32. Reed
reed
I’d hate to tell Nathan he has some competition in the “way too giddy for someone else’s happiness” category. I’m not sure what lengths he’d go to win his title back if he knew.
On Monday, Troy can’t get in enough smirks and sideways glances at Rose and me.
I’ve told him to tone it down twice already, but that seems beyond his abilities.
I’m still out front with them as the lunch rush dies down, lingering beyond my usefulness.
We don’t need three people out here with only stragglers wandering in, but I haven’t brought myself to go into the office.
I’m acting like a fool, completely. I can own it. I just can’t do anything about it. Just like Troy can’t stop batting his eyelashes and all but singing the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song, I don’t want to walk away from Rose. I don’t know what my face is doing, but it must make that painfully obvious.
“What?” I finally say.
“You look like you had a good weekend.” He gloats as if every word is some kind of triumph.
“I did.” At the last minute, I stop my gaze from darting to Rose. It’s been stuck to her all day. I can take a break for five minutes.
I don’t actually know if I can.
He grins as if I confessed sordid details, turning to the woman herself. “Rose? Did you happen to have a good weekend?”
This kid wants to be on the fast track to getting fired.
To be clear, I wouldn’t. Exulted too much in his boss being low-key happy about his relationship wouldn’t look good on the paperwork. And I can’t keep the place running without him. But this behavior is making me daydream scenarios where I hand him a pink slip just to get him out of my hair.
Rose’s dimple pops. A rookie mistake. She didn’t grow up with a crowd of people searching her every move for evidence to use against her. That smile will just fan his curiosity. “I did, too.”
“That’s so great.” Troy’s self-satisfied expression is quickly crawling under my skin. “Did either of you do anything fun? Separately or, dare I ask, together?”
I don’t need this. If I wanted to be harassed, I’d ask Lucy and Nathan to swing by.
“You’ve got this handled out here.” I turn, but my eyes betray me and home in on Rose like sweet-seeking missiles.
Troy snickers. I really need to work on my poker face. I had it down for years, but Rose has rearranged it in a weekend.
I stalk into the back office and sit in my chair, Troy’s “Girl, you need to spill,” just loud enough for me to catch.
“We’re happy.” I can hear the smile in her voice.
It’s for the best nobody can see mine.
“Ugh. You’re too cute for words,” he says, confirming my suspicions.
Customers cycle through, the sounds of the coffee shop filtering back to me as I enter numbers from the latest inventory.
I never imagined the trivial, behind the scenes tasks it takes to keep a coffee shop running.
I don’t like the forward-facing customer service any better.
My soul-rejuvenating overnight trip into the forest with Rose doesn’t have nearly enough lasting effects to get me through this day.
My cabin was meant to be a refuge, but it doesn’t recharge me nearly as well as visits to the family cabin. Maybe Nathan’s right. Maybe I do need a few people in my life. One in particular.
“Do you mind switching shifts with me on Thursday?” Troy’s question drifts to me from out front. “Brendan and I want to float the river, and if I take the shorter shift, we can get started sooner.”
Long beats go by as if she’s debating how to respond. I turn my head to listen, waiting for her answer. She can make decisions for herself. I’m not in charge of her.
I still want to know how she’ll handle it.
“I’m doing the coffee cart on Thursday,” she says. “If I take the longer shift, that will be a really long day for me.”
It’s not a simple “No” and leaves the door open for pleading, but she didn’t apologize for her choice. That’s a win.
“No worries,” Troy chirps. “It’s not that much later if I work my scheduled shift. Have you done the river yet this year?”
“I don’t think I’ve floated the river since high school.”
“What? You need to fix that.” He snickers. “Just let Reed know. I bet he’d take you.”
Now I’m daydreaming about a day on the river with Rose. Not optimal for getting anything accomplished in the back office.
I distract myself from imagining what kind of swimsuit Rose prefers with the stack of mail on the desk.
We usually get mailers from restaurant suppliers and IT companies that want to handle our website, generic ad lists I can’t waste my time trying to take us off of.
At the bottom, I find a letter from a law office whose name I don’t recognize.
A prickle of unease swirls through my gut. The last time I got mail from a lawyer, it was about Harry’s estate. But this one is addressed to Reed Bridger, Owner, Perk Me Up.
I open it and slide out the single sheet, my eyes scanning over it. Then again. Honestly, it takes a few more tries for the words to fully sink in. My brain feels slower with every pass, like my thoughts are sinking into a muddy riverbank.
Rose walks in, beelining for the supply shelves. She stacks three receipt rolls in her hands, her brief laugh stuck in her throat. “What is the point of paper receipts anymore?” she muses. “They just wind up in the trash. Or we have to sweep them off the floor.”
She turns to swan out again, her skirt swishing around her, but she pauses. Her curiosity proves my poker face isn’t any better in here than it was out there. She comes closer. “Is something wrong?”
“Not wrong, just…unexpected.” I hand her the letter. She has to clutch the receipt rolls to her chest to take it.
She reads through it, her mouth twisting into a deeper frown than I thought she could make. Her eyebrows tug together, and her gaze clouds over. She looks like she’s going for extra credit in my grump lessons.
“This means someone wants to buy Perk Me Up?” she asks.
“Looks like it.” Despite the law office’s letterhead, the text itself is written to sound like a friendly note.
Just a casual inquiry as to whether I’d be interested in selling the coffee shop.
But the inclusion of the price—far above what the realtor I talked to months ago suggested—and the lawyer’s countersignature prove it’s more than just an informal whim.
“Who even is this?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to do some research.” He seems to think his decades owning coffee shops in Seattle, Portland, and Boise put him in prime position to take Perk Me Up to the next level. And, as the letter not-so-subtly hints, I don’t have the experience needed to do that.
Whoever he is, he’s not wrong. My job experience is better suited to that makeshift summer camp Jovie wanted than to turn Perk Me Up into a small-town sensation.
I almost tanked it the first year I owned it, and it’s only doing well now because of Rose and Troy.
I don’t know how to get the shop to grow along with Sunshine.
I don’t know if I want to.
She reads the letter through again. “He’s not giving you a lot of time to think about it.”
Ten days to get back to him. The letter doesn’t include many details, but the dollar amount and the deadline date are crystal clear.
I swivel my chair to face her more fully. “I don’t know what I should do.”
I like plans, routines, and dates written on a calendar. I like solid ground. This letter knocked me into a free-fall, and I don’t know where my feet will land next. I need time to right myself.
“It’s a big decision.” She sets the letter on my desk. “You said you’ve thought about selling it before. This sounds like it could give you what you want.”
She doesn’t put any inflection into her words. She’s not telling me what I should do, only what I’ve said. In this moment, I want someone wiser than me to tell me what to do. But I can’t ask her when it’s her livelihood on the line. I’m not that obtuse.
I look at the open letter, the exec’s signature scrawled above the lawyer’s. “Sounds like it.”
“I should get these out front.” She wraps her other hand around the receipt rolls to keep them from falling. “I’m sure you’ll decide the best thing to do.”
She’s so optimistic. As if it’s obvious to anyone that I can make the right choice.
Rose leaves, but I go on staring at the letter. I don’t have a clue what the best thing to do is. Sell, and betray Harry’s last instructions to me? Or don’t sell, and keep making myself miserable trying to live up to them?
Maybe the biggest sign of how clueless I am, I pull out my phone and invite my siblings to the one place I never thought I would.