Chapter Three
P iper checked her phone as she approached Bellham’s Café. Perfectly on time. No messages from her date. Everything was good.
The place was gorgeous. Even in the freezing weather, a cozy glow emitted from inside, and lit up the box planters out front. Inside was even better. The undulating wooden ceiling, made from warm-toned slats, was one of the coolest ceilings Piper had ever seen.
She paused, moving out of the doorway, and glanced around. When you were meeting someone for dinner or a movie, it was pretty clear what the etiquette was—you waited at the bar or outside the theater for them to show up. When you were getting coffee, the rules were off. There were no rules about waiting for your whole party to arrive before being seated. There was no clear answer on whether it was expected that you’d get a drink and wait for them, or wait for them and then get drinks together.
That was also the moment Piper realized she should have asked more identifying questions. ‘A woman with brown hair’ narrowed down nothing. Even after a couple of dates, she was so used to dating apps where you could see the person’s photos that she kept forgetting what it would be like to try meeting someone with no clue how to identify them.
Rather than simply loitering by the door, Piper joined the line at the counter. There were far too many brunette women in the place for her to have any guesses on which one she was supposed to be meeting—and, of course, it could be none of them.
She pulled out her phone and opened the app. Hey! Just got here and realized we didn’t figure out a way to identify each other! Just waiting to order. If you’re here, I’m in a tan coat and red beret. Let me know if I can get you anything!
Piper had been on more than enough dates to not be nervous before them anymore. After a parade of terrible dates, she found there was no use in getting nervous and more use in assuming the worst and hoping for the best.
She sent the message and almost immediately heard a ping.
“Well, that was convenient,” she said to the woman in front of her in line, from whose pocket the app’s familiar ping had sounded.
The woman turned around with a questioning expression. Her brown, wavy hair was cut asymmetrically and brushed back in a way that looked as though she’d casually run a hand through it but that could actually have taken half an hour of styling.
“I guess you don’t need my description of what I’m wearing now,” Piper said with a smile.
The woman narrowed her eyes. “It’s you?”
“Well, I just sent a message and you just dinged, so…”
“Wow. Sorry. I was just expecting… I don’t know what I was expecting. I don’t do this a lot.” She frowned. “Sorry.”
Piper laughed. “Don’t worry. I do it all the time and this is already going a lot better than most of them.”
She winced. “That good, huh? Maybe I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be talked into getting back on the dating scene.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Even if it goes terribly, you end up with great stories to tell your friends, family, random strangers at the doctor’s office.”
“That something you do a lot, is it? Tell strangers your dating mishaps?”
Piper grinned. “Oh, far more often than you’d think. Really raises the tone of a gathering.”
She laughed, the sound warm and full. “I can only imagine.”
“Want me to go back out and re-enter in a more memorable way so you’ll have a good story for the strangers?”
“Oh, I don’t know. This feels pretty memorable so far.”
“Indeed, but is it the kind of memorable that’s going to bond you with a bunch of strangers who are either going through the same thing and grateful they’re not alone, or sitting there smug because they’re off the market and feeling great they’re not in your shoes?”
“Oh. Ouch. So, you’ve had some rough dates?”
“The last one said she was booking the restaurant, didn’t, and just stood looking at me, silently, when we walked up to the host at the restaurant she was supposed to book.”
She stared at Piper with wide eyes. “She didn’t say anything? Didn’t warn you?”
“Nope. Honestly, across the entire date, I could probably count the number of things she said on my fingers.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t a five-minute date.”
“It was not.”
“Wow.” She nodded slowly. “Okay, yeah, this is already a million times better than that and, I guess, isn’t going to get me any points at the doctor’s office.”
Piper smirked. “Am I sad about that? I don’t think so.”
A smile broke out on her face, moving in a way that made it feel like she was a flower blooming, each part of her face lifting and brightening until she was radiant, with a row of perfect, white teeth on display. “I can see that. Can’t say I’m sad I won’t be the villain of the piece at your next checkup either.”
“Oh, you should be. I’ve got a dental appointment next week and you could have been the star. Got to give them a good performance so they forget to ask me if I’ve been using their recommended toothpaste.”
“I’m guessing you haven’t?”
“No. Can’t stand the stuff. Weird aftertaste. I’m sticking with my usual. Seems to have served me well so far.”
She looked pointedly at Piper’s mouth and, for one second, Piper’s stomach jolted. The move felt forward and flirtatious, and Piper felt interested. It almost felt too much for a café, even if she had started it and knew it wasn’t anything salacious.
“Seems like it’s serving you very well,” the woman said.
Piper felt herself blush. It had been a long time since she’d blushed on a date, and she’d never done it so early on. “Thank you very much. My friends aren’t going to know what to do with themselves when I tell them about this introduction. They were expecting terrible things from an app with this level of anonymity.”
She nodded. “Honestly? Me too.”
Piper laughed. “Yeah, fair.”
She laughed and moved forward in line. “So, since we’re talking about it, is this a good time to introduce ourselves?”
“It does rather seem like the thing to do, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe just a little. While there’s a case to be made for the mystique of not knowing, I think this whole thing might go better if we do.”
Piper grinned. “Piper Sutton.”
“August Carmichael. Nice to meet you.”
“August is a cool name,” Piper said, watching as the person in front of August placed their order. She didn’t have time to ask a lot of questions before ordering was going to interrupt the flow of their conversation.
August laughed. “Thanks. My name’s actually Augusta, after my grandmother, but that just didn’t feel very… me. August, however, I could get on board with.”
Piper frowned. “Your parents introduced you as a baby as Augusta?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. Augusta Carmichael. Grand name for a toddler.”
“Hey,” August said, shuffling to the counter, “I got off lightly compared to my brother.”
Piper bit back the question—the demand, almost—to know what August’s brother was called. The barista had turned and was asking August what she wanted. Piper absolutely couldn’t keep the whole place waiting just because she wanted to know what the rest of that sibling set was.
August ordered a cappuccino and Piper smiled. She was entitled to get whatever she wanted, but Piper knew that if she wasn’t feeling a date, she’d get a smaller drink. It was a good sign.
In truth, it wasn’t just August’s name that was cool. She was the coolest person Piper had ever met through online dating. And she was definitely an August, not an Augusta—Piper could already tell. She’d never given much thought to either name before, but, as she watched August paying, it was suddenly very clear to her that those were two completely different people.
“Cinnamon latte, please,” Piper said as she took her turn stepping up to the counter. And, as soon as the barista didn’t have any other questions for her, she turned to look at August. “What’s his name?”
August grinned. “Buford. After our great-grandfather.”
Piper grimaced. “Yeah, okay. That is an old name. Don’t meet a lot of Bufords these days.”
“Or a lot of Augustas.”
“Yeah… Your family is all about those honor names, huh?”
“Just a little,” she said, leaning against the pickup counter with one hand. She might just have been the coolest person Piper had ever met.
“August and Ford rather than Augusta and Buford. Yeah, you sound a lot younger in the former.”
August laughed. “Thank god for that, hey? You’d never have agreed to this date if you knew my name was Augusta.”
“What?” Piper looked at her with wide eyes. “Yes, I would.”
“Oh, you’re into GILFs, are you?”
“Oh, my god. No. I am not. But I still would have agreed to this date.”
“You would not,” she insisted with a laugh. “Ford got dumped once when someone found out his actual name. Believe me, I know how these things go.”
“Hey, your name could be the rarest, most unusual, most Victorian name in existence, and I’d still be here.”
“That’s a pretty big claim, Ms. Sutton.”
Piper stepped a little closer, her coat almost like a barrier between the two of them and the world. This was the best date opener she’d had in some time and she wasn’t letting it go to waste. “I know your name now, and I’m still here.”
August narrowed her eyes slightly, but straightened up, acquiescing. “Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that. Ford will be so proud.”
Piper laughed. “Hey, the jury’s still out on him.”
“I think you’d like him. Or, I guess, I think he’d like you. I don’t know you well enough to say what you’d like, but, honestly, I think you’d enjoy him.”
Piper smiled. It was clear August loved her brother and the two of them were close. It was sweet. “You two have a good relationship,” she observed, more a prompt than a question.
“Yeah,” August said softly as her drink was deposited on the counter. “He’s my little brother and I worry about him, but he’s a great guy. Hell of a chef.”
“Oh, cool. Is that what he does?”
“Culinary school, part-time chef at a diner, and apparent in-home caterer, if you ask his roommates.”
Piper winced at the slightly bitter tone in August’s voice. “Ah. Shared living. Tricky.”
“Yeah, I’m glad I live alone. Except when Ford is crashing.”
Piper nodded, picking up her own drink from the counter. “I can imagine. I live with someone, but she’s one of my best friends and we choose to live together. It’s a little different than roommates in college.”
“Yeah. I don’t miss those days.” August laughed and nodded towards two free seats at the window bar. “Should we?”
“Absolutely,” Piper said before she turned around to see a woman with long, flowing brown hair, stepping through the door with an expectant expression.
And she immediately locked eyes with Piper.
She started striding over to Piper, looking pointedly at the mug she was holding.
In her peripheral vision, Piper realized August had stopped moving towards the seats she’d pointed to.
“That’s not my Americano,” the woman said, stopping in front of Piper.
“No?” Piper said, furrowing her brow.
“Are you still waiting for it?”
“Sorry, who are yo—”
“Tan coat, red beret. You’re the only one in here with those things, so…”
Piper stared. The thoughts racing through her brain didn’t make any sense. It took her longer than it should have to realize those were the words she’d sent to her mystery date. But August’s phone had beeped exactly as she shared the message. How could someone else in the same café have gotten a message from the exact app Piper was using right as she sent it?
“Oh,” she whispered, stunned.
The woman stared at Piper. “So? Are you still waiting for my drink?”
“I haven’t ordered it yet.” Coming up with something smoother would have required Piper to be in a less confused state.
Seriously, how was it that she’d happened upon someone else having a date there right at the same moment she was?
The brunette rolled her eyes. “I’ll just get it. You get a table. I don’t want to sit at that weird bar in the window.”
“Okay.” Piper turned slowly towards August. “I think you should, uh, check your messages.”
August frowned like she, too, understood what was happening but didn’t understand quite how it was. Still, she pulled her phone out and tapped away at it for a moment. “Ah.”
“News from someone who isn’t me?”
August winced. “Yeah. My date is late. And not wearing a tan coat and red beret…”
“That tracks,” Piper said, shaking her head.
Of course it had been too good to be true. She never had managed to book herself an actually great date. And, now that her real date was here, she figured it would be rude to call the whole thing off. She at least had to try. She couldn’t just be attracted to people she hadn’t matched with and wasn’t supposed to be on a date with while ignoring the person she had matched with and agreed to meet.
August cleared her throat. “I guess there’s a benefit to using apps with pictures after all.”
Piper laughed, a little awkwardly. “I guess so.” She glanced back at her actual date, who was ordering. “Well, good luck, I suppose? It was nice meeting you.”
August nodded towards Piper’s date. “You too. Have fun.”
Piper smiled and headed off to find a table. Her date had seemed sweet over messages. She hadn’t been expecting the energy she’d been greeted with. Although, if she’d arrived to find her date not expecting her and chatting to another woman, she’d probably have been a little cold, too.
She found a small table squeezed between someone on a laptop and a couple with young twins, wearing adorable coordinating pink and yellow hats to help identify them.
“Ugh. This place is so busy,” Piper’s date said, looking around with a grumpy expression.
“Well, you know, it’s new and a Saturday. These things happen,” Piper replied softly. “I’m still glad to meet you.”
She sucked in a breath and plastered on a sickly smile. “Yes. I suppose that’s true. We’re here now.”
“So, should we do introductions?”
She laughed. “No. Thank you. I use Hummingbird precisely for the anonymity.”
“Oh.” Piper frowned. When they’d been messaging, she hadn’t given the slightest inclination she was looking for a quick, anonymous hookup. Piper didn’t have anything against that as an approach, but it wasn’t what she was interested in, so she never would have agreed to the date if she’d known. “I think I might be a disappointment if that’s what you’re after…”
The woman stared. “You aren’t doing the same thing?”
“No?”
“It’s an anonymous app. Isn’t that kind of the whole point? A little bit of fun, no strings, no names, no way to trace or track or get involved in each other’s lives.”
“I guess that’s one way to use it, but, yeah, no, that’s not really my thing. At this point in my life, I’m looking for something a bit more serious.” Piper glanced at the children at the next table, ensuring they weren’t overhearing the conversation.
She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe this is happening again.”
“Not your first time, huh?”
“No. You’re like the third woman who hasn’t been interested as soon as we meet. At first, I thought this was exactly what I wanted. Now, this? I don’t get it. When did everyone become so serious and boring?”
Piper pursed her lips for a moment. “Do you want my opinion?”
“Please. I can’t keep doing this. I don’t have time to waste on people who aren’t interested.”
Piper really couldn’t fathom how she’d seemed so different in their messages. If she didn’t know better, she’d think it had been a completely different woman she’d been talking to. “Your messages… they don’t give the impression that you’re after a quick… fling.”
She frowned. “It’s just conversation, isn’t it? Seeing if you get along. What difference does it make?”
“Well…” Piper didn’t want to just outwardly say that she seemed like a completely different person in real life. “Well, it’s just that the other person is probably checking whether you get along for dating. If you don’t say outright that it’s not that, I don’t think you’re on the same page and you end up here.”
“Ugh. I hate having to spell things out. Why can’t we just be on the same page? It’s literally anonymous. What else would I be using it for?”
“Well, your call. I can’t tell you what to do.”
She sipped her drink. “So, you’re not interested in hooking up right now?”
Piper saw the guy closest to them whip his head in their direction before checking that his children didn’t hear. “Not for me, sorry. I’m sure you’re lovely and it would be fun, but not for me.”
“Fine. Well, I’m gonna take off then, if that’s okay?”
“Absolutely. And, maybe think about mentioning it next time? To save you… wasting time again?”
“Eh. Maybe.” She paused. “Your hat looks good, by the way.”
Piper laughed in surprise. “Thank you.”
She nodded, picked up her cup, downed her drink, and twirled before striding off towards the door.
“Well, that was interesting,” Piper muttered to herself out loud.
“Dating, huh?” the guy from the next table said.
His husband laughed and leaned around him to look at Piper. “It took us a few attempts too. You’ll get there.”
“Thank you,” Piper said with an embarrassed laugh.
“Get where, Daddy?” the twin in the yellow hat asked.
“All the way to the moon,” he said, standing up and lifting her into the air. “Should we get some cake as a little treat?”
“Yes,” she squealed happily, gripping tight onto him.
Piper watched them walk to the counter and her eyes fell past them towards the window seat she’d almost been occupying. August was looking up at a woman who had just arrived. Black coat, Fair Isle hat.