5. Willow
FIVE
Willow
“So, let me get this right,” my older sister starts, staring at me like I’ve grown an extra head or something. “Last week, you spilled food on him, and he asked you out to dinner, and gave you this much of a tip?”
Nina’s holding the receipt between two fingers like it might be contagious.
Across from us, Grace Holloway pushes her reading glasses down her nose and peers at it again, even though she’s already seen the number twice and reacted the exact same way both times: with the kind of delighted fascination usually reserved for scandal, celebrity divorces, and somebody wearing white to the Autumn Harvest Fair.
“Yes,” I say, for what’s now the fifth time in the last twenty minutes. “That’s exactly what happened.”
Nina looks from the receipt to me, then back to the receipt again, like maybe the numbers will rearrange themselves into something more reasonable if she just commits to disbelief hard enough.
“They tip like this in New York?” she asks.
“They tip like this when they want to make a woman deeply uncomfortable.”
Grace lets out a soft laugh and settles back in her chair with her tea. “Honey, there are much worse problems than attracting the interest of a wealthy, gorgeous man.”
I glare at her over the rim of my coffee. “You’re using a very generous definition of the word ‘problem.’”
Holloway Books & Coffee is warm in that way only old bookstores and coffee shops can be, all soft lighting and mismatched chairs and shelves packed too full with books that smell faintly like dust and vanilla.
The espresso machine hisses every few minutes behind the counter, and somewhere over near the mystery section, two older women are discussing a casserole recipe with the intensity of a courtroom cross-examination.
Which is why I came here on my afternoon off. To sit with Nina, drink overpriced coffee, and not think about three men who have somehow managed to become a regular nuisance in my life in less than a week.
Unfortunately, Grace Holloway exists, and Grace Holloway treats gossip the way some people treat cardio.
Nina drops the receipt onto the table and leans back in her chair. “I still don’t understand why you haven’t used it.”
“Because it feels weird.”
“It’s money.”
“It’s emotionally manipulative money.”
Grace snorts into her tea. “Emotionally manipulative money. That’s a new one.”
“It is,” I insist. “Normal tips don’t make you feel like you’ve accidentally signed a contract with the devil.”
Nina grins. “And yet you’ve kept it folded in your wallet all week instead of throwing it away.”
“That’s because I’m still deciding whether to be offended or insulted.”
“Those are the same thing.”
“Not emotionally, they aren’t.”
Grace taps one painted nail against her mug. “Sweetheart, I own a bookstore café in a small town. I’ve watched women cry over men for twenty-seven years. Trust me when I say the money isn’t the dangerous part. It’s the eye contact.”
I take a sip of coffee. “There it is.”
“There what is?”
“The part where you stop pretending this is a moral discussion and admit you just think he’s hot.”
Grace gives me a beatific smile. “I contain multitudes.”
Nina nearly chokes laughing, and I can’t help but join in.
It’s been about a week since the diner incident. A week since Xander Harlow stared at me like I’d become the most interesting thing in his day, then proved beyond question that he’s the kind of man who assumes the world will move if he leans on it hard enough.
A week since I started noticing Julian around town with that easy grin and zero respect for personal space. A week since Gabe, somehow the most polished of the three, managed to say the least and still unsettle me the most.
A week, and I still haven’t decided what to do with any of it.
Or with the tip.
Or with the stupid amount of time my brain has spent replaying details I absolutely didn’t ask it to keep.
“Okay,” Nina says, reaching for her phone. “Set the tip aside for a second. We need to address the much more important question.”
“I don’t like your tone.”
She ignores me. “He’s famous, right?”
I shrug one shoulder and tear a corner off the coffee sleeve around my cup. “It seems like it. Crazy, right?”
Grace makes a soft sound into her coffee like she’s trying not to laugh.
“Besides,” I continue, “the version people talked about and the man sitting across from me at dinner didn’t feel like the same person.”
Nina points at me with her phone. “And no one told you he was a member of The Lonely Ones?”
“No one said that.”
She shoots me a look, then brightens when the search results load. “Aha.”
I groan. “No.”
“Oh, yes.” She angles the screen toward herself, eyes scanning fast. “Okay, so. Xander Harlow. Thirty-six. Cofounder and CEO of Redemption Records. Former frontman of The Lonely Ones.”
Grace lifts her brows. “Well, there we are.”
I stare at her. “You know them, too?”
Grace looks offended by the question. “Willow Jameson, I’m fifty-eight, not dead.”
Nina snorts into her latte. I press my lips together, because correcting Grace’s age has only ever gone badly.
“Right,” I say carefully. “Of course.”
Grace smooths one hand over the front of her sweater and settles in with the serene confidence of a woman about to enjoy herself.
“The Lonely Ones were everywhere for a while. Covers, awards, late-night television, the whole tortured rockstar machine. I had at least three customers back then who stopped pretending to browse and just stood near the register so they could stare at magazine photos of them.”
“That’s horrifying,” I say.
“That’s merchandising,” Grace replies.
Nina keeps scrolling. “Julian Rochester was lead guitar. Gabe Stockton was drums and production. And they all helped write.”
I make a face. “Naturally.”
“Why is that annoying?”
“Because somehow ‘former rockstar turned record label founder’ feels greedy.”
Grace laughs. “You say that like they stole your lunch money.”
“I’m still processing the jacket and the dinner.”
Nina’s eyes flick up over her phone. “You mean the dinner you stormed out of?”
“I didn’t storm.”
“You stormed.”
“I exited with conviction.”
“Same thing.”
I open my mouth to argue, then don’t, mostly because Nina knows exactly how I left The Lamb and there’s no point pretending I didn’t flee the second Maggie Rivers and her backup dancers swarmed our table like they’d been signaled by a distress flare.
I reach for my coffee again instead.
“Here,” Nina says, scrolling farther. “There’s an old live clip.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Nina.”
But it’s too late. She’s already hit play, and the sound of a crowd roaring comes tinny through her phone speakers before she turns the volume down.
For one deeply unfortunate second, all three of them are on the screen.
Xander at the microphone, hair longer, jaw shadowed, tattoos visible beneath rolled black sleeves.
Julian to one side with his guitar low on his hips, grinning like sin and disaster.
Gabe at the drum kit, focused and intent, all angles and control.
Younger, sure, but recognizably them in a way that makes a weird tightening sensation flare up under my ribs.
“They’re so ridiculous,” I mutter.
Nina looks delighted. “You like the music.”
“I said it’s annoying.”
“Which is Willow for yes.”
Grace sips her tea like she’s watching premium television. “I do love when pretty men turn out to have actual talent. It really keeps life interesting.”
I point at her. “You’re old enough to know better.”
“My age has only improved my taste.” Grace folds her hands beneath her chin. “So, which one do you like? Xander, right?”
I choke on absolutely nothing.
Nina bursts out laughing so hard she nearly drops her phone.
I stare at Grace. “Excuse me?”
She shrugs with elegant innocence. “I’m just asking. Since fate appears to have dropped an entire band into your path.”
“Fate didn’t drop anything. Rich men bought property.”
“Which one?” she repeats, ignoring me entirely now. “The dangerous one, the charming one, or the controlled one?”
I point between us. “First of all, that’s a deeply unfair question.”
“Mm.”
“Second of all, none of them.”
Nina gives me a look that’s half sisterly affection, half open mockery. “That wasn’t convincing.”
“It wasn’t meant to be convincing. It was meant to be true.”
Grace tips her head. “Mmhmm.”
I narrow my eyes. “Stop making that sound.”
“The dark one is fun,” she says thoughtfully. “Julian. He has trouble written all over him, but in a very festive font.”
Nina laughs. “Festive font.”
“The blond one,” Grace continues, “is dangerous in a completely different way. Very polished. Very composed. Very likely to ruin your life while asking if you need anything.”
I can’t help it. I laugh.
“Hot tax consultant,” Nina says under her breath, and I laugh harder.
Grace points at her. “Exactly. That one.”
“And Xander?” Nina asks, because it seems she woke up today and chose violence.
Grace’s expression shifts. “Xander,” she says, “is the sort you think you understand until he says almost nothing and you realize that’s worse.”
None of us say anything.
Because she’s not wrong.
I shake it off. “Good thing I’m not interested in understanding any of them.”
Nina’s mouth twitches. “Right.”
“I mean it.”
“Of course you do.”
I lean back in my chair and cross my arms. “I’m serious. Men like that are not for me.”
Grace arches a brow. “Men like what, exactly?”
I open my mouth, then pause, because the answer comes too fast and feels a little too honest.
Men who expect the room to bend.
Men who have always been wanted.
Men whose lives are so far outside mine they may as well exist on another planet.
Men who look at me and make me aware of everything I’d rather not be aware of.
Instead, I say, “Men who create work for me emotionally.”
Grace lets out a delighted laugh. “Again with the excellent phrases. I really do need to start writing these down.”
Before I can answer, my phone buzzes against the table hard enough to rattle my spoon.
I glance down at the screen.
Lara.
I frown. “That’s weird.”
Nina peers over. “Work?”
“She never calls unless something’s on fire.”
“Maybe the coffee machine finally snapped.”
“That thing is immortal.” I answer. “Hey, what happened?”
Lara doesn’t even bother with hello. “Please tell me you’re not busy.”
I glance around at the books, coffee, my sister’s smirk, and Grace’s look of predatory interest. “Nothing I can’t abandon.”
“Tina called out sick, Bobby’s running late because his truck battery died, and I’m stuck covering the floor and deliveries at the same time.”
I wince. “That bad?”
“Only until Bobby gets here, but unless you want Marius personally delivering club sandwiches in an apron and a mood, I need help for a couple hours.”
I close my eyes briefly. “Lara.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I will buy you pie.”
“There’s not enough pie.”
“I’ll throw in fries.”
I sigh. “Give me twenty minutes.”
“You’re my favorite person.”
“That feels manipulative.”
“It is. Bye.”
She hangs up.
I stare at my phone, then drop it onto the table.
Nina winces. “Emergency shift?”
“Deliveries.”
Grace pats my hand once, perfectly serene. “See? There are, in fact, worse things than handsome men and too much money.”
I stand and grab my jacket off the back of the chair. “You’ve become weirdly committed to proving this point.”
Grace smiles. “I’m very persuasive.”
“No,” I say, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “You’re just nosy.”
“Also true.”
Nina stands too. “I’ll walk with you.”
We say goodbye to Grace, who calls, “Try not to fall into any musicians today!” after us, because public humiliation must be a community service, and step out into the cool afternoon.
Main Street is doing its usual weekday thing: not busy, exactly, but alive.
Bill Smith is outside the mercantile arguing with a delivery driver over pumpkins.
A couple of high school kids are pretending they aren’t smoking behind the alley beside Falls Pizza.
Somebody’s dog is barking at a bicycle for reasons known to no one.
Nina hooks her arm through mine as we walk.
“You know,” she says casually, “if you ever did decide to date a rockstar, this town would never recover.”
“I’m so glad you’ve found a hobby.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m not dating anyone.”
“You went to dinner.”
“I was ambushed into dinner.”
“Still counts.”
I sigh. “Nina.”
She grins. “Okay, okay. But admit it. You don’t hate them as much as you want to.”
I stop at the curb outside the diner and give her my flattest look. “I don’t even know them.”
“You know enough.”
I think about Julian’s easy smile, Gabe’s intense stare, Xander’s impossible attention.
I shake my head hard enough to physically dislodge the thought.
“Go back to your books,” I tell her.
She hugs me anyway. “Text me later.”
“Fine.”
She smiles in that infuriating little sister way that means she thinks the universe is on her side.
Inside the diner, everything is already in full swing.
The lunch rush is tapering off, but only in the sense that people have stopped actively arriving and started hanging around. Coffee refills, pie, checks, extra ranch, somebody wanting their burger medium even though Marius has said for twenty years that all burgers come one way and one way only.
Lara spots me the second I come through the door and points at the counter like a general assigning someone to the front line. “There she is.”
“You say that like I’m armed.”
“You are. With competence.” She shoves the delivery clipboard into my hands. “First order’s almost ready.”
I knot an apron around my waist and glance toward the pass.
Then I stop.
There are four enormous paper bags lined up on the counter, two drink trays, and enough takeout containers to suggest either a family reunion or a hostage situation.
I look at Lara. “What in the hell is that?”
Her mouth twitches. “Your first delivery.”
I roll my eyes. “Great, just what I wanted on my day off. Someone ordering for the apocalypse.”