Chapter 1 #2
“Get in here,” Hannah hissed when I stepped into the doorway.
I moved all the way into the hot, cramped space, but before I could say anything, Hannah grabbed my wrist and closed the distance between us.
“You are not going to go another day without asking for the hot ginger’s phone number,” Hannah scolded me as something on the stove started to boil.
I laughed. “Is that what this is? You’re concerned for my dating life?”
“I’m concerned because you always turn pink whenever that guy comes into the shop, and I’m tired of watching the two of you dance around each other every morning without doing anything about it.” Hannah’s eyes flashed with mischief and warning.
“Hannah, I don’t even know if he’s gay,” I protested. “Do you know how awful it is to hit on someone or ask them out only to have them turn out to be straight?”
“Um, yeah, I do,” Hannah sassed back. “That was pretty much the story of my life until Jenny came along.”
“So you know why I haven’t said anything yet.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Hannah insisted. “But if you’re that worried about things going wrong if you take a risk, might I offer a small suggestion?”
I arched one eyebrow, pretending to be skeptical when really, I was game for anything.
Hannah stepped to the side and handed me a large carafe filled with freshly brewed coffee. “It’s not the regular stuff. It’s that blueberry coffee the distributor threw in with the rest of the samples.”
“That stuff was horrible,” I said, carefully taking the carafe from her.
“Yeah, it was,” she said. “Which means as soon as he’s out the door, he’ll take one sip, know you gave him the wrong stuff, and he’ll come back to complain.”
“You want me to ask a guy out by coming up with a reason for him to complain about our products?”
“I want you to get the man back in here so you can have a real conversation with him,” Hannah said, “and if that means using terrible coffee to get the job done, then so be it.”
I smirked, but part of me thought she had a good point.
Theo Callihan was a creature of habit. He’d proven that over the past several months that he’d been coming into Common Grounds.
Hannah might have been onto something when she said that the only way to pop someone out of a routine was to throw a wrench in the works.
“I’ll try it,” I whispered to her conspiratorially. “But if this chases a hot guy away forever, it’s on your head.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take so I don’t have to watch you two mooning over each other every morning without saying anything.”
I laughed and shook my head, then walked out of the kitchen with the pot of horrible, blueberry coffee.
“Sorry about that,” I apologized to Theo, who had waited patiently at the counter, his graceful hands resting on the edge like a work of art, through the whole exchange.
“Hannah just needed to brew a new pot. But I’ve got it now. ”
“Do you want me to—”
I stopped Brian’s question with a subtle shake of my head and slid into his prep station to fetch a cup and pour for Theo myself. Brian clearly knew something was up, but he’d always been the sort to wait and see before barging in and potentially making a mess of things.
“You didn’t have to go through all that trouble for me,” Theo said when I brought the cup over to him.
“It’s no problem, really,” I said, unable to hide my grin.
How could the man not know I was up to something?
He met my gaze with those beautiful, serious, green eyes of his and reached for the cup before I could pull my hand away.
Our fingers touched like some cheesy, romantic movie.
I was slow to let go of the cup and he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to lose that miniscule contact between us either.
For about three seconds.
Then Theo cleared his throat and backed up a little too fast, nearly crashing into the middle-aged woman behind him. “Thanks,” he said, ducking his head quickly in what might have been a nod before dodging the rest of the line and heading for the door.
I watched him as he rushed out of the café, desperate to know if Hannah’s ploy would work and he would come running back.
“Smooth,” Linda, the woman Theo had nearly crashed into said, shaking her head with a motherly laugh. “Ah, to be young and in love again.”
“It’s not like that at all,” I laughed along with her. “Just a bit of harmless flirting.”
Linda arched an eyebrow at me. “If that man had ogled your pert little bubble butt any harder, he would have burned a hole through your jeans.”
That made me laugh so hard I snorted and had to cover my face with one hand. “I doubt it was like that at all. Mocha with extra whipped cream and chocolate shavings?” I rattled off her usual order to change the subject.
Linda gave me a sly smile, like she knew that was exactly what I was doing. “I’m on a diet again, so I’ll just have the mocha without the whistles and bells.”
“Silent mocha!” I called out, trusting Brian had overheard the conversation enough to know what I meant.
“Silent mocha,” Brian repeated.
“Si-i-lent mocha!” Hannah sang in the kitchen to the tune of Silent Night.
“That’ll be four ninety-five,” I laughed.
Linda paid and stepped aside to wait. Before I took the next order, I glanced hopefully toward the door, hoping Theo would march back in to demand a refund, replacement, or at least an explanation. Maybe Hannah had a point about doing something to break the ice.
Theo didn’t come back in, though. Instead, my usual routine was interrupted by Gilbert walking back behind the counter with a concerned frown on his face, still studying the paper that the tall guy had dropped off earlier.
“Have you heard anything about this?” he asked.
“About what?” I asked, leaning over to get a better look at the notice.
“It’s a notice about a construction permit for the lot next door,” Gilbert said. “Apparently, someone bought the lot and they’re going to build more retail space there.”
“Build more retail space?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
“Shit,” Brian said, stepping over from the coffee machines to take the paper from Gilbert’s hand so he could read it. “That means a hell of a lot of noise, dirt, and chaos.”
“Does it?” I asked.
It might,” Gilbert said, taking the notice back from Brian and studying it some more as he rubbed the bottom half of his face. I really wished I’d understood the thing more when I’d first looked at it. “I’ll do a bit more research.”
“Construction sucks for places like this,” Brian said as we resumed our places so we could finish out the morning rush.
“Especially if they have to block off the street while everything is underway. Businesses have gone under because of construction next door. That happened to a place I knew back in Pittsburgh.”
I flinched, hitting my toe against the side of the counter as I did. Closing the street would be a nightmare. And Brian was right. Small businesses like ours struggled when access to them was blocked.
I wasn’t going to sink into doom and gloom yet, though. A permit for construction wasn’t the same thing as bulldozers pulling up immediately to knock down walls. I wasn’t sure what I could do about anything, but I trusted my family enough to do whatever it took to keep Common Grounds from closing.