Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Forrest
For the past two hours, I’ve been wondering what I’m going to do with my life.
So far, the options are bad.
Option one, become the high school hockey coach in Winterberry Cove and let a room full of parents decide whether I have become emotionally safe enough to teach teenagers how not to skate into each other’s faces.
Option two, move to the woods and communicate only with Puck, squirrels, and whatever delivery driver is unlucky enough to deliver dog food.
Option three, join a circus and start juggling skates.
Blades, sure. People have done blades. But hockey skates? Untapped market.
At six-fifteen, I’m at The Turning Page.
This is not because I panicked.
This is because I was nearby.
Nearby meaning three blocks away, then two, then outside the door trying to convince myself I had not walked here with the purpose of seeing Daisy Thorn.
“Don’t judge me,” I tell Puck before opening the café door.
He walks in first.
The bell rings overhead. Warm air rolls out, cinnamon and coffee and old paper. Someone has added tiny pumpkins to the windowsill. Not the beverage kind. The good kind. Decorative. Quiet. No one’s trying to drown espresso in pie filling.
Bea looks up from behind the counter. “You’re early.”
I glance at the clock.
Six-twelve.
“No.”
“You’re early,” she repeats. “Emotionally suspicious.”
“I’m not emotional.”
“That’s exactly what an emotional man would say.”
Puck drags me toward the back corner before I can answer.
He’s looking for Daisy.
So am I.
That’s not relevant.
“She’s in the office,” Bea says, nodding toward the narrow hallway behind the counter.
“I didn’t ask.”
“.;You looked.”
“I have to look around so I don’t trip while walking.”
She studies me over the rim of her glasses. “Try using your eyes with less longing.”
I glare at her.
Bea smiles, because apparently the café is also hostile for men minding their own business.
“Did you bring her food?” she asks. “I don’t think she’s eaten.”
I lift the paperback in my hand and don’t give her a second glance.
Bea is going on my shit list.
Not a formal list.
I’m not Daisy.
But a list.
That’s a lie. I like Bea fine. She bought treats for Puck, which she gives to him when she thinks I’m not paying attention, and once told a man arguing about a return policy that his opinion had expired before the receipt did.
Bea is all right.
Still, she knows too much.
I take my usual table. Puck settles beneath it but keeps his head pointed toward the hallway like a spouse waiting at a train station.
A minute later, Daisy comes out holding a notebook, her phone, and a stack of papers against her chest. Her hair is up and held by a pen, but pieces have already escaped. She’s wearing a cardigan over a dress and boots that make a small, ominous clicking sound with every step.
Fall has gotten to her too.
Not pumpkin spice. Daisy would rather testify in front of a hostile committee than drink anything pumpkin spice. But the cardigan, the leaf-shaped earrings, the little clip in her hair?
She’s participating in seasonal theater.
Badly hiding from it, but participating.
She stops when she sees me.
Puck’s tail starts thumping against the floor.
Daisy looks down at him first, because she has terrible priorities.
“Hello, handsome,” she says.
“He’s a dog.”
“He’s a gentleman.”
“He tried to eat a sock this morning.”
“You shouldn’t discuss his private matters in public.”
Puck rises and shoves his head into her hip.
Daisy’s face changes.
There it is again. The thing that makes my chest feel like someone moved furniture without warning.
Then she looks at me. “Hello, Six-Fifteen.”
“Thorn.”
“You’re early.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Everyone is right. Is this a cry for help?”
“I came for coffee.”
“And yet you brought your face.”
“Usually comes with me.”
“Tragic policy.”
Bea snorts behind the counter.
Daisy crosses to my table and sets the notebook down.
I look at it.
The top page reads: HOCKEY DINNER QUESTIONS. IMPORTANT: DO NOT SOUND STUPID.
I look back at her.
She folds her arms. “Don’t.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
“You wrote yourself instructions.”
“I write many instructions. I am an administrative professional.”
“You wrote ‘do not sound stupid’ with caps and underlined it—twice.”
“That is a valid planning objective.”
Puck noses the notebook.
Daisy pulls it out of his reach. “Not you. You always sound brilliant.”
“He licked a pumpkin today.”
“Research.”
I sit back. “So, have you heard from Whitcomb?”
Her mouth tightens for half a second, and she frowns. “The gossip already hit Boston?”
“No.”
“Your mom knows a lot more than I do sometimes,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “How do you know about Principal Whitcomb?”
I shrug.
“Wolfcraft.”
“You first,” I cross my arms. “Why in the world are you coordinating a dinner while working two jobs and planning a nightmare wedding?”
She blows out a breath and drops into the chair across from me like gravity finally made a convincing argument.
“Because my mother called, Gloria quit, the vineyard is apparently one seating chart away from collapse, and if I’m going to be there the first week of November anyway, I might as well help with the other event too. ”
“You could’ve said no.”
She laughs.
Not amused.
More like she’s five minutes away from losing her shit and politely scheduling the breakdown for later because she’s Daisy Thorn, and apparently even emotional collapse requires calendar availability.
I wouldn’t be surprised if her eye starts twitching.
I also wouldn’t blame it.
Mine would’ve left my face by now.
“You don’t know my mother. I said I’d think about it, and five minutes later, the principal texted me to discuss her vision.”
“She has a vision?”
Daisy groans and opens the notebook. “She likes micromanaging and harvest ambience. It’s delightful to deal with her when I’m not dealing with Carla. Or Carla’s mother. Or Liam’s mother. Or my own mother deciding I am both a daughter and a rentable crisis service.”
Then she frowns. “They’re interviewing coaches that week,” she says. “Hockey coaches.”
“I’m one of the prospective coaches.”
Her eyes narrow. “One of?”
“Apparently.”
“Are there many of you?”
“Enough for them to call it a process.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It’s an interview.”
“With donors and parents and dinner?”
“It seems like Winterberry doesn’t do simple.”
“No, Winterberry does casserole-level entanglements.”
She sits more fully now, then straightens as the pieces click into place. “Wait. So you really are the prospective hockey coach?”
“One of them.”
“The one with the clips?”
My jaw shifts.
Daisy sees it. Regret crosses her face instantly. “Sorry. That was—”
“True.”
“I was going to say rude.”
“Also true.”
She lowers herself back into the chair, quieter this time. Puck drops at her feet like he belongs there.
I reach into the paper bag I brought, pull out the sandwich, and set it in front of her.
She looks at it.
Then at me.
Then back at the sandwich.
“You’ve been bringing sandwiches every day since last week,” she says. “I’m starting to grow suspicious.”
“It’s a sandwich.”
“Exactly what a man with a sandwich agenda would say.”
“Eat.”
“Bossy.”
“Hungry.”
“You or me?”
“Yes.”
That shuts her up for two seconds, which might be a personal record.
She opens the bag, and the first real thing that happens in her face all night is hunger.
She hates that I notice.
I hate that she hates it.
She takes a bite and closes the notebook with her elbow, then opens it again like the answers might have rearranged themselves into confidence.
“On a scale from one to humiliating,” she says around the careful edge of the sandwich, “how bad is it that I don’t know what a hockey meet-and-greet is supposed to look like?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“Whether you call icing a ‘dessert penalty’ again.”
She points her pen at me. “It should be. I could have the baker make an ice-rink cake with icing on top.”
“No.”
“You can’t control it.” Her smile turns dangerous in a way no woman holding a sandwich should legally be allowed to manage. “I’m organizing this dinner, Wolfcraft. I can absolutely put Dessert Penalty on a menu.”
“That would be inaccurate.”
“It would be charming.”
“It would make me leave.”
“Then I’ll put it near the exit.”
My mouth almost moves.
She notices.
I hate that she notices.
“What?” she asks, too pleased. “Did I almost make you smile?”
“No.”
“Your face twitched.”
“Allergies.”
“To joy?”
“To you.”
“Understandable.” She takes another bite and sits back, smug as hell. “I am potent.”
I look at the notebook because looking at her when she says things like that is unsafe.
There are neat bullet points across the page. Community dinner flow. Donor seating. Parent tables. Coach questions. Youth athletes? Rink fundraiser tie-in. Food allergies. Avoid hockey puns? Ask Forrest.
Ask Forrest.
My name in her handwriting does something stupid to the back of my neck.
Then the rest of it catches up.
She’s going to be there during the event.
“You’re going home,” I say.
Her pen stops moving.
Daisy looks down at the notebook. “For a week.”
“Wedding week?”
“And fundraiser week.” Her smile arrives late. “My mother has discovered service bundling. Very modern of her.”
“You don’t want to go.”
“Wow. Those detective skills. Truly breathtaking.”
“Daisy.”
She taps the pen against the page. Once. Twice. The sound is small but tense enough to pull at the air between us.
“No,” she says. “I don’t want to go. I would rather let a group of poets describe the ocean to me for six consecutive hours.
But like I said, Gloria quit, the wedding is in trouble, the vineyard needs the money, my mother asked for help, and they’re paying me enough to stop pretending my finances aren’t one dental visit away from becoming a true-crime podcast.”
She presses the pen harder into the page. “I don’t want to go back like this.”
“Like what?”
She wiggles her nose, which means she is about to make something painful sound adorable and I am going to hate everyone who taught her to do that.