5. Jensen #2
Avah smiles as she glances at Cody. I’m guessing she was about to say something kind, but then her gaze catches on me. She wipes her hands on the front of the apron and takes a step forward like she’s entering the WWE SmackDown ring.
“No,” she says.
“Good morning to you, too,” I answer with a nod, like being polite will keep her from kicking me in the shin.
“Get out.”
Cody takes a step away from me as if he’s trying to save himself. “Dude, did you piss off my future wife?”
“We’re having breakfast,” I say to Avah, ignoring Cody.
Cody attempts to let his dimples do their thing. “This cinnamon roll just ruined me for all other food.”
“I’m glad you like it.” Avah doesn’t take her eyes off me. “Now you both need to get the fuck out of here.”
“Avah Harris.” Winnie gasps, but she doesn’t sound surprised. “They’re customers.”
Avah snatches my plate off the counter. “Not him. He doesn’t get my pastries.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I argue.
“We both know that’s not true.”
Winnie hands Cody the latte. “I’ll refund the second cinnamon roll,” she offers.
I shake my head. “No need.”
The older woman looks between Avah and me. “Perhaps you’d like to take the rest of your conversation away from the register?” Her voice rises a half octave on the last word.
I can feel a line forming behind us, and nod as Avah hitches a thumb toward an empty table.
“Thank you again,” I tell Winnie. “The coffee is fantastic.”
“I’m not sharing my cinnamon roll,” Cody says as we follow Avah to the table at the far side of the shop. “Not one bite.”
“Noted,” I say. “Maybe you want to eat it outside?”
“And miss whatever this is?” Cody beams at me. “Not a chance.”
“Sit down,” Avah commands, and Cody and I slide into the wrought iron chairs on either side of the table.
She looms over us, arms crossed. “Let me be very clear with you, Jensen Grant. My best friend has spent a year being poked and poisoned and worrying whether she was going to make it to her next birthday. She’s doing good now, and no one is going to mess that up.”
“I’m not here to mess up anything.” I can imagine what Sloane’s been through and admire her for coming through it with her spirit intact.
Avah narrows her eyes and growls. A literal growl. “I will end you if you hurt her.”
I believe she means that, but it doesn’t scare me. Well, maybe a little, but I refuse to be run off. “If I had a nickel for every person who wanted to take me down at some point, I’d have a lot of nickels. Yet here I am.”
“I’m not like other people.”
Cody cackles through a mouthful of cinnamon roll. “I’m so in love.”
“Sloane is a grown woman,” I point out.
“Who also told you to leave.”
I shrug and hope it comes across as casual and not panicked. “I’m giving her time.”
“You ever heard that song ‘I Will Find You’?” Cody asks, apropos of absolutely nothing.
Avah blinks, and I kick him under the table.
“Oh, I love that song.” Winnie, who has drifted over to clear the next table, clasps her hands over her heart. “It just tugs on your heartstrings. So romantic.”
“It’s good,” Avah agrees, almost reluctantly.
Cody straightens and flashes a shit-eating grin. “That’s my song.”
Winnie makes a noncommittal—and possibly disappointed—sound in the back of her throat. “You write with a lot of yearning for someone young enough to be my grandchild. You have a lot of talent, though. I’ll give you that.”
Cody sighs. “I didn’t write it.”
“Shut up,” I hiss.
“He did,” Cody says, cheerful as that dog in front of the hardware store. “For your friend.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I growl.
“Language,” Winnie admonishes, then points her rag at Avah. “Which friend?”
“Sorry, ma’am.” I stand, knowing when it’s time to beat a hasty retreat.
“Sloane,” Avah says, her brows drawn together.
The name is for Winnie, but she’s studying me. I can’t decide if Cody’s big mouth is working in my favor or against me. I decide to cut my losses either way.
“Let’s go, Cody.” I glance between the women. “You can ignore him. He was dropped on his head as a kid.”
“And kicked by a horse,” Cody adds as he gets up, holding the rest of his cinnamon roll in one hand like a torch.
“Explains so much.” I yank his sleeve and push him toward the door.
“I’m trying to help you, man,” he says when we’re outside.
“I don’t need your help.”
“You need somebody’s.”
“I’m helping you. That’s the arrangement.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” He licks frosting off his thumb and grins up at the sky like the sun is his new best friend. “Best cinnamon roll ever, plus the most entertaining breakfast of my life. I don’t even need a beer.”
“My humiliation is better than hair of the dog?”
“Way better,” he confirms and starts toward the truck, whistling my hit song from twenty years ago. Lucky me, my ass.
I let him put some distance between us before I glance back at The Sugar Shack. Through the window, I see Avah watching me with an expression I can’t read. But I doubt it’s good.
The smart move is to cut my losses and head back to Nashville to lick my wounds, which I’d like to believe have more to do with dented pride than a busted up heart. After all, it was two nights. But it was also more. I know it, and she does, too.
Sloane Winslow isn’t immune to me. I saw it in her blue eyes the second before she shored up her walls and told me we were finished, like she needed to hear the words out loud to make herself believe them.
Cody glances back at me. “You ready to throw in the towel?”
I exhale past the lump in my throat and the missed chance sitting like a boulder in my stomach. It’s a fair question, but as I look around this town and think about what’s waiting for me back in Nashville—which is a whole bunch of nothing compared to what I’d be leaving behind here—I shake my head.
“Not even close,” I tell him.