Chapter 3
Willow
To-Do List
Meet Cruz’s friend
Find a new coffee order
“Willow, right?” Deacon strode toward me—I’d always thought the word “stride” was synonymous with “walk,” but I was wrong.
His steps looked effortless and graceful, like he owned the coffee shop.
He was tall and muscular in a way that didn’t seem bulging like the first guy I’d seen.
He looked taut and strong, and I hadn’t expected the long hair and the beard.
Zoe was right—he was my brother’s hot friend.
“I’m Willow. Hi. That’s me.” I waved because of course I did.
What else would one do when approached by a good-looking and supremely confident person?
To make matters worse, he’d held out his palm for a handshake as I waved and we met somewhere in the middle with a mismatch of my floppy and his enthusiastic high fives. So, this was going great.
“Hi,” I repeated as he sat down.
“I feel like I know you after hearing Cruz talk about you for so long.” He pulled the straw to his mouth. “He was bad at describing you, though.”
“I didn’t think anyone needed my description—my face is pretty widely available on the internet.” Even I heard how unconvincing that joke was.
“Yeah, but you’re dry now. So that wouldn’t have helped.”
I’d expected pity, but his comeback made the corners of my lips twitch.
“I managed to avoid fountains on my way over. Did Cruz make it sound like you should look for someone around fourteen who might be clutching a teddy bear? He still thinks I look like I did when I was fourteen even though I got LASIK years ago and changed my hair.”
Deacon chuckled, the sound low and rich.
“He didn’t mention a stuffed animal, but yeah, that was the general idea.
” He set his keys and phone aside, and I noticed how he intentionally flipped it face down.
I’d just met the guy, but I was so aware of his attention.
His focus seemed to wrap around me, and after avoiding attention for the past couple months, not to mention my whole life, it felt surprisingly…
nice. He leaned back in his chair and scratched his fingers along his beard.
“Which begs the big question, what was your favorite stuffed animal?”
“That’s the big question?” I looked at him over the lid on my coffee, trying to get a read on him, but he only looked back at me with bright eyes.
“Sure. Think about it.” He settled back in his chair. “They’re our first comfort and early confidant. What’s bigger than that? Mine was Mr. Muffin, a giraffe with a blue nose who currently resides in a box of things still in my parents’ garage. I really should get him back.”
His gaze still hadn’t left mine, but not in a creepy way. I tried to remember the last time someone focused on me so intently. “Cruz told me you were kind of different.”
“Just kind of? That asshole was underselling me. I’m one in a million, baby.” He tipped his cup toward me, the beverage inside looking strikingly familiar to my own, and I tried to read the label. “So, who was your Mr. Muffin?”
“Sylvia,” I said, remembering the matted gray fur. “A stuffed walrus in a pink shirt. Cruz got it for me for my birthday when I was four.”
He tipped his glass toward me again. “See, now we’re getting to know each other.” His gaze trailed to the cup between us in the brown sleeve. “Double fisting it or are you expecting another of your brother’s friends to show up?”
Heat rose on my cheeks, and I made a grab for the cup, as if I could hide it somewhere on this small tabletop. “No, I just…um, ordered it by mistake.”
He lifted an eyebrow, the gesture making his eye color look deeper somehow.
“Mistake?” I should have just said I ordered it for him not knowing his coffee preferences.
Someone with an iota of experience meeting men might have had that wherewithal, or not even ordered it in the first place, but I was beyond out of practice.
“It’s embarrassing,” I said, hiding my face in my hands.
I’d been so determined to order something new, like picking a new coffee drink would mean I’d begun starting over, and then the women wanted a selfie and the barista was annoyed and I reverted to autopilot.
I was still focused on that lingering embarrassment when I felt the brush of fingertips by my hand.
“May I?” His voice had dipped, and I looked at him over my fingers.
“May you what?”
“Pull your hands away from your face,” he said, nudging my left hand with his knuckles. “We’ve talked stuffed animals. That’s why we start with big questions. Now there’s no need to be embarrassed about anything.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” I pressed my fingers to my lips to cover the smile his words and easy tone brought out. “I hardly know you, and I have lots of reasons to be embarrassed. Millions of shares could corroborate.”
“There’s an extra shot of caramel in this,” he said, swirling his own drink.
“And salted caramel cold foam on top, plus Linda wrote her number on the side because we have this ongoing joke.” He tapped the side of the drink, attention still on me.
“I called her bluff once and asked her out. She laughed at me and told me I could never keep up with her and I wasn’t pretty enough.
Embarrassing, right?” He looked over his shoulder and gave the barista a wave that she returned with an indulgent smile.
“Now you know two things about me that your brother would definitely make fun of me for.” He motioned to the bonus coffee again.
“So, tell me your embarrassing coffee secret.”
The paper cup filled with dark roast coffee looked back at me blankly with nothing to offer.
“I’m used to ordering for me and my ex-boyfriend.
I got one for him out of habit.” Even though I’d thought them in my head already, the words sounded so extremely pathetic as they left my lips.
“Which is pretty sad and probably why my brother told you I needed someone to talk to while I’m in town, because who makes friends doing stuff like this?
” I’d been shooting for self-deprecating in a charming sort of way, but it had come out sad, and right then I knew this meeting couldn’t end fast enough. “It’s pathetic.”
Deacon swirled his coffee, the ice shifting in the cup, and I was about to change the subject, but he spoke first. “You’re right.”
I’d been expecting him to say something comforting or placating. That’s what I was used to. Maybe awkward silence, but not agreeing with me. “I’m right?”
“Sure. No one makes friends with plain black coffee. C’mon.
I’m telling Linda to never serve you this again.
” He motioned behind him. “I was expecting something way more embarrassing, like you had dropped your retainer or your learner’s permit in there and were waiting for me to leave so you could fish it out. ”
“Because I’m fourteen in this version of events?”
“Exactly.” He wrapped his long fingers around the cup and stood, walking the few feet to throw it in the trash, then returning to the table triumphant. “I guess I should have clarified first. Your retainer wasn’t in there, right?”
I laughed again, pressing fingers to my lips to hide it, and shook my head. “No,” I said, fiddling with the label on my cup. “Just my learner’s permit.”
“Good,” he said, sipping from his own drink. “Cruz said you were with your ex for a long time?”
“Since middle school.”
“Damn,” he said, not adding anything else and just leaning back in his chair as if in invitation for me to keep going. “It’s not the first time you ordered that coffee, huh?”
I shook my head from side to side, tears welling in my eyes without my permission.
“I’m not used to being alone.” I sucked in a breath, the pain of that sentence stealing the oxygen in my lungs.
The panic I’d been getting used to crept up my arms like a shadow, but then Deacon’s fingers brushed mine again as he handed me a napkin, wordlessly interrupting my thoughts.
“Sorry,” I said, dabbing my eyes. “I didn’t mean to say that. I just…”
He ignored my apology, his intense attention still focused on me.
“You don’t know who you are when you’re not part of that thing you thought defined you?
” He offered the rest of my sentence casually, just like Zoe had when we’d hashed this out a hundred times before.
He sounded like he understood it, though. Like he’d lived it. “I get it.”
When I agreed, he gave a tight nod, taking a long drink from his cup before swirling the ice around. “But that’s still no excuse for boring coffee.”
“Lots of people like good black coffee.”
“Not us, though, right?” He shook his head. “We like our drinks sweet and our childhood best friends stuffed.”
My eyes still felt wet, but I laughed, the sound unexpected as it escaped my lips.
“I’m supposed to go to a wedding tomorrow.
I won’t really know anyone there—this was a pity invite and I’ve never been to a wedding alone.
It’s like every day is more black coffee.
” I sniffled into the napkin, my neck hot with the mortification of breaking down in front of this stranger in a crowded coffee shop. “I should just skip it.”
He gave a quick hum sound and finished his drink. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Skip the wedding. Cake and the chance to line dance with total strangers? That’s not an opportunity you get every day. I’ll be your plus-one.”
“What? No,” I said, pushing the soggy napkin into my pocket. “You don’t need to do that. You only committed to fifteen minutes and coffee.”
“I’m a great wedding date.” He motioned to his chest. “I look good in a suit, I talk to strangers easily, I’m a great dancer, and I have a decade of combat and medical training in case the ‘Cha-Cha Slide’ gets out of hand.
” He held out another napkin. “And I promised Cruz I’d make sure you didn’t rebound with someone regrettable, so I can’t, in good conscience, let you go it alone and end up with Cousin Rupert. ”
“Who is Cousin Rupert?”
“Exactly.” Deacon ran long fingers through his hair and grinned. “We don’t even know this guy. Better stick with me as a plus-one.”
My phone buzzed twice on the table. “Shoot,” I said, fumbling with the phone and bumping my plastic cup in the process.
Deacon’s hand shot out to catch it before it flipped to the ground, and the buzzing finally stopped. “Did you set an alarm to get rid of me quickly?”
“I didn’t know if you’d be a weirdo,” I admitted, accepting my cup back from him.
“Oh, I am a weirdo.” He winked, then offered me a charming smile. “A weirdo who is taking you to a wedding. What time should I pick you up? I assume I’m driving since I threw away your learner’s permit with that black coffee?”
I giggled again, but this time I didn’t hide my amusement. “You really don’t have to.”
“Cruz is my brother in all the ways that matter, and you’re more important to him than anyone, so consider yourself stuck with me, at least until he gets back.”
I nodded. “Okay. I accept.” He stood and held out a hand for me as I scooted from behind the table. His hands were rough but his grip gentle, and I caught the scar near his knee I’d somehow missed when he walked toward me. “Thank you.”
“See,” he said, as we walked toward the exit, with him offering a wave to the staff as we passed. “There’s something to my method of starting with the big questions.”
The warmth of the sunshine hit my face as we exited, and I squinted against the glare.
I’d known Deacon Rakes for all of fifteen minutes and told him about Sylvia, had a meltdown, and secured a wedding date.
He held up a palm for a high five, a throwback to our initial greeting.
“It’s the start of something here, Willow Lewis. The start of something big.”