Chapter 10
Sabrina
After work, Jitter and I take a hike, visit Grandpa for a few minutes, and then head back downtown to meet Laney and a few other friends at House of Curry for a low-key engagement party for one of the owner’s grandsons.
The restaurant is on the next block down from Bean & Nugget, but it feels seven thousand worlds away.
Nani Parvati’s restaurant isn’t in danger of being taken over by someone who wants to gut the Tooth’s favorite Indian restaurant.
Her kids and grandkids are all ready to keep running it into eternity.
Unlike Chandler, whose favorite part of his job was driving around to the various locations and telling people what they were doing wrong, Nani Parvati’s family is always in the kitchen or working the dining room, laughing and joking and teasing each other in the best way.
Jitter shakes it all out outside, and then we join the party.
The restaurant’s about two-thirds full and still open to the public, so it feels like half the community is wandering through tonight.
I get asked a few dozen times how the new Bean & Nugget owner is.
I smile and report things are great at every opportunity. Whatever Grey’s issues with Chandler, they’re separate from my own desire to make sure my cousin doesn’t get to think he’s hurting me too.
Is that petty? Or is it self-protective?
I don’t even know these days.
Laney’s parked at a table in the corner of the red-walled building, and Jitter and I finally make our way to her. Devi, the owner of the gallery next to Bean & Nugget and one of Nani Parvati’s grandkids who isn’t going into the family business, is sitting with her.
“How’s the new boss?” Devi asks me when I slide into the booth next to her. She’s in overalls that are speckled with all colors of paint, as are her brown cheeks and her thick black hair that’s tied up in a messy bun.
“Grumpy,” I reply cheerfully.
Laney makes a what’s wrong with you? face, and I realize I’m doing it here too.
I’m faking the cheerful.
Necessary outside of this booth.
Inside the booth, probably not so much.
“Grumpy and hot?” Devi prompts.
Ugh . Unfortunately.
The look on his face when I almost fell while doing dishes—that intense focus—was exactly the same as it was our night in Hawaii. And then the way he watched me while he helped me finish the dishes—someone pass me an ice bath.
I can tell you why he made me feel good.
It was because the minute that hotel door closed behind us, the world ceased to exist, and Duke— Grey —made me feel like I was the entire world.
I’m not surprised he’s a researcher or that he’d hold a patent for something amazing. He’s intense when he focuses. That likely serves him well in the lab.
Laney hides a smile behind a bite of veggie korma.
I clear my throat. “I think he’s overwhelmed at the change in climate from the West Coast and the pace that things move in small mountain towns.”
Devi’s brown eyes light up. “Ooh, right, he came from California, didn’t he?”
“That’s what I hear.”
Both women eye me.
Laney with are you seriously pretending you’re still off gossip?, Devi with is that all you’ve heard?
“How’s your leg?” I ask Laney, even though I want to ask her how Emma’s doing, which I won’t do unless we’re completely alone.
I’ve been smiling through all of the questions I’ve gotten about her the past week and a half too. Runaway-mooning has turned into my standard answer.
Laney pulls a face. “Annoying. Don’t tell Theo I said that though, or he’ll make it his new mission to make me more comfortable.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Devi asks.
Laney shakes her head. “It’s a good thing. But I think he’s itching to go snowboarding or to do anything other than sit still in his house for one more day, and he won’t if he thinks I can’t survive eight hours without him.”
“He’s surviving this party without you.”
“I asked him to fix me lasagna for lunch tomorrow, and he took off for the market over in Elk’s Knee since he says they have the freshest ingredients for the homemade sauce it needs, and he needs to start it before they open tomorrow.”
Laney hates lasagna.
Which means Theo’s probably actually doing something with or for Emma.
My heart squeezes. I want to be helping too, but for the first time in my life, I don’t know how .
“You two are so cute.” Devi turns to me. “Almost as cute as a petite redhead being caught in the arms of her devastatingly handsome and stupidly tall new boss in her café’s kitchen.”
“I’m off gossip,” I tell Devi. “If you want the scoop, you’ll have to go back to whoever told you that.”
Devi laughs.
Laney sighs.
Jitter rolls his eyes.
Okay, he doesn’t. He puts his head in Laney’s lap and gives her puppy dog eyes like he can’t stand it when anyone is less than happy, and her sigh says she’s less than happy, and he wants to know what he can do to make it better.
“Is this no-gossip thing because of the wedding?” Devi asks me.
“Yep,” Laney replies for me. “I’m against this plan, for the record. Especially since Bean & Nugget’s new owner?—”
“Is planning to convert it into a kombucha brewery?” Devi finishes for her. “I heard he’s calling it a kombrewchery , which is a dumb word. So I agree. Sabrina needs to use all of everything she has to make sure Bean & Nugget stays Bean & Nugget.”
“Who told you?” I ask.
“Frannie. Her mailman’s niece’s boyfriend is one of the three local contractors that were asked for quotes.”
I almost groan.
“Is that wrong?” Devi asks.
“No, that’s correct.” I will not howl in frustration. I will not howl in frustration . “It’s just—” I cut myself off and shake my head. “I feel a little out of my league to do whatever I need to do to change his mind,” I finally say.
“You are never out of your league,” Devi says.
“I am now.”
Laney eyes me.
I give her a slight shrug and hope she interprets it as if he were the same guy he’d been in Hawaii, I’d have a chance .
There are moments when I feel like he’s the same, quietly watching me and taking me all in. And then the next minute, he’s closed off and guarded.
No heart-stopping, crinkly blue-eyed smiles. No pushing to know more about me. No insisting he’s a truly terrible person at heart while he pauses to pick up a piece of trash or tell someone he loves her shirt.
“You ever talk to Chandler?” I ask Devi.
Her brown eyes sparkle in amusement. “So you’re not totally off gossip.”
“I haven’t seen him since the wedding. I haven’t even heard anyone’s seen him since the wedding, and I’m frankly pretty happy about that. Just wondering if— when I should brace myself for a confrontation. Since the Bean & Nugget situation is his fault.”
“I’m on gossip,” Laney says to Devi. “You can tell me everything. Have you talked to him? I want to know how he set up this sale so quietly and how he knows this— ah! ”
Jitter clamors to his feet under the table and bumps her leg.
“ Jitter ,” I say softly. “Down, boy.”
He ignores me and strains on his leash.
At the same time, I realize a slight hush has fallen over the restaurant.
And then there’s the tickle between my shoulder blades filling in the rest of the blanks before I spot the tall figure towering over everyone else.
Grey’s here.
He’s paused just inside the doorway, looking around at the clumps of people gathered between the tables like this is a private party.
“It’s the new café owner,” goes through the dining room in a lightning-fast whisper.
“Holy hotness ,” Devi breathes as she turns to look.
“He is—wow,” Laney adds, twisting as much as she can with her leg still sticking out on a spare chair to get a better view herself.
“ Personality ,” I remind her.
She smirks. “Okay, Ms. Good Deeds.”
“Mr. Greyson,” Nani Parvati calls. “You come in. Come have dinner. Meet my grandson and granddaughter-in-law-to-be. Have dinner.”
“Nani, you said ‘have dinner’ twice,” Devi’s brother says.
“It’s the most important.”
Everyone laughs.
Everyone except Grey.
He’s in jeans and a button-down oxford under his thick wool coat, wearing gloves and his beanie and that beard that he’s growing out, and he’s more deer-in-the-headlights than I’ve seen him since I rescued him in Hawaii.
“Dammit,” I mutter while the locals descend on him.
“What’s he doing here?” Devi whispers. “You have food at Bean & Nugget.”
“He came from San Diego,” Laney whispers back. “He’s probably used to more options for dinner than soup, sandwiches, and pastries.”
“Or maybe someone invited him,” I say.
“Or he’s casing Nani’s joint to take it over next,” Devi says.
I don’t think owning an entire town is his style.
But I do think he’ll be as popular with the single crowd here in the Tooth as Jitter is nearly everywhere we go.
Locals are already converging on him. Probably asking the same questions they asked me, but they get to go right to the source.
A few people glance at me like they want to see if I’m reacting at all to Grey’s presence.
I pretend I don’t notice.
But I do get a little nervous when I realize Kayla Swoosy’s talking to him.
She’s a retired Olympic trampolinist. Yes, it’s a thing. Yes, she did it. But the more important part here?
“What’s that look?” Laney asks me. “Why are you making that face?”
“You know how I’m off gossip?” I whisper.
“I know how you keep saying that.”
“I…told my new boss…some details about people around town that aren’t entirely accurate when I…told him…that I was giving up gossip because I didn’t want to know certain things about certain people anymore.”
It’s not every day that I manage to surprise multiple people around me, but I have clearly done it now.
“You told him gossip about us?” Devi whispers.
“ I changed details .”
“Names? Situations? What?” Laney asks.