Not Open Yet (Lactin Brotherhood: Broken Boys #2)

Chapter 1

ETHAN

How could eight months feel like eight years? Wasn’t time supposed to move faster when you got older? I glanced at the calendar and scoffed when I realized I’d missed my birthday last month.

Didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered anymore.

Nothing had mattered for the past eight months.

Not since walking into the hospital with a loving Daddy and walking out single and alone.

All alone.

Those months were a blur of nothingness.

No accomplishments or goals or plans. Just…

existing. Barely. I didn't leave the apartment much.

It was the only place that truly felt like Rand, even though it didn't smell like him anymore.

That had faded somewhere around month three, and I'd spent days going through his closet and dresser, searching for something that still held his unique scent.

Nothing did.

So I slept and cried.

At first, crying took up most of my days, but as time went on, that slowly shifted.

Now I only cried at night time when the weight of my loneliness was heaviest. And now and then, I remembered to eat.

After some experimentation in the early days, I settled on two restaurants that I liked best. They had my order memorized, and I was able to avoid app fees because I could just text the manager with my app payment and it arrived twenty minutes later without question.

That was why I liked them so much. Human interaction was more than I could handle.

I wasn't okay. I'd known it for months, but knowing it didn't fix it. And fixing it felt like a betrayal to the Daddy I promised to be devoted to forever. But that was before he left me, so maybe he betrayed me first.

The building Rand and I bought two years ago was supposed to be where we lived and worked for the rest of our lives.

Together. We had it all planned out before we even signed the offer.

The apartment upstairs needed some updating, but there was a working elevator and a whole lot of potential.

Daddy used to say that even when our knees gave out and we had bionic hips, we’d still be able to get downstairs every day to run our dream business, The Daily Grind.

It wasn’t gonna be one of those fancy foo-foo places. Just coffee, pastries, and a few tables by the front windows. But it would have been ours in every sense of the word.

Then Daddy was gone.

Rand had been my Daddy for three years before the accident, and I expected at least fifty more.

I still wondered how I could continue on without him, and sometimes, I didn’t think I could.

Even all these months later, I still reached for him in the dark when I heard a scary noise or wanted some cuddles.

Needless to say, The Daily Grind never opened.

The equipment was still in boxes and probably would be until the day I sold the building.

I hadn't found the nerve to go downstairs since the funeral. At the time, I figured I’d be back in a week or two when I had some time to grieve.

But every time I had the whisper of an idea to go down there, a louder scream pounded in my brain that I wasn’t ready. Not yet.

But eight months of not yet was starting to get ridiculous.

Then my phone rang on a Tuesday morning with a call I wasn’t expecting. The number was unknown, so I didn't answer immediately. I was still in bed and didn’t need to talk to anyone, so I let it go to voicemail and then listened to it with some Cheetos later in the day.

A developer was calling because he was interested in buying the building. I’d gotten calls like that in the past and ignored them, but this time, I didn’t immediately delete it. That was a huge step for me.

Maybe selling was the right thing to do. I'd gotten a few offers each month that the store sat empty, but decisions of any kind had been feeling impossible for a long time. Now, some of the fog was starting to clear and leaving was suddenly an option.

Why was I holding on to something that would never be? I wasn't gonna open a shop by myself. I couldn’t do it without Rand. I didn't know how. I didn’t want to. It was ours, not mine.

But I couldn’t help the nagging feeling that Rand would’ve wanted me to move forward with our dream. The annoying voice in my head began as a whisper and now wouldn’t shut up.

Not doing anything just made me feel worse. Daddy would’ve hated knowing our dream was sitting empty while I wallowed alone in the dark. He would’ve told me I did know how and that what I didn’t, I could figure out with some YouTubes. He would’ve said I was strong and smart and perfect.

Except he wasn't here to say any of that.

So I called the developer back and was relieved when it went straight to voicemail.

I wasn't ready to speak to strangers, but a message I could handle.

I said I'd be willing to meet and then went to brush my teeth.

My teeth felt a little furry because I might have forgotten to brush them when I woke up. And maybe when I went to bed too.

How could someone remember all that stuff without a Daddy around? It just wasn’t possible.

As I did most days, I sat on the couch and stared at the keys to the coffee shop. They hadn’t moved in the past eight months. They just sat there and waited for me to finally make a fucking decision.

Before I could change my mind, I grabbed the keys and went down the narrow stairs to the backdoor.

As soon as I pushed it open, the smell of dust and stale air hit me like a wall.

Probably not ideal if I wanted a high selling price.

I propped open the back door and went straight to the front doors to open those too.

I stood in the doorway for a moment and took it all in. I’d done it. I took the first and hardest step.

It was smaller than I remembered, or maybe I'd just been picturing a grander version of it in my head. A version that included Rand and me running it together. Rand would be behind the counter, looking up from whatever he was doing while I brought out muffins and cookies from the back.

The shelving Rand built along the east wall was still bare.

The fancy espresso machine was in its crate against the far wall, and only two walls had a coat of primer on them while the other two were still patchy sheetrock.

We'd been arguing about paint colors because Rand wanted something warm while I wanted to go with something cool and bright.

With a slight breeze hitting my back from the open doors, I allowed myself to grieve this dream separately from all the grieving I’d done about Rand. My knees buckled, and I dropped down on the floor just seconds before full-body shudders wracked through me.

I cried for a long time, finally accepting that it was over. I could finally say goodbye to The Daily Grind and the life we'd been building toward.