Elsie
Chapter Twenty-Six
Amonth in Colbridge passed by like a year in Boston.
It was slow, tranquil, and easy.
Sure, there were problems, but the kind found in a small-town seemed infinitely more insignificant compared to what I’d left behind.
In other words, Colbridge was exactly what I needed.
Somehow, without me really noticing, I’d stumbled headfirst into a life here.
I had a home, chilly as it may be. A cat, ever-needy as he may be. And a routine that I very much looked forward to each day.
Annoying Will Hughes had become as much a part of my days as feeding the cat or writing a few thousand words.
“Your coffee,” he said, placing the iced pumpkin drink in front of me.
I didn’t usually wait in line anymore. Will would see me pop in and set my laptop up, and he’d bring it over to my table a few minutes later.
I think he liked the break of getting to step out from behind the counter every once in a while. He’d sometimes sit and talk for a minute, and usually popped back over intermittently throughout the course of the day.
And really, I don’t think he minded me as much as he used to.
“Thank you,” I told him, before making a show of looking around the place.
“What is it now?” he asked, knowing there was something.
“Nothing.” I sighed dramatically. “It’s just that…”
“Yes?”
“Well, Halloween is in a few days and you don’t have any decorations up!”
“It’s a café, not a haunted house. Why would I have decorations here?”
“To be festive, Will.”
“I hate Halloween.”
“That is so typical of you.” I laughed. “I should’ve guessed.”
“What does that mean?” he said, seemingly offended.
“Well, you hate fun and whimsical things, so it only makes sense you hate Halloween.”
“I do not.”
“You do.” I nodded in dismay. “It’s why you hated me when we first met.”
“Because you like Halloween?” He leaned back in his seat, trying to puzzle it out.
“Because I’m fun and whimsical.” I rolled my eyes. “Keep up, Will.”
“I don’t hate fun,” he said in what sounded like a pout. “But does that mean I have to string up ghosts around the place?”
“Your parents didn’t take you trick-or-treating as a child, did they?” I smirked.
He scoffed. “I went trick-or-treating.”
“As what?”
“What?”
“I’m just curious as to what an eight-year-old Will Hughes would’ve chosen for his costume of choice on the most fun night of the year. Enlighten me.”
“You can’t seriously think that kids making themselves sick on candy while wearing masks is the ‘most fun night of the year.’”
I grinned. “It totally is. There’s just something in the air on Halloween night that feels like…” I paused, searching for the word.
“Like?”
“Nostalgia,” I concluded. “Nostalgia and magic and whimsical fun.”
He raised his hands in surrender, standing from the table.
“I know better than to argue with you about something like this,” he said, turning to get back to the front.
“Only took you a month.” I smiled sweetly.
The familiar sound of the bells jingled, and we both turned to see who was entering, hoping it wasn’t one of the older ladies of the town. They either talked my ear off for a half hour, couldn’t hear me at all, or asked me how my imaginary relationship with Will was going.
Despite my protests, no one believed we weren’t seeing each other. As in, more than the usual, he brings me coffee and occasionally pops over to fix something he’d deemed needed repairing on my house.
But that was only because he figured it might as well be in good condition, in case more tenants came along after me.
I guess we didn’t help matters by being seen together so often, but Will didn’t seem to care, so neither did I.
It wasn’t like it was true.
Besides, it was nice to have a friend in town. Especially one in control of the coffee situation.
But it wasn’t an elderly neighbor walking into Hughes. It was Theo, who I’d found out over the last week was actually one of Will’s best friends, despite the way he’d treated him in the town square that day.
“Hi!” I waved at him.
He’d become a friend of sorts, too.
He wasn’t as fun to interact with as Will was, but that’s because he was so good-natured, it was hard to find anything to pick on him about.
But I figured a friendship without banter was still a friendship worth having, even if it didn’t invigorate my mind the way Will did when I searched for a response that might shock him the most.
Theo took a step toward our table, and Will lowered himself back down in his seat, apparently deciding he wasn’t needed back behind the counter right away.
I figured he must want to talk to Theo, too, who had been intercepted by someone at a nearby table.
These people, I thought, they see each other almost every day, yet somehow act as if they might not get the chance to talk to each other for weeks.
“You know he wants to date you, right?” Will yanked me from my musings by the shock of his comment.
“What?” I laughed.
“Are you oblivious?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at me. “Every time he comes in, he tries to ask you out.”
“Not-uh.” I stared at him with wide eyes.
Will really didn’t understand the art of my banter. It might look like a flirtation to some people, but it’s just how I navigated the world.
God forbid a girl have some quippy conversations.
“Yesterday, for example,” Will continued, determined to prove his point. “He asked you what you were doing on Friday night.”
He widened his eyes at me, as if that meant something.
“And I told him,” I countered, unimpressed, “that I was passing out candy to trick or treaters.”
“And he said,” Will emphasized, “‘Halloween’s a great night for watching scary movies.’”
“And I told him I hate scary movies.”
I’d watched Pet Sematary as a kid and had to sleep in my parents’ room for a month. It was safe to say Stephen King had me traumatized to this very day.
I shuddered visibly.
“And he came out with the godawful line, ‘You might like it better if you had someone there to protect you while you watched.’” Will rolled his eyes.
But I didn’t care if Jason Momoa himself was there holding me, I wasn’t watching a scary with anyone. And I’d told Theo as much the day before.
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, he was trying to get you to invite him over.”
“He’s never asked to come over.” I squinted.
“Because he’s trying to be subtle about it, but clearly it’s not working.”
“Well, I don’t mind if he comes over.” I shrugged. “I get lonely.”
Will’s jaw clenched, probably because the notion of wanting company was so foreign to him. “How could you possibly get lonely? You spend every day here, surrounded by people.”
“I’m an extrovert, Will,” I explained. “I need more than sitting near people to feel socialized.”
“Then, I’ll—”
“Hey, Elsie.” Theo appeared at the table.
“Hi, Theo,” Will said in a gruff voice, beating me to it.
“Hi, Will,” Theo said, staring pointedly at the chair he was occupying. “Mind if I sit?”
“Sure, drag a chair over,” Will responded.
Was Will right about Theo trying to date me? I didn’t think so. If he was, he really wasn’t that good at it.
Not that I wanted him to be—I wasn’t anywhere near being ready for a relationship again, and if I was, I wouldn’t choose a guy from a town I was only staying in temporarily.
“Does no one here work anymore?” Ava huffed, but then pulled a chair over herself. “What? It’s slow!”
Will glanced over, and seeing no one in line, shrugged and returned his attention to our table.
“How’s it going, Aves?” Theo grinned at her from across the table. She relaxed back into her chair.
Ava seemed more at ease when Theo was around. I guess it was because he always seemed so at ease all the time. Like he was navigating the world on easy-mode, somehow.
“Would be better if my co-workers didn’t keep abandoning me to chat with customers,” Ava said, staring only at Theo.
“Like you said,” Will muttered, looking away, “it’s been slow.”
“Aw, give him a break,” Theo said. “Will’s been helping me out with something.”
Will scowled, apparently irritated by whatever it was. I sent a look in his direction, but he just shook his head, refusing any answers.
“How’s that going, by the way?” Theo asked Will at the same time Ava asked, “What are you helping him with?”
“Nothing,” Will said quickly, and then, turning to Theo, raised his shoulders in a casual shrug. “It might be a dead end.”
Will settled back into his seat, apparently pleased to be done with it, but Theo didn’t look put out by the status. He cracked his knuckles and leaned forward, eyes meeting all of ours. “Hey, what do you say the four of us hang out?”
“The four of us?” Will snorted. “Pass.”
“Double pass,” Ava agreed, staring blatantly in my direction.
Yeah, that semi-truce we’d called during the babysitting fiasco had been dead and buried.
So, as it turned out, I was in dire need of some friends in town.
“Sure,” I said, thinking Theo was as good as anyone to pass time with.
Well, maybe not as good as Will, but he didn’t seem the type to hang out for the pleasure of it. I had a feeling, if it wasn’t running errands or fixing something, or some other insanely productive thing, Will wouldn’t be interested.
“Sure?” Will echoed my words back to me
“Why not?” I lifted my shoulders. “It’s not like I have much else going on.”
“Great.” Theo clapped. “Since it’s just the two of us, then—”
“I’ll come,” Will interjected.
“I thought you said you didn’t want to.” Ava stared at him.
“I changed my mind,” he said.
“Okay, in that case, you should come, too, Ava,” Theo suggested.
I bit back a smile. Apparently, the vibes of a hang out with just me, Will, and him didn’t fit the image of what Theo wanted the outing to be.
“Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll go, too.”
“Love the enthusiasm.” Theo grinned, apparently not put off by the tension radiating off the Hugheses at the table.
“Awesome,” I said faintly. “This will be so fun.”
They both scowled in response.