Tamsin
The coffee shop may look small and quaint from the outside, but it’s actually a beast to run.
Between the drinks and the baking and the cleaning and the socializing and the cats, there’s a lot to remember.
By the time Sammie turns the sign on the door to ‘closed,’ and Delilah begins filling the mop bucket with water, my head feels like it could explode with the training I’ve been given today.
The coffee maker is temperamental at best, but sinister at worst. The cats each have their quirks, and I caught one repeatedly trying to break into the pastry case. The customers are obviously part of the furniture here, having been coming somewhat daily since it opened, I think.
And then there is Demyan Federov. The man who was staring at me in the bookstore, and has spent the majority of today staring at me.
“You know, it’s really off-putting to have a man stare at you like that,” I say to him, sliding into the chair opposite. My mother was sitting here earlier, but no one has dared sit here since she left.
“Your eyes are hazel,” he says, like it’s the most normal thing in the world to just declare some random physical fact about a total stranger, to the stranger.
“Okay,” I say. “I mean, obviously I know. I see them in the mirror every morning.”
I continue looking at him, waiting for an explanation for this weird behavior.
Delilah says something under her breath about obsessive Federov men and Sammie shakes her head with a smile.
“Go to dinner with me?” he asks. I mean, I assume it’s a question but it certainly didn’t sound like one.
I bark out a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and frustration.
“Why the hell would I go to dinner with you? I don’t even know you.”
If my words hurt his feelings, it certainly doesn’t show on his face. His handsome face. His eyes are icy and look like they could cut stone. Not that I’m looking to remember these details, but he pointed out my eye color first.
His now dart across to Dee, and then back to me.
“I urm…” he swallows, and I realize that he doesn’t know what he is doing. I narrow my eyes, because this all feels a little too twilight zone to me.
Sammie walks over to the table with two plates of cake.
“Tamsin,” she says, as Misha stirs against her breast. “This is my cousin-in-law, Demyan. He works with my husband in their family business…” She hesitates for a moment, then adds, “in shipping and freight.” She is smiling, almost in an encouraging way at me and I wonder if I’m being set up.
It’s been a long time since I went on a date. Not since before the contract with the cruise liner. I was too busy dancing and working to take any sort of romantic life seriously. Now I’m twenty-four and feel completely untethered from any kind of normalcy when it comes to relationships.
Demyan is looking at me. He hasn’t touched the cake. Red, one of the cats, is making his way over and getting ready to steal it away until Dee catches him by his middle and redirects him to the cat tree in the corner.
“Demyan, this is Tamsin, she is one of our oldest friends, a professional dancer, and an all-round riot to be with.”
“I can be a lot,” I agree with a sigh. That’s what people have told me over the years, at least.
”But you’ll go to dinner with me?” Demyan says, like he hasn’t even heard the last chunk of conversation. “Any place you like.”
I spoon a piece of cake into my mouth and chew it while considering him.
He isn’t the kind of guy I’d typically find attractive.
That’s not to say he isn’t wildly attractive.
It’s just that he is handsome in a way that’s intimidating.
After spending years being pawed and harassed by men who think they own you—because men—he would usually be one I automatically avoid.
He is strong in that obvious way. Muscles stretching out the fabric of his shirt.
Tattooed. Every bit of his skin from the neck down if what I can see is anything to go by.
Mostly, he looks like he could tear me apart if I made one wrong move.
I swallow the cake, but my mouth has gone dry.
“Okay,” I say, not knowing if the butterflies in my stomach are excitement, anticipation, or dread. “Dinner. But at my mom’s place.”
A flicker of confusion passes over his face, and then he nods.
“Deal. When?”
I shrug. “Tonight? We might as well get it over with. Then we can go back to our lives and pretend it never happened.”
Demyan’s head moves in the slightest nod. His eyes flare, and a tiny, quiet part of my brain realizes he just took that as a challenge. That will either feed his competitive need to win or put him off entirely, as I’ll be considered too much like hard work.
I get up from the table and take the mop from Delilah just as her husband, Jasper, walks through the door. He pulls her into a hug and kisses the top of her head.
I try not to hear him as he tells her how beautiful she looks, and how much he has missed her. She giggles and pats his chest lightly, loving every second. And so she should. It’s lovely.
“Can I take this one home?” he asks Sammie.
“Like I could stop her from leaving with you,” Sammie quips.
He nods at Demyan. “Eduard said you’d be here today…helping.”
“I was relegated to the booth for being too scary,” Demyan explains before biting into his cake.
Sammie nods in agreement. “Tamsin already said she’ll help out while Dee is out having the baby. And I don’t think Demyan would fit behind the counter.” She frowns over to Demyan who just shrugs.
“Fair enough,” Jasper says, pulling Delilah towards the door.
The rest of the closing process goes smoothly, at least I think it does. Sammie shows me how to cash up and where the safe is. Then she ushers me and Demyan out the back door before locking it.
“Are you okay to come again tomorrow?” she asks. “It’s okay if you have other plans.” She looks at Demyan when she says it, and I have to bite my tongue.
“I’ll be here at whatever time you want,” I offer with a tight smile.
“Well, Dee is opening, but I can be here too. That way we can show you the morning routine.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I say, giving her a quick hug while being mindful not to squash the baby. He is all pink and chubby and looks so at peace tucked up against his mom.
We say our goodbyes and I head to my mom’s place, typing out a quick text about bringing Demyan home and asking her to play crazy mom for me when we get there.
I remember her doing the same for Phoebe when a guy wouldn’t leave her alone.
I thought it was hilarious at the time, but now I can see it serves a purpose.
She sends a thumbs-up back, and I immediately know something isn’t right.
My mother has never sent me an emoji in her life.
“So,” Demyan says, snapping my attention to him. I only reach his shoulder, and I’m in heels. “You grew up here?”
“From the age of five, yes.” I put my phone in my purse and try not to let emoji-gate unsettle me.
“Ah, did your parents move here for work?”
I sigh. This is the conversation I dread with everyone, so I might as well get it out of the way.
“No, I was removed from my biological parents and brought to my mom’s house by Child Protective Services.”
I wait for the inevitable fallout of that sentence. The quiet withdrawal people make when they find out I was in the system.
“Well, I’m glad you ended up with someone who clearly cares deeply about you.”
I stop dead in my tracks, my jaw dropping open.
“What?” he asks. “Is everything okay?”
I pull my coat tighter around me. “Yeah, I just… I’ve just never had someone respond that way.”
“What way was I supposed to respond?” he asks, a crease forming between his dark brows.
I shake my head slightly and offer a half shrug, because I don’t know how to answer his question.
He walks back to me, only a couple of steps, and takes my hand in his.
“I’m sorry you had a rough start to life.”
“Stop.” The word comes from me before I can control my mouth. “Let's just get this over with.”