Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Charlotte
I woke with a start, amazed I fell asleep in the first place. Kissing my best friend, then storming out and waiting anxiously to see if he’d follow, had kept me wound up for at least an hour after I got back. I’d feared not sleeping, but the exhaustion from starting work this week paired with the sharp come-down off the adrenaline-pumping minutes with Cody had conspired to allow me pretty good sleep.
But the weight of what I’d done, and how he’d responded, and how—no. I didn’t want to start the day there. I needed coffee and probably some water and food. Yet, as nice of a thought as that was, though, the memory of kissing Cody wouldn’t stay out of my head. Or my heart.
Or my body. Yipes.
I tapped on my phone, desperate for music to fill my head instead of the jumbled thoughts I wasn’t ready to tease out. I could feel them waiting there, shoved into the closet of my mind, and I couldn’t open that door just yet. They were a hulking, writhing mass of feelings and conclusions that had to be drawn based on what I’d done and how he’d reacted, but I couldn’t face them without caffeine and food.
Coffee percolated into the carafe, and I stared at the dark drops until a knock jolted me from my daze. My heart thudded in my chest—only one person would knock this early on a Saturday.
I pulled open the door, and my breath hitched. His disheveled hair made him look messy and rough in a way he rarely did. As manly as Cody was now, he was always orderly. This just-rolled-out-of-bed look did great things for him and made my stomach swoop low when he did nothing more than raise an eyebrow at me.
“Did you want to come in?” My voice came out weird, but he didn’t get stuck on that.
“I wanted to see if you had any interest in going to Rise and Shine for some breakfast.”
Whew , those eyes were lasering into me like this was a test. Maybe it was, and if I said no, I’d fail. Good thing I had no intention of saying no, both because I wanted some of the delights offered at that little coffee shop with a sudden and intense desperation I hadn’t realized was there, and because I wanted to be near him.
As jumbled up as I was, the person I craved had delivered himself to my doorstep without my having to ask. I could hardly turn that down.
“Give me five minutes to change, and yes. I definitely do.”
He nodded and stepped back, evidently not coming in. I shut the door a little awkwardly, but who could blame me? I couldn’t tell whether he was being terse because he planned to pretend nothing had happened or because it was early and he never had been very chatty first thing.
I hustled through slipping into jeans and a sweater, scrubbed my face and reapplied moisturizer and a little makeup, brushed my teeth, and grabbed a jacket and my purse on the way out the door. The coffee would be there to greet me when I got back, and I’d be nestled into Rise and Shine in a matter of minutes.
Cody stood waiting on the porch.
“Hey.” Okay, not the most original greeting, but what else could I say? Hey. Weird that I kissed you last night, but also amazing, right?
“Hey. Ready?”
I nodded, an anxious twist in my belly accentuating its emptiness. I needed food. And caffeine. And after that, I needed him to talk to me.
We stepped off the porch and I followed him onto the sidewalk that tracked all the way into town. His little neighborhood was one that had sprung up in recent years on the opposite side of where most other neighborhoods were located. It meant the commute to the bakery came out to only about ten minutes on foot, and I loved that we could walk. I’d always loved that about Silverton, though my parents’ house wasn’t so conveniently located.
Side by side, we walked at a decent clip thanks to the late October chill in the air. The mountains had already gotten snow, and soon, we would too.
The one thought I couldn’t bear to examine too closely came filtering back into my brain despite my most valiant efforts. What if I ruined everything?
Realistically, I knew that was insanely unlikely. Our friendship had stood the test of time and distance. Even if it was different now—not nearly so close as it had been—we still cared about each other. Granted, apparently there was a lot I hadn’t known about Cody’s feelings for me, but the more his words from last night settled from something that was happening to me to something that happened , the more I could digest it all.
Instead of staying caught in my head, I wanted him to talk to me. Needed it, now that I realized we hadn’t said anything in minutes. “So… how was your night?”
Silence greeted me long enough that I turned to look at him. He was doing the squinting thing, eyes ahead, jaw flexed. He looked kind of devastating, and my stomach flipped. If he wouldn’t talk, I’d do my best to fill the space between us.
“I slept pretty well, after a while, um, thinking. Thankfully, I was worn out from work so my brain couldn’t keep me up despite its best efforts.” I wrung my hands together in front of me, then shoved them into my jacket pockets because they were annoyingly cold.
“Oh yeah? What was your brain so focused on?”
My eyes shot to him, but his gaze stayed glued ahead, not giving away anything despite the sly tone to his words. We crossed the street and passed more sleepy storefronts. Rise and Shine would be the only thing open this early, aside from Diner. I’d love to do breakfast there at some point, but today called for bread and coffee.
“We’re going to talk about that just as soon as I have a cappuccino and buttery bread in front of me.”
That made him smile over at me, just a half-smile on one side of that handsome mouth. “Fair enough.”
In another minute or two, we arrived at the adorable shop and Cody held the door for me. It rang a small bell when he pulled it open, and I eagerly entered the bright space. The sunshine yellow walls were cheery and the scent of fresh baking bread made my stomach growl.
“I love this place,” I whispered to myself.
“It’s a great one. Had you been here before this trip?” he asked, gesturing for me to proceed him in line.
“I hadn’t. The last few times I’ve been in town have been soaking up family time or trips to other places in the US. And as you know, I haven’t been to Silverton in years. My family has raved about it, though, so it was one of the first places I went when I got here. And I feel the enthusiasm is all totally merited.”
He readily agreed. “Same. It’s one of those places that lives up to the hype. I hear tourists saying that all the time. You wouldn’t think bread and coffee could be all that good, but it is.”
A tall red-headed guy with a nametag reading “Garrett” beamed at us from behind the counter when we approached. “What can I get for you guys?”
Cody urged me forward with a hand on my lower back, so I stepped up.
“I’ll have a cappuccino and a slice of the day with butter.” Or three slices, but I figured I should start with one.
“I’ll get a black coffee, a slice, a croissant, and whatever you guys have as the special.” Cody pulled out his wallet and tapped his card before I had a chance to protest.
“I feel like I massively under-ordered,” I said quietly as we found a seat after Garrett said it’d be right out.
There were two other people in the store. It didn’t surprise me it was quiet—we were on the edge of tourist season, and more than that, it wasn’t quite eight in the morning on a Saturday. The white tables and chairs made little vignettes in the space, and we chose a spot by the window. Thankfully, they had their heat going so the late fall chill wasn’t seeping through the panes too badly.
“I’ll share.”
The air tripped on its way up my windpipe and I coughed. Why did everything he say sound suggestive or… sexy? Maybe because I’d spent much of last night remembering the feel of his lips on mine. Or the way his hands had felt so large and warm on my body when he’d pulled me closer. The way he’d let out a burst of air, something just shy of a groan when he deepened the contact.
I swallowed hard and smiled, then sighed my relief internally when Garrett presented me with a large, bowl-sized, robin’s egg blue cappuccino cup and saucer and set a nicely rounded mug of the same color in front of Cody.
“Be right back with the goods,” he said with a courteous nod.
“That cappuccino is nearly the size of your head,” Cody said, chuckling into his steaming mug.
“Did you see the little mountain design he did in the foam? So magical!” I would have to recommend breakfast or at least coffee at this place to every guest I spoke with in the next few months. What a gem.
A tiny burst of pride hit. Not for myself, but for my hometown. I’d noticed the new businesses, the facelifts some of the buildings had gotten, the lovely things like this. I’d been hearing about it since I’d left because my parents never missed an opportunity to make sure I knew things had improved here. But at the same time, I couldn’t say I ever thought it’d matter. In years past, whenever I came home, it only served to confirm my choices to stay away.
Something felt different this time. Maybe it was the fact that the company I’d been loyal to for close to a decade hadn’t been loyal to me and I’d gotten laid off like an afterthought. Or maybe it was my place in life—nearing thirty, ready to consider a different way of living.
Or maybe it was Cody.
“Garrett is an artist with coffee.” His tone was closed, an edge to it lingering in the air.
As I took a tentative sip of my drink, I eyed him. Yep. His jaw was flexing. He wanted to get down to the meat of the discussion, not sit here talking about foam mountains in coffee. He got anxious with conflict or anything that felt unresolved, so his tightly-wound energy didn’t surprise me.
I took another drink and steeled myself for whatever came next. As soon as I admitted to myself that the time for this conversion had come, nerves flooded in like the dam broke.
“Um. So. Last night.”
Cody’s eyes drilled into mine, all intensity and focus. My stomach flipped and kicked around doing the cancan.
He dipped his chin and said in a low voice the small group now lined up in front of the counter wouldn’t hear. “Time to tell me what’s going on in that head, Charlie.”