Chapter 40
POPPY
“One oat milk matcha latte for my favourite customer.”
I slide the hot cup of green liquid towards Maryann. She smiles, a genuine smile, when she picks it up and thanks me before sauntering out of the store.
Ethan must have taken good care of her while I was gone, because he’s kept the Matcha Monster at bay. I look around now that I have a chance to, having cleared the morning rush line up. My heart swells being back here again, back in my element.
As much as I’ve loved getting to spend time with Jett, experiencing new and exciting things, I’ve missed the café. I’ve missed the comfort and safety of my own space where I can have full control of my environment to try and prevent a flare, and then to take care of myself when I inevitably do.
Still, as much as I’ve been glad to be home, there’s a pit in my stomach that grows larger with every passing minute that brings Jett and I closer to the end of our relationship. The reality that’s closing in on us.
I can’t leave the café, not again. Ethan says he enjoyed it, getting the experience of running the place without me, but it was unfair of me to ask that of him.
And with only three of us here to oversee the plant shop and operate the café, it doesn’t leave room for situations like this, when one of us has to call in sick.
Not if I’m away, gallivanting around with my pro-skier husband.
The timer clipped to the top of my apron beeps a few times, reminding me that I have soup heating up for Ethan in the back.
I lift the lid off the pot and stir the steaming chicken noodle. It’s not the soup I was planning on making today for the special, but it’ll do, and this way I can send a bowl over to Ethan.
I’ll send Jaime over to his place to drop it off. He just lives down the street, and I can manage here on my own until then. He felt so badly about calling in sick today, knowing that I have a lot on my plate these days.
But something about the way he worded it has stuck with me, and it’s put me in a strange frame of mind today.
He said something about things being stressful for me right now, which I won’t deny.
With Jett getting ready for the World Cup, and our rushed wedding, there has been a weight on my shoulders.
Still, Ethan doesn’t know about Jett and I, so I have to wonder what he was on about.
It’s been making me overthink all my interactions, and every customer that’s come into the café seemed like they were staring at me funny. In fact, I’m kind of thinking that might not have been my imagination.
I place the lid back on the pot, and turn the heat down on the stove, before heading back out to the café. There’s no one lined up to place an order, so I take the moment to grab the broom and weave my way through the tables, cleaning up some crumbs on the floor.
The bell chimes, and in comes Wren. Something on her face almost looks frantic, panicked. My best friend is almost always put together, but this morning her usually sleek dark hair is messy, held up in a clip that it looks like she threw in. Her makeup isn’t done yet, and her eyes are wide.
“Pops, oh my god, have you checked your phone?” She strides over to me, her phone in hand, waving it around.
“No, I… I haven’t really been on it…” I stammer. It’s true, other than my phone call with Ethan last night, I’ve barely looked at my phone at all. Jett and I have been… otherwise occupied and I’ve been so caught up in…him.
“I’m so sorry, Poppy,” Wren hands me her phone, and I’m not too sure what I’m about to see. It’s an article that came out just this morning, hot off the press news.
The headline reads: PROFESSIONAL PLAYBOY AND HIS BOGUS brIDE OUTED.
My stomach drops, and I’m too stunned for words. I can’t even start to consider what this might mean. Will I lose the café? If everyone has found out that this marriage is a sham, surely I’ll lose it. Maybe worse… could I be arrested for fraud?
I blink slowly as I look around the café and consider that this place I love so much might no longer be mine. I don’t even know what will happen to it if it can’t be claimed as part of Aunt Dahlia’s estate. What will become of Thistle + Thorne? What will become of me?
This café has been my entire life, it is my whole life.
For years I’ve hidden behind this café because I’ve been too scared to leave my comfort zone. I might have been willing to spread my wings a bit, but now having my livelihood ripped out from under me? It’s too much.
Wren is still staring at me, trying to gauge my reaction because I still haven’t said anything.
“Does Jett know?” She asks when she realizes I’m in shock.
Jett.
What’s going to happen with…
I turn to look at the stairs up to the apartment to find Jett at the bottom, standing there in a grey cotton t-shirt and blue striped pyjama bottoms.
He was supposed to be getting ready to train with Mark and Dan today. He’d somehow convinced them to train him at the Heartwood community centre, but he’s not even dressed. His hair is a mess, and there’s practically no colour in his face.
“Nuclear knows,” he says, before I have a chance to ask him about the article. “They know about us.”