind is already flipping to the chapter on “Coffee vs. Silk.”
Step one: Don’t panic.
Step two: Too late.
And then?—
“You should watch where you’re walking,” she says.
My head snaps up.
She’s tall, rail-thin, model-beautiful in that over-edited way. Glossy hair, glossy lips, glossy contempt in her eyes. And she’s looking atmelike I’m the problem. She’s pure Lauren Peters energy with an extra side of mean girl who’s never opened her own door.
I smile. And sweet turns to dangerous. Sofie would be proud.
“You’re right,” I say, my voice all honey.
“Next time, I’ll be sure to grow eyes in the back of my head.
” I keep my tone all sugar and light, “so I can spot people barreling toward me while they’re taking twenty-seven selfies for the Gram.
You know, the ones where you’re trying to look effortlessly gorgeous and tragically bored, smack in the middle of a busy sidewalk, coffee in one hand, phone in the other, oblivious to the fact the rest of us are just trying to exist without becoming unpaid extras in your personal fashion shoot.
But hey, as long as you get the shot, right? ”
I take a slow step back, glance back down at the coffee-stained garment bag, then look her dead in the eye with a small, polite smile. “Congratulations—you nailed it.” And then I start to turn on my heel, to leave her to figure out if I meant the photo or the mess she just made.
Her mouth opens. Shuts. Opens again. And then … “It was your coffee that spilled, not mine!”
I look down and hate—no, hate is too nice a term. I loathe that she is right. Of course it was mine … pfft.
From behind her, a male voice cuts in, deep and familiar enough to send a tiny electric flicker down my spine. “Everything okay here?”
I know that voice.
I turn just enough to see him—tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair in messy waves, five o’clock shadow, blue eyes.
Dash Sterling. Hockey god. The guy who once made my freshman-year pulse do Olympic-level gymnastics back in college and still has my thighs clenching on the occasions I attend the Brooklyn Bears home games.
Of course. Of course, the coffee assassin is exactly his type. Lauren 2.0.
“Everything’s fine,” I say quickly, clutching the soggy garment bag tighter, and bolt before he realizes it’s me.
My boots hit the sidewalk in a pass that mimics calm.
The kind of steps you took in elementary school when there was a fire drill, but you didn’t know it was a drill, so you took no chances.
The closer I get, the faster I walk, because of two things: one, my dress; and two, I will not cry in public again.
Not ever again …
I am past the café, past the florist, past Mr. Hanley and Sir Biscuit—no time to chat—until I reach the blessed brass handle of Pembrooke Books.
Inside, I shut the door, lock it, head to the Domestic Drama’s and Disasters shelves, grab the copy of Mrs. Lillian’s Complete Guide to Stain Removal and Fabric Sorcery , and head for the stairs in the back.
My apartment—my sanctuary—is above the shop. Two creaky flights up, I can peel off these clothes, get my stain-removal arsenal, and maybe scream into a throw pillow. No, scratch that, definitely scream into one.