A Perfect Match

CHAPTER ONE

P IPER

“Good morning, Mr. Beverly!”

The wizened man watering his nearly-dead petunias is the first thing I see as I step out onto the front deck of my second-story apartment.

Past his small bungalow, the sparkling waters of Briggs Bay shine in the early morning sun.

It’s seven thirty on this mid-September morning.

That doesn’t stop Mr. Beverly from tending his summer plants, which are ready to give their last gasp.

He lifts a hand, a big grin crossing his face. “Morning, Piper! Don’t spend too much time on the commute, okay?”

His guffaw rings through the air, prompting my own giggle.

We’ve been trading these words for two years now, as long as I’ve lived in the apartment above my marshmallow and confectionary shop, Cloud Nine Confections.

How cute is that? My commute is twenty seconds—thirty if I’m feeling sluggish—but I love the transition from cozy nested home space to carefully curated work space.

My footsteps pound down the worn wooden staircase hugging the back of the building.

The last step feels like it might give out, but that’s a landlord problem, one that I’ve been trying to get on Mrs. Decker’s radar for the past several months.

It’s hard to get her attention when it comes to upkeep on the building—she’s roughly two hundred years old and quite possibly lives in her native Germany—but occasionally she writes me an email with a promise to have one of her contentious sons look into repairs, so that’s nice.

My keys clang against the metal back door.

I’m grinning already. I love my business; I love inhabiting the space above my shop like some sort of weird marshmallow gremlin; I love everything about my cute little lakeside hometown and all the marshmallow-hungry fiends I call my customers and friends. It’s my dream life.

Mostly.

I take a deep breath of the sweet scent of the back room, propping open the door to let some of that cool lake air drift in.

I breeze through the shop, turning on lights, warming up the espresso machine, lighting ovens.

It’s all second nature to me—I could do this with my eyes closed and asleep.

Once all the lights are on, the cute confection-core theme of my shop is all I can see.

I’ve curated every last inch of this space to be an experience.

One entire wall is a living moss backdrop (thanks, online instruction videos!); I installed a very small waterfall off to one side, which took me thirteen times as long as it would a professional, but dammit, I did it myself.

Bulbous, cottony clouds hang by invisible wire from the ceiling.

There are various spots along the moss wall where customers can sit at reclaimed wood tables, each one unique and paired with interesting chairs in a variety of bright colors.

Illustrated marshmallows, cupcakes, suckers and more adorn the walls by way of framed pictures, neon lights, and wall decals.

The entire place is a feast for the eyes, and there is an overwhelming amount of pink .

Just as I prefer it.

I’ve unlocked the front door and just poured my first latte for the day, the soothing notes of today’s playlist pumping through the shop speakers—island reggae—when I spot someone darting across the sidewalk outside my shop.

Thanks to her dark hair smoothed back into a low bun and crisply pressed white blouse set against high-waisted black slacks, I don’t need to see her face to know who it is. This woman is a local celebrity.

Hazel Daly.

She pushes into my shop, the bells jingling against the glass as she glides in.

Hazel is Bayshore’s number one realtor, but she doesn’t make a habit of being a doorbuster at Cloud Nine Confections.

She tosses me a bright grin, but it fades quickly.

Something dark tugs at the edges of her features, and I immediately get a knot in my stomach.

“Why do you look like you aren’t here for s’mores and coffee?” I ask.

“Piper.” Hazel walks up to me, her heels clicking against the wood flooring. “I don’t love that I’m starting your day this way, but…”

“But?” I already have a high pitch to my voice. Hazel and I grew close after I catered her and Grayson’s wedding with a late-night s’mores station and other marshmallow infused treats. I’m not afraid to go screechy in front of her.

“I just found out something you need to know.” Her gaze drops to the countertop between us, and then she squares her shoulders. “This building has been sold in a secret sale. The deed was transferred yesterday.”

I blink once. Then again. I don’t even know how to make sense of her words. “ Sold ?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t even know it was for sale,” I sputter.

“Me neither. I think we both would have been very interested in that information,” Hazel says with a sigh.

“Mrs. Decker never said anything to me.” I don’t add more when I realize she doesn’t usually say much to me anyway.

“From what I heard,” Hazel goes on, “the secrecy was a way to avoid some sort of family meltdown.”

I frown, finally feeling able to take a sip of my latte. It immediately churns in my gut. “That sounds about right. Her sons are not exactly what I would call easy to get along with. They fight over everything. But why didn’t she say anything to me?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Do you know who bought it or…what they plan to do with it?” I can hardly utter the last part of that sentence. A new owner of the building could mean a lot of things. And most of them aren’t great.

“All I could find out was that it’s an out-of-towner,” she says. “Their primary plans center around developing the empty side of the building.”

That tidbit feels like a kernel of hope. The empty side of the building—that’s all they want. I’ve always wondered about that unused storefront and distantly hoped to perhaps someday expand into it…if I ever gather the courage to expand my business beyond these four walls.

“So not kicking me out,” I said slowly.

“Let’s hope not,” Hazel says in a firm voice.

“I think you’ll be fine—you have a lease in place, right?

That, at the very least, will ensure you have time to get your ducks in a row.

If you even need to. You might be facing a change of ownership, but I think they would be stupid to uproot a successful business that will essentially be paying their mortgage. ”

Something in her voice feels like a balm.

Cool, collected Hazel is right. New owners don’t have to mean I’ll be kicked to the curb and forced to sell my business, move out of Bayshore, and stop selling marshmallows across all fifty United States per some ridiculous new legal agreement that somehow appeared out of thin air.

That’s ludicrous, even though I’d been secretly thinking that as a doomsday possibility.

“Thanks for letting me know,” I finally say.

Hazel reaches across the countertop, squeezing my wrist. “You’re welcome. Wanted you to know ASAP. Let me know what else you find out and if there’s anything I can do, okay?” She winks and offers a reassuring smile. “I gotta run to a meeting, but I’ll swing by later this week.”

I watch her go, feeling both scared and oddly calm. This could either be completely fine or the beginning of an unimaginable nightmare. Who knows? Certainly not me.

Regulars begin to file in, either looking for their favorite coffees en route to the job or ready to settle in for a morning of remote work.

Things are bustling for the first hour—one of my busiest times of day—and the hubbub helps me forget a little bit about the looming questions.

Being forced to be on for my customers—bright smile at the ready, scripts on hand to describe today’s specials—helps me forget about the anxiety gnawing at my gut.

But the second business lulls, the questions are back.

Who bought the building, if not one of Mrs. Decker’s outrageously unappetizing sons?

How did this mysterious new owner even find out it was for sale?

What might they put in the other half of the building?

Before I can even stop myself, I’m imagining the types of businesses that would want this lakeside proximity.

A pool supply store. A yoga studio! Perhaps a boutique of some sort?

There are so many innocuous things it could be. Changing ownership doesn’t have to be dire. Surely Hazel will return next week and we’ll have a good laugh about how screechy I was for no reason at all.

I’m determined to not spend my day festering in uncertainty, so I move my attention to other aspects of my life.

Between customers, I work on prepping more goodies for the rest of the week.

I schedule a few posts on social media. I fantasize about a new business I’d like to start, even though the thought of sharing my hopes about this with anyone—especially my brothers—makes me feel sick.

I reflect on the earth-shattering orgasms I had with a guy I met in a Cleveland club last month.

Oh, wait. I’m not supposed to be thinking about that either.

I look around the shop, curious if anyone noticed that my mind had gone down such a naughty route. All of the customers here are either staring at their laptops or absorbed in conversation. Phew.

I annoy myself with how much I still think about that guy.

We spent eighteen hours of bliss in a swanky hotel room, yet I never got his real name.

I’m not in a phase of life that has room for dating or falling in love, so I’m not eager to find him again.

But at the same time, I’m dying to find him again.

He’d be a lot easier to forget if he hadn’t dicked me down so good.

Also if the only name he’d given me wasn’t Uncle Lobster.

That one night in Cleveland had been a pressure release valve for me, up to and including the amazing sex we experienced for hours and hours on top of all available surfaces in his hotel room.

He’d slipped me his number—no legal name, unless his parents really did put Uncle Lobster on his birth certificate—but I let it float into the trash can at home the next day, even as a part of me was screaming not to let him disappear.

Do I regret ghosting Uncle Lobster? Absolutely. But that night had only been about releasing the pressure. Having a boyfriend is a non-option with my overprotective older brothers. I got Uncle Lobster out of my system—now I could continue with my regular life.

Except nothing feels very regular anymore with a mysterious new owner lurking next door.

I while the day away amid low-grade anxiety and sips of hot cocoa.

It’s early September, so technically still summer, but I’m ushering in the fall specials here at Cloud Nine.

S’mores and hot cocoa are my jam—and my cash cows—and I’ll be working overtime the next few weeks trying to get everyone stocked and ready for sweater weather.

Around two p.m., an unnaturally large cargo van pulls into the parking lot, followed by a few other vehicles.

I only notice it because the van spends a lot of time backing into one spot, only to pull out, choose another spot, park again…

and finally pull out and drive right up next to the sidewalk, completely blocking the sidewalk egress to the parking lot.

I’m not sure what’s going on, other than an extremely indecisive driver.

I keep an eye on the scene beyond my huge front windows while also replenishing that day’s specialty marshmallows: caramel pumpkin.

As I slice the block of marshmallow into small cubes, I notice a group of men standing on the sidewalk in front of the open side door of the van.

A knot in my gut tells me this has to be related to the new owner.

These men don’t look like they’re here for s’mores and a latte. The equipment bursting out of the van tells me they’re here to work.

The man with his back to the building suddenly turns and walks down the sidewalk, leading to the empty half of the building.

The trendy angles of his haircut snag my attention first: short on the sides with longer layers on top that catch the afternoon light.

Then my gaze drops to the broad, muscled planes of his shoulders stretching a thin black T-shirt that's seen better days.

He moves with a distinct stride—somewhere between the confident swagger of someone who owns the place and the distracted urgency of a man with too much on his mind.

The closer he gets to the building the more details I begin to recognize.

Chestnut hair that I already know how it feels to run my fingers through.

A barrel chest that tapers to a lean waist, the kind of build you'd find on a linebacker who also happens to spend his days lifting heavy pans and hauling fifty-pound sacks of flour.

His forearms are a roadmap of thin scars—some precise as knife cuts, others jagged from kitchen mishaps.

Understanding begins a slow, uncomfortable prickle through my gut.

He removes his sunglasses as he strides past the front door of Cloud Nine, heading for the shop next door. The movement exposes his bicep and the chaotic lobster tattoo there—all claws and curves in black ink that I remember tracing with my tongue.

I know this man. Not just his body, but the way he felt inside me. Including how many orgasms he gave me.

This is the man who told me with a wink: Do you like raisins? How about a date?

The man I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

Uncle Lobster.

And if the way he’s pulling open the door of the shop next to me means anything, he might be my new landlord.