Chapter 5
POPPY
Fedora and a neck beard? Swipe left.
I watch as the Crush profile of the last eligible bachelor disappears from my screen, never to be seen again.
God willing.
At this rate I’ll be single for the rest of my life, let alone married to someone in three months.
A heaviness settles within me as I consider the improbability of ever making this happen. The only thing that makes me more ill at ease than imagining my aunt’s pride and joy get auctioned off, is the thought of dating.
I haven’t exactly been one to put myself out there.
My life is fine the way it is. In fact, it’s better if I’m alone.
My arthritis diagnosis only complicated my life.
I’ve curated it exactly so I can avoid a flare, and so I have everything I need in case it happens.
I’ve seen no sense in disrupting my system.
Until now.
The irony is not lost on me that I’m stuck in this predicament after years of my aunt trying to encourage me to find a boyfriend. Live a little, she’d say, as if living a little isn’t infinitely harder with a chronic illness.
The problem is, I don’t even know where to start.
Wren convinced me to download the app after our conversation a couple weeks ago.
She said it might be a good opportunity for me to get out there and experience the dating world, regardless of the outcome.
I agreed, figuring that it would be as good a start as any, but as I’ve quickly found out, there are a whole lot of frogs on there, not a lot of princes.
So far, Crush has garnered me two dates, both of which ended terribly. It turns out, when you’ve never dated, going on dates is awkward, cringey, and overall terrifying.
By thirty years old, everyone expects you to know what to do. How to flirt, when to laugh, how to bat your eyelashes just right. How to lean in for a kiss at the end. That’s the part that gets my heart racing, my stomach churning.
At least I knew enough to leave “almost-thirty-year-old-virgin” out of my bio.
The next profile comes up on my screen. The guy is kissing a woman on the cheek. She looks like she could be his mother. Swipe left.
The one after that looks okay. He’s cute. Nice smile, great jawline. Describes himself as an alpha male.
All these guys seem like a terrible match for me. Immediate no’s. I’m not even being that picky. I might be willing to settle for fine, if I wasn’t looking for my husband.
I sigh, and set my phone down on the counter, and return to putting away the metal milk jugs I just finished sanitizing. The café is dark and quiet, after a long day of customers bustling in and out.
I love it like this.
It’s like the building itself is content, peaceful like a cat curling up in front of a fireplace at the end of the day. I love it even more at this time of year, all decorated with the paper snowflakes I lovingly cut out hanging from the ceiling and the Christmas tree I set up in the window.
The last of the jugs are tucked away beneath the bar on the shelf below the espresso machine when I hear a faint tap at the door.
I look up to see Wren and Hudson, the shape of them aglow from the streetlamp outside.
Wren is bouncing on the balls of her feet to keep warm, snow drifting down in flurries around them.
She cups her hands over her mouth to breathe into them, and it forms a cloud around her face.
I hurry over to the door to let them in out of the cold.
“Are you ready to go?” Wren asks as she brushes large chunky flakes off her crimson wool coat.
“Yeah, I just have to grab my coat and my gift from the back,” I call over my shoulder as I stride toward my office to collect my things.
When I come back, Wren has my phone in her hand, and she’s leaning against the counter, eyes fixed to the screen.
“How’s the hunt for a husband going?” She asks, looking up at me while I stretch my hand out toward her.
My prospects have been dismal, shame and embarrassment colouring my cheeks as I think about her looking through my matches. I wave my fingers in a give it back gesture, but she doesn’t.
“It’s going,” I answer, keeping it as vague as possible. Not that I wouldn’t indulge Wren, but if I admit how it’s actually going out loud, I’ll get discouraged. And I have to stay optimistic. For Aunt Dahlia.
I reach to grab my phone back, but Wren pushes my hand away and makes for the door that Hudson holds open for us.
“I want to look, I’ve never actually been on the apps. It’s fascinating.” She’s swiping through my matches from what I can tell from where I’m standing.
I roll my eyes and finish locking up the store.
“Ooh, look at this one. He’s cute, Pops. Have you gone out with him?”
Wren flashes the screen toward me and shows me the picture of a beefed-up guy I only matched with because he said he was into horror movies. He mentioned House on the Bloodstained Hill specifically, my favourite.
“Nah,” I say, climbing into the backseat of Hudson’s truck.
Wren and Hudson getting into the front. Ruby, Hudson’s rusty coloured golden retriever, is on the seat next to me, wagging her tail, so I give her a pat on the head and a scratch behind her ear.
“He used some creepy pick-up line when he messaged me. He said, ‘I wish you were my pinky toe, so I could bang you on my coffee table later’.”
“He did not!” Wren exclaims, shrieking and then breaking down into laughter. I catch Hudson’s amusement in his eyes as he glances back at me in the rearview mirror.
“That’s not even the worst one, okay?” I add. “It’s dismal out there. Be grateful you both found each other again.”
Hudson’s arm reaches over the centre console, and he rests his hand on my best friend’s leg. The silver band he now wears on his ring finger glints on the hand that grips the steering wheel. I’m glad they were able to reconcile last summer. I’ve never seen Wren happier than when she’s with Hudson.
“Hey, I’m proud of you,” Wren says. “It’s not easy to put yourself out there. And you’ve never really had an interest in dating before, so I think this is good for you.”
She’s not wrong in the sense that it’s not easy. But it’s not that I’m not interested, it’s that I always struggle to connect with people. I’m awkward, and I like things like horror movies that a lot of guys find off-putting.
“I’ve never had time with the café,” I explain, though I know it’s only sort of true.
Thistle + Thorne keeps me busy. Ever since Aunt Dahlia and I expanded and opened the plant shop on the other side, there’s a never-ending to do list to keep it functioning at a baseline capacity.
Putting in food orders, balancing the budget, and handling all the difficult customers. All with a smile on my face.
“What about Ethan? And Jaime?” Wren asks, still swiping through profiles.
She’s swiped right on a couple for me, but we both have wildly different tastes in men, and I cringe every time she does it. They’re all so rugged, when I prefer a guy with more boyish charm.
“They’re great. But they can’t do what I do. Which is keep the place running. And it’s becoming a lot for them, too.”
Jaime is a skilled florist, and she keeps the plant shop operating like a well-oiled machine. But she can only handle so much.
Wren turns in her seat to face me and lifts an eyebrow skeptically. She knows as well as I do that the café can easily turn into an excuse to get out of things I’d rather not do. “I bet if you asked, Ethan would be more than willing to take on more responsibility.”
I consider it for a moment. I’m going to have to ask him, I may not have a choice. I have to find the time—and the energy—to play the field until I can find a husband. The greater good of the café requires it.
“Hey, that guy looks nice,” Hudson chimes in, his gaze flicking down from the road to the phone for a second. Wren has stopped on a guy whose picture is of him holding a puppy. “His dog is cute, too.”
“They literally all have dogs,” Wren says. “That’s how they lure you. It’s probably not even his. Don’t fall for it, Hudson. Pass.”
Hudson puts the truck in park when we pull into Grady’s driveway. The renovated split-level house is decorated with hundreds of colourful lights, and I can already see everyone gathered for Friendsmas in the living room through the large front window.
Wren gets out of the truck before I do, but she pokes her head back in through her open door.
“Oh, also, Jett is in town for the holidays this year,” she says, as if this is something that I need to be updated on.
Jett and I, along with the rest of the Landry brothers, grew up together as family friends. Winnie, the woman who stepped in to help care for the boys after Mrs. Landry died was best friends with my aunt. Although, in school, Jett was always way out of my league.
He ran with the popular crowd, he was charismatic, if not a bit of a cad. And I was…quirky.
Still, just because I was an introvert didn’t mean I was immune to Jett’s charm. I always found my palms sweating when I was around him at family functions, and found myself tripping over my words.
I flash her a quizzical expression.
“He’s wrapped up in some big scandal. If you haven’t heard about it by now, you will soon.”
“Wait, what big scandal?” I ask. I try to keep off social media, and away from the news as much as possible, and Wren hasn’t filled me in.
She rests her hand on the passenger door. “I’ll explain later. Just, don’t mention it tonight.”
“Got it.”
Honestly, I’m not that surprised. Jett is something of a womanizer, and he’s so…unserious. A large-scale scandal was only a matter of time.
I pick my present up off the seat beside me, a small bag with sparkly blue snowflakes on it and a silver envelope, along with my purse and hop out of the backseat.
Hudson opens the front door to Grady’s house, and we’re hit with a heavenly smell, like warm spices, turkey, and evergreen, with a hint of something sweet and citrus.