Chapter 7
Diccon
My place wasn’t that far from Theo’s. I walked home, fuming over what part of me saw as a betrayal.
The guy I’d been crushing on for so long and who I’d been so happy to finally go out with was deeply involved in the construction that might spell the end of the one thing that mattered to me more than anything in the world.
And he’d implied I was too stupid to understand.
Or had he?
By the time I reached home and carefully avoided my brothers as they sat up watching TV, maybe even waiting for me to get home and tell them all about my night, and secluded myself in my bedroom, I wasn’t so sure if that’s what Theo had been implying after all.
Not finishing college had been my decision, and I stood by it.
But there were times when I questioned whether people would judge me for it.
Maybe I was judging me for it after all.
I threw off my clothes and stomped across the hall to take a shower before bed, since I hadn’t had time for more than a quick clean-up at Theo’s place. I still smelled a little like him, which tugged at something in my heart and filled me with a combination of longing and regret.
We’d been so good together. The date had been fantastic.
We’d had so much to talk about and so much in common.
I could see myself hanging out with Theo, spending all our time together, entwining our lives.
The sex had been amazing, even though we’d kept things simple.
I could tell the two of us were compatible and that we had the potential for a lot more fun down the line.
I sensed that Theo was vers like me, which was perfect.
So how had everything fallen apart so fast?
I sighed as I flopped into bed, hair still wet from the shower. It was too complicated for me to worry about tonight. I would sleep, let the whole thing settle in my mind, and puzzle through it in the morning.
Except sleep didn’t come easily. I was worried it wouldn’t come at all.
I had too much on my mind, too much weighing me down.
Not just things with me and Theo, either.
I was worried about Common Grounds, worried that I was right and the construction would cut off foot traffic and end us.
I was worried we wouldn’t survive, and I was worried that all the promise of a relationship with Theo that could really mean something would die before it even got started.
The sleepless night made dragging myself into work the next morning a chore.
I could have taken a day off or called out sick or something, but as part-owner of the café, it was my responsibility to go in and work no matter how I was feeling.
At least it was Saturday, which meant the morning crowd was considerably smaller than during the week.
“What can I get you?” I asked the unfamiliar, middle-aged woman in work-out gear who had stared at our menu board for a long time before finally approaching the counter.
“Yeah, I guess I’ll have a non-fat latte,” she said, finally dragging her eyes down from the board above me as she pulled out her wallet.
“One non-fat latte,” I said, subdued and distracted. “That’ll be three ninety-five.”
“One non-fat latte?” Brian asked from his usual spot behind me, near the coffee machine.
It was far from our usual call and response routine in the mornings, especially since Hannah wasn’t there to echo the order in her singing voice.
In fact, if I knew Brian the way I did, I’d say his question was far more personal instead of checking the order.
“Yeah, non-fat latte,” I answered him, taking the woman’s payment with a weak smile.
Brian eyed me, then turned to make the drink. After taking the woman’s payment, I had nothing else to do but sit back and watch him do it. The café wasn’t at all busy. It felt like a harbinger of things to come.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Brian asked as soon as he’d handed off the woman’s drink and it was just the two of us behind the counter with no customers on the horizon. “You’ve been mopey all morning, and that’s definitely not like you.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, shaking my head and leaning against the counter, arms crossed.
“It’s not nothing,” Brian insisted, mirroring my stance against the opposite counter. “You’re usually Mr. Sunshine. Right now, you look more like Mr. Rainy Day.”
That won another weak smile from me, but somewhere between regret over the way things had gone with Theo the night before and worry over the café, that was all I could manage.
“How did the date go last night?” Brian asked cautiously. I figured he knew me well enough to guess where my mood was coming from.
“Great,” I said without enthusiasm. Brian arched an eyebrow. “We had a fabulous dinner at Closed Mondays.”
“I heard that place was good.”
“It is.” I nodded. “The food was good and the conversation was excellent.” I paused before saying, “We went back to Theo’s place after.”
“And?” Brian’s face lit up a bit.
My mouth twitched into a grin, whether I wanted it to or not. “And that was great, too,” I said, flushing with warmth as I remembered. That warmth didn’t last, though. “Right up until I saw the plans for the expansion next door on his kitchen table.”
Brian frowned. “Plans?”
“Architectural plans. He’s the lead architect for the project that’s going to destroy Common Grounds.
” Somewhere in that sentence, my temper over the whole thing returned full force.
“All this time, he’s been flirting with me on the one hand and plotting the demise of the café on the other.
And when I asked a few questions, he shut me down like he thought I was too stupid to understand. ”
“Whoa, whoa,” Brian held up his hands as I started to glower like a thunderstorm. “Wait a second. Because that doesn’t sound at all like the cute, shy redhead who comes in here on the regular and stares at you like you hung the moon.”
“And who also thinks I’m not capable of understanding the impact of a major construction project right next to Common Grounds,” I insisted.
The way Brian frowned at me sent guilty swirls through my gut. He looked like he wanted to say something, but a group of teenagers came into the café making a ton of noise, and we had to stop to serve them.
That took longer than usual, and by the time we were finished, my mood had shifted to tight frustration.
I knew Brian could see it hanging over me like a wet towel. “Okay, what’s really bothering you?” he asked. “Because getting all upset about something like this is not you at all.”
I huffed out a breath, not knowing how to answer that. “Just because I didn’t go to four years of college like everyone else doesn’t mean I’m incapable of understanding when something is about to affect my business,” I said, starting there.
Brian’s eyebrows went up. “Why does it matter whether you went to four years of college or not? I didn’t go to college at all.” A brief look of uncertainty passed over his face.
“I don’t like it when people assume they’re smarter than me,” I said, feeling deeply uncomfortable with the entire conversation.
Brian, of course, picked up on the reason why immediately. “I don’t think Theo thinks he’s smarter than you. What gave you that idea?”
“Because he’s—” I couldn’t make myself go on with the sentence.
I didn’t know what I was going to say anyhow.
I hadn’t really thought he was out of my league because he was more educated than I was, did I?
That didn’t seem right. We were a really good match on every other level. I wasn’t threatened by him at all.
“You said you had a great time,” Brian prompted me. “So when did it go wrong?”
I thought back, trying to be honest with myself. “It went wrong when I saw the blueprints on his table.”
“And why did that matter?” Brian asked.
I blew out a breath. “Because it felt like discovering the guy I want to be with is responsible for destroying the café.”
“But the café isn’t going to be destroyed,” Brian pointed out. “They’re just building something next door.”
I frowned and thought about it some more as another customer came in and our conversation was put on pause.
What was I really upset about? That I was sleeping with the enemy, or at least that I wanted to sleep with the enemy.
I was irritated that Theo hadn’t mentioned anything sooner.
That would have been nice. But he might have been right when he said it hadn’t really come up.
He hadn’t thought it was that big a deal.
Well, it was a big deal. It was a big deal if the place I loved was hurt in any way due to something my boyfriend had put in motion.
I sucked in a breath and took a mental step back over the way I’d instantly thought of Theo as my boyfriend. Even though I was mad at him. There was something else going on here. I hadn’t cared about anyone or anything more than Common Grounds and my family in a long time, but I cared about Theo.
“You don’t think I’m trying to throw up excuses not to get closer to Theo because I feel guilty about caring for someone who’s threatening the café, do you?” I asked Brian once we were alone again.
Brian laughed. “Okay, there are two things wrong with that question,” he said, crossing his arms and shaking his head. “First, you’re not the sort to get squirrely over relationships. You’re not a commitment-phobe, like Sam.”
My eyes popped a little at that statement. Was there something going on between Brian and my brother? That was a problem for another day.
“Second,” Brian went on, “I’m still not convinced this construction project is as big of a deal as you’ve made it out to be in your head.”
“Construction is a pain in the ass,” I said, borderline pissed off with my best friend. “The noise, the dirt, the blocked-off road.”
“Is the road actually going to be blocked off?” Brian asked, holding up his hand to keep me from going on.
“It will have to be,” I said. “Isn’t that what the flier that the guy who came in here the other day gave to Gilbert said?”
“Is it?” Brian asked.
I didn’t want to admit that I’d barely looked at the flier, or that I hadn’t understood what I was looking at when I scanned the thing. Admitting that came way too close to admitting that maybe I wasn’t actually smart enough to understand the implications of the project.
“Hold that thought,” Brian said, pushing away from the counter and heading off to the side, toward the office.
He was only gone for a minute. When he came back, he had the flier with him.
He set it on the counter, and the two of us stood shoulder-to-shoulder, looking at it.
Not only did it announce the project was going forward and set out a timeline, it had a map of the area, including the streets that would be blocked off so construction equipment could get to the site.
“See?” I said, pointing at the part of the map that showed Glenside Ave blocked off. “Forget parking, we’re barely going to be able to get any foot traffic once this mess starts.”
Brian hummed and frowned at the flier. “It doesn’t look good,” Brian said. He straightened and looked at me. “But that’s not Theo’s fault. My guess is the construction company came up with the plans for working on the site and closing off the road. Definitely not him.”
A new wave of guilt tickled my insides. “Are you saying that I ruined a perfectly good date night by getting mad at my potential boyfriend for something that wasn’t his fault, and I walked out on him unnecessarily?”
“You walked out on him?” Brian asked, then shook his head. “Dude.”
“I was upset,” I defended myself, but I suddenly wasn’t sure I was worthy of that defense. “He hit a nerve.”
“Did he know he hit that nerve? Did he actually try to hit it? Or did you let a whole other issue ruin a good time because, I don’t know, you were getting cold feet or something?”
I slumped, leaning my hip against the counter and staring at the flier. “I really like him. It makes my day when he comes in here to order his boring coffee every morning.”
“And maybe you didn’t want to ruin that by turning that fantasy into a reality? One that might disappoint you?”
“Dude. Stop being all wise and therapeutic like that,” I teased him. Because he was probably right. It’d been so long since I was this interested in anyone. I might have built Theo up in my head a little too much before we finally took the step of going out.
“So what do you want to do?” Brian asked. “Do you want to let this project and some insecurity get in the way of you having what could be a life-changing relationship? Or do you want to deal with things and take a shot at love?”
I couldn’t help but grin over how dramatic those questions sounded.
Instead of answering, I looked at the map on the flier again.
“Right. Hear me out. Maybe this is crazy, but why did they decide to close the road off here—” I pointed at the map, “when they might actually be able to bring in construction equipment from the other side, here?” I pointed at a different spot on the map.
“I have no idea,” Brian said. “It would make more sense to close a residential street instead of a major road, if they have to close a road at all.”
“I wonder if anyone has even thought of maybe making the construction entrance here.” I pointed at another spot on the map.
Brian shrugged. “I have no idea, but it seems like that would work to me.”
“It would,” I said, certain of it. “So who do we have to talk to in order to get them to change things?”
Brian looked at me and smirked. “I think you know the answer to that.”
It hit me then that Brian was right. I could talk to Theo about our idea to change the construction entrance so it wouldn’t hurt the café and the other businesses on our street.
Theo, who I’d walked out on the night before.
Theo, who I wanted more than I was comfortable with.
He really was the kind of man who could change my life, in more ways than one.
He was so sweet and smart. We got along so well in all sorts of settings.
He was the kind of man I could see myself spending the rest of my life with.
If I hadn’t messed everything up last night just because I’d been feeling a little insecure.
“There’s only one way to find out,” I sighed, shifting back to stand near the front of the counter as a few new customers came in. “I’m going to have to go back to Theo and grovel a little over the way I walked out on him, and then I’m going to have to ask for his help.”