Chapter 34
POPPY
“You should go home and take a night off of closing,” I tell Ethan as he wipes out the old espresso grounds from the hopper on top of the machine. “You’ve done so much over the last few weeks. Seriously, take tomorrow off, too if you want.”
“I enjoy the work, Pops,” Ethan answers, and it occurs to me how much he’s grown up since he started working here.
He’s no longer the lanky, dorky, brace-faced high school kid I hired.
He’s cut his curly red hair, so it’s cropped close to his head, and his body has more muscle on it than it used to.
“It’s been good for me to take on more responsibility around here. ”
“Have you decided what you want to do now that you’ve graduated?” I ask.
He took the summer off of school to work here and find his path, which turned into the fall, which turned into the winter. I’ve just been grateful to have him for as long as I have, but I know the time will inevitably come when Ethan goes on to live his own life. As he should.
Ethan hops down off the stool he was on to get on top of the espresso machine and wipes his hands on his apron.
“I’ve been applying for business school,” he says. “Maybe one day I can run my own café, or restaurant, or something.”
“That’s amazing, Ethan.” And it is, I don’t have to force a smile or fake my happiness for him.
I can’t expect him to stay at Thistle + Thorne forever.
This café is my dream, not his. I want him to go and live the full life he wants.
I’ll manage here, picking up the slack like I always do.
Although I’m not sure I’ll find someone who makes Maryann’s oat milk matcha latte exactly to her liking, or who knows how to handle all the quirks of the building like he does.
I’ll figure it out, so the idea of losing Ethan isn’t the reason for the pit forming in my stomach.
It’s that in the last few weeks, I’ve been able to go expand my world beyond these four walls, too.
And now I’m not sure I want to go back to the way things have been.
Working at the café six days a week and using my only day off for paperwork.
I love Thistle + Thorne, but I want more. And I don’t want to have to choose.
Ethan unties his apron and hangs it on the hook by the door that leads to the back prep area and walks around the front of the counter. He leans on it while I finish putting away the rest of the sanitized metal jugs.
“I’ll still be around for a little while, Poppy. This isn’t me handing in my resignation,” he says.
I offer him a soft smile and a nod that I understand. He places his palm on the counter to punctuate the conversation before leaving.
Not long after Ethan leaves, Wren shows up, and the bell tinkles as she opens the door.
We’ve had a weekend routine, up until a few weeks ago, where she comes to the café Saturday night after closing and we catch up over a glass of wine—non-alcoholic for me—and eat leftover pastries that didn’t sell.
“Hey there, Mrs. Jett Landry,” she greets me as she takes off her scarf and wool coat before hanging them on the coat rack next to the front door. She turns around to lock it and flip the sign on the door from open to closed.
“I’ll be right back with the wine,” I tell her as I disappear for a moment into my office and grab it and the two glasses I keep in the cupboard above the desk.
When I get back, Wren is sitting at our usual table, the small two-seater by the window. My heart squeezes.
Because even though I’ve been enjoying my time with Jett, I’ve also missed this. My normal routines, the little moments I used to look forward to each week. Catching up with my best friend.
I haven’t even seen her since the wedding. After Jett and I got engaged, everything moved so quickly, I’ve barely had a chance to catch my breath.
Now that I have a moment to look up and take stock of everything… My life is almost unrecognizable. I keep thinking that after Jett wins the World Cup things will go back to normal, but now I’m not so sure I want them to.
Still, this moment of familiarity and comfort is a balm as I sit down across from Wren.
It seems like it was just yesterday that I sat with Wren at this very table when she came back into town, and she adamantly told me she would never get back with her ex.
It’s been almost two years since then, and my eyes catch on the pair of rings on her finger as she picks up her wine glass and takes a long pull.
I fiddle with the pair of rings I now also wear on my left hand, the large diamond shimmering even in the low light in the café.
“So, have you officially secured the deed for the café yet?” Wren asks. It’s the first time since the wedding that we’ve had a moment in private to talk about it.
“I got an email from the lawyer. He’s putting together the paperwork now,” I tell her, absentmindedly spinning my rings around my finger.
“Poppy, that’s amazing.” Wren says.
I nod in agreement, but I can’t share in her optimism just yet, not until I’ve signed on the dotted line and everything is finalized.
In the moment of silence that falls between us, my attention is drawn to my phone, vibrating in my pocket. I pull it out and my heart rolls forward at the name on the screen.
Jett has responded to my message asking about the event tomorrow, and my pulse quickens reading his response that he’ll miss having me at the end of his run.
I quickly type out my reply and set my phone on the table.
Wren is busy telling me all about her art, and how she has a waitlist of commissions lined up.
So many that she’s had to close them to focus on her current projects.
I’m so proud of her, and all the work she’s done to find her way back to herself, the bravery she had to do the thing she loved over what everyone else thought she should be doing.
I nod along, trying to focus on what she’s saying, but a sliver of my attention is still on my phone, and when the screen lights up again, I can’t help but look at it.
JETT
Not the same. I’ve started to look forward to kissing you after my runs.
My whole face heats, because I’ve started to look forward to kissing Jett, too.
And now that he’s agreed to teach me his ways in the bedroom…
Kissing Jett has been an all-consuming thought.
Just like the memory of having his head—his tongue—between my legs.
Whatever he did was a thousand times better than what I tried to do with my fingers.
Wren must notice the flush creeping up my neck at whatever is on my phone screen, because she’s stopped talking, and her dark eyes pinning me.
“What?” I ask, taking another long sip of my wine to avoid looking at her.
“Your face is the colour of an heirloom tomato,” Wren says, and the heat in my cheeks only intensifies. “Who are you texting?”
I set my wine down on the table between us and shrug as a response.
“It was Jett wasn’t it,” Wren deadpans. “You’re blushing, Poppy. Jett just made you blush,” she says, as if blushing is a felony.
If only she knew what Jett made me do last night. The way he made me cry out, the only word I was capable of saying was his name.
“Are you… falling for him?”
I shake my head, though not in denial of my feelings, but incredulous at the fact that I’ve been having real feelings for my fake husband.
“I’m not…” I start to deny it, but I know immediately that whatever I was about to say, it would be a lie.
The hot, prickly sensation on my neck gives it away.
I’m honest to a fault, and the feeling this brings up is the same one I had when I was trying to convince Wren that our relationship, our engagement, was real.
“But being married to him… it’s kind of fun. ”
“Define ‘fun’.” Wren’s near-black gaze bores through me as if I’m under interrogation.
“I don’t want to,” I answer, typing back a quick response to his message.
“Did you hook up with him?”
I stare blankly at her, my mind fixed firmly on the text thread beckoning me from my phone.
“I plead the fifth.”
“Poppy!” Wren shrieks, and I think she might just spill her wine the way she throws her hands up in the air as if I’m a lost cause. “You’re shitting me. You slept with Jett?”
“No,” I start. But I want to, I think. “We haven’t gone all the way yet.
He’s just… teaching me a few things. I’ve never done this kind of thing before.
I want a bit of experience. Then once this marriage thing is over, I’ll be able to get out into the dating scene with a few more. .. tools in my toolkit, so to speak.”
Wren squints at me as she takes a long, drawn out pull of her wine.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I warn, nudging her leg with my foot under the table.
“I’m not looking at you like anything.” Her voice goes up an octave. “I just worry about you, okay? This plan seemed innocuous enough at the start, but it is rapidly spiralling out of control.”
“What about ‘Jett is team Poppy?’” I argue. “You didn’t seem so against our relationship after the engagement party.”
“I didn’t think you’d start hooking up with him!”
“What’s wrong with it? We’re just having fun, Wren.” I try to force my features into a neutral, indifferent expression. Because fun isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe how I’ve been feeling about Jett lately.
Wren quirks her eyebrow as if she’s not buying it.
“You’re just new to all this, is all,” she sighs.
I have to refrain from rolling my eyes, but I know Wren can see the disdain on my face.
“That’s not a bad thing, Poppy. But let me tell you, speaking from experience, guys like Jett are…”
“They’re what, Wren?” I ask, a defensive wall sliding up my back.
Whatever she’s about to say about Jett, I’m sure it’s going to be misguided. Everyone wants to think they understand him, but they only know what he shows to the media. Not the soft, sweet, caring version of him I’ve gotten to know.
Not the guy who rushed down the ski hill after I fell, frantically checking to make sure I was okay. Not the guy who brought me home and ran me a bath, who speaks to Cordelia as softly as he speaks to me, who wanted to learn to knit.
“He’s a guy who knows how to make girls blush, okay?
” She says, with all the conviction of someone who believes everything they see online.
Her words land on me like a hundred tiny daggers.
“He’s Jett. He’s fun at parties, he’s a great time, and he has a lot of redeeming qualities, but he doesn’t want a relationship. ”
Now I hide my face behind my wine glass, all but guzzling it down, even though it’s not doing anything to make this conversation more tolerable.
That little voice in the back of my mind is back, telling me that Jett could never feel the same way about me that I do about him. That if it hadn’t been convenient, and I didn’t need this marriage as badly as he did, I would have never even landed on his radar.
When I don’t answer, Wren continues, her tone gentle but almost pitying.
“You deserve a real happily ever after, Pops. Your happily ever after, whatever that looks like. Keep your eye on the prize. It’s fine if you want to hook up with him and make the most of this bizarro situation you have going on, but please remember that.
Don’t let yourself get attached; you’ll only end up hurt.
Get the café, stay married for as long as you need to avoid any backlash, and then,” she makes a slicing motion across her throat.
“Cut your ties. The legal ones, I mean.”
I nod solemnly.
Wren does have a point. Yet, all I can think about is how whenever I have been hurt, Jett has been the one there to pick me up, to notice that I need support when no one else does.
You’ve always inspired me, Pops.
His words echo and reverberate in my mind. The subtle hints he’s dropped that our current relationship isn’t the first time he’s thought about me.
I love Wren dearly, but sometimes she can be so black and white, so self-preserving, and stubborn.
Her traits, for better or for worse, extend to the people she loves when she feels they need protecting.
But everything I’ve seen from Jett in the last few weeks tells me she might just be wrong about this.
Still, it doesn’t negate the fact that Jett and I lead very different lives, ones that wouldn’t fit together no matter how hard we might try.
Once I’ve sufficiently reassured Wren that I’m not falling for Jett, and under no circumstances will I entertain the very real feelings I’m having for him, she gets up and throws her coat and scarf on. And then she’s gone.
I lock up behind her, finish shutting off all the lights, and head up the staircase at the back of the café that leads to my apartment.
When I get inside and shut the door behind me, I pull out my phone again to check the messages and find a new one from Jett.
Suddenly, the conversation I just had with Wren is forgotten, like a distant memory in my past that my brain has chosen to filter out to save cognitive space for other, more important things. Like the fact that Jett has admitted he’s been thinking about last night.
We text back and forth, the flirtatious tension palpable through the phone screen, and butterflies careen around in my gut when I read the most recent one that’s come in.
JETT
Good. It’s time for our next lesson.