Chapter 25 #2
High school kids went for a swim after dances, the breakups and new relationships forming always a swirl of too much for her. She’d only been here for her freshman year, anyhow.
She noticed an antiques store, the kind she’d never go into if she didn’t happen to be strolling by. Love You Again, the sign said. Her memory tried to place it, finally realizing this used to be a watch repair shop.
Even in Love You, things change.
What caught her eye was a small wooden giraffe on a wicker table, the neck crooked. It reminded her of Needle getting stuck under the bridge, of the day Luke yelled at her, of a time when she didn’t understand.
Didn’t know how Amber had died.
She smiled, feeling guilty, the mix of grief and humor weird even for her. Would Luke find the crooked-neck giraffe as amusing as she did?
The price tag said seventeen dollars. Heck, why not buy it and decide later?
A young girl with braces and a huge grin was wrapping the giraffe in tissue, chattering away about Greta’s peppermint brownies, when the shop’s door opened. The sleigh bells hanging from the knob jingled, fitting perfectly with the mood.
“Buying me a present?” asked a familiar, happy voice.
Kylie turned to find Luke standing there, wearing a ski jacket, jeans, boots, and a red knit hat. Out of uniform, he cut a fine form.
In uniform, too. Luke was hot, period, and the teenage clerk’s reaction–flushed cheeks, a bigger grin, an averted gaze–made it clear Kylie wasn’t his only fan.
“Well,” she replied, grateful the giraffe was in the paper bag already, “I might be.” Warmth filled her, the kind no heater can manufacture. All her uncertainty about job hunting, her future, her ambitions, melted away around him.
Why fight this?
What if she could just let it happen?
“Hmmm.” He picked up an object, pale off-white in color, that had a rounded peak with curved slopes and six little holes carved into the center of the peak. “What’s this, Alexis?”
The girl’s eyes went wide with horror.
“Um, that?”
“Yes,” Luke asked patiently, turning it over in his hand. “Is it ivory?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Elephant?”
“Yes.” Her eyes cut to the back of the store. “Let me get Grandpa. He can, uh, explain it better.”
Kylie thought it looked a lot like a woman’s breast, but said nothing.
Luke frowned at the teenager. “But you know what it is?” He turned it over, peak down, like a cup. “Is it, like, an old valet? For change and cufflinks? It holds something?” Cradling it in his palm, Luke held it like he was cupping a breast.
Suddenly, Kylie’s cheeks were aflame, too.
“Hiya, Luke. I see you found the nipple shield,” said a bald man, tall and slender, moving into the room quickly, carrying an old clown doll so creepy that Kylie nearly wet her pants. “Did Alexis explain what it is?”
“Nipple shield?” Luke sputtered.
“Breast,” Kylie said simply, earning her a look from everyone as Luke carefully put the item back where he found it. “It’s for breastfeeding.”
“Oh,” Luke said in a low, clipped tone, setting it down carefully, as if it might give him a disease.
“Excuse me?” the man said to her, then smiled. “Kylie Hood?”
“Yes.”
“John Mangus.”
“Mangus. Like Angus Mangus’s dad?” Angus’s real name wasn’t Angus–it was Steve–but with a last name like that, he’d reinvented himself in kindergarten and it stuck.
“The same. Heard you were back in town.”
“Hi!”
“And Luke, you’re amazing. You come into my store and immediately find a breast to fondle.”
Luke gave him a flat look. John burst out laughing.
“On that note,” Luke said loudly, taking Kylie’s elbow in a gentlemanly gesture, “we’ll take our leave. Good to see you, John.”
“And you!” he called back as Luke ushered her to the sidewalk.
For a moment, Kylie felt a rush of joy that invaded every cell of her being.
One week ‘til Christmas, and she had a gift for Harriet and now one for Luke. She was walking down the street in Love You, Maine, with a man she’d kissed and who insisted on carrying the larger package for her, holiday music melodious and fun as they strolled.
“Luke!” a woman’s voice called out, and Kylie tensed. Suddenly selfish, she wanted Luke to herself.
“Rachel!”
Emotions pivoting on a dime, Kylie turned to find a smiling woman with long, dark hair in curls around her shoulders, wearing a white hat with a huge faux-fur pompom, a red wool coat, and boots no self-respecting Mainer would ever wear.
“Is this the famous Kylie?” she asked, holding out her hand to shake. Kylie accepted the offer, gloved hands performing the ritual.
“I should say the same,” Kylie replied, laughing. “I’ve heard so much about you! How was L.A.?”
“Sunny, warm, and sunny. Did I mention the warm part?”
“Your first full winter here, Rachel,” Luke said. “It’s the hardest one.”
“They get easier after this?” she asked.
“No,” Kylie and Luke replied simultaneously, and laughed. Rachel’s eyes flashed, but Kylie saw the speculation behind them.
“What are you two up to? Christmas shopping, I assume?”
Luke looked at Kylie. “She got Harriet something special.”
Rachel’s brow went up. “Anything I need to know? This will be my first Christmas with the family, too. We got her something from her list. The one Deanna gave Kell.”
“There’s a list?” Kylie gasped.
Luke rubbed her back lightly, in a calming gesture. “Whatever you got her will be perfect.”
“You’re from here, right?” Rachel asked. “So you know all about the businesses in town?”
“I haven’t been back in fifteen years. A lot is the same, but there’s plenty of change, too.”
Rachel squinted, as if thinking. “I’d love to pick your brain, Kylie.”
“You would?”
“I’m the director of business development and planning for the town, but I’m an outsider.
I can see Luview through fresh eyes, but you have a unique perspective.
Your memory is frozen in time, fifteen years ago.
Your perception could help me understand how changes affect residents.
Can we have coffee sometime? Maybe after Christmas? ”
“Of course! At Greta’s?”
“Have you been to Love You Coffee?”
“There’s a coffee shop other than Greta’s now?”
“Luke!” Rachel admonished him. “You haven’t exposed Kylie to the sheer caffeinated love bomb of a Love You Coffee latte?”
“Are they calling your creation the Love Bomb, Rachel?” he joked.
“No, but what a great idea!”
“What’s your special latte?” Kylie asked. For someone who’d only lived here for nine months, Rachel sure seemed to fit in already.
Maybe Kylie could be accepted here, more than she ever expected.
“Half almond milk, half two percent, double shot, with a teaspoon of ground organic Madagascar vanilla.”
“That sounds amazing.”
Rachel shot Luke a look. He groaned.
“She wants us to get coffee, Kylie. You’re killing me.”
“No time?” Rachel asked.
“I had three cups at home already,” he said.
“Kylie? How about it? Ten minutes out of your day, meet Reef and Skylar, and have the best coffee you’ve had in ages.”
“The last good coffee I had was at Greta’s.”
Rachel leaned in and whispered, “Don’t tell Wolf or Greta I said this, because I’ll deny it, but Reef has them beat.”
Luke pretended to be mortified. “Like, wow,” he said in an imitation of one of the teens from Mean Girls. “Rachel, like, just dissed Greta’s!”
“With a tease like that, how can I say no?” Kylie said, looking at Luke.
Luke smirked. “So all I have to do is tease you to get you to say yes to things?”
Rachel gave them a look, palms going up. “I’m not touching that comment with a ten-foot pole, but come on. Let’s get coffees.”
“I’ll pass, but Kylie can get a Love Bomb.”
The three of them walked down the street, the coffee shop within a two-minute walk.
As they approached, Kylie asked, “How hard was it giving up the city?”
Luke’s sharp look put her on guard.
“Hard,” Rachel admitted as Luke moved ahead of them to get the coffee shop door, opening it and gesturing them in ahead of him. “I miss good food.”
“The Food Alchemist has good food,” Luke argued as they stood behind three people in line.
“Sure,” Rachel agreed. “But in L.A. you have endless choices. Here, we have The Food Alchemist, Love You India, Mountain Dragon, Bilbee’s, and Greta’s.”
“Hey, now. Deke’s has a breakfast diner,” he said. “We’re making progress.”
Rachel laughed. “You lived in New York for years, right?” she said to Kylie. “You get it.”
“I do.” An intense look from Luke caught her off guard again. Was she imagining it, or was he upset whenever cities were mentioned?
It was their turn. A man Kylie had never seen before, pierced and tattooed, with both braids and locs, took their order.
“Hey, Reef,” Rachel said. “Two of my drinks.”
Reef looked at Kylie, then Luke. “February 23,” he muttered.
Luke let out a grunt that turned into a growl.
Rachel snorted.
Kylie looked around at the coffee shop, the decor rivaling anything she’d find back in New York. It was clean, spare, and simple, but with comfortable chairs and tables everywhere, designed to be a place to sit and sip, talk and connect.
But unlike anyplace in New York, the mugs were all red, shaped like hearts.
“Here,” Reef said. “Charge to your account?” He looked at Rachel, who nodded, as Kylie and Luke both pulled out cash.
“I got it,” Luke insisted, handing him a twenty.
“Luke!” Rachel protested.
His head shake made it clear he was buying, and that was that.
“Thank you,” the women said to him in unison. They all moved away from the counter to a tall table designed for standing around, and Rachel urged Kylie to take a sip.
She did.
“Yum,” she said sincerely, then as the drink hit her, she added, “This is delicious.”
“Told you!” She thumbed toward Luke. “Mr. Sourpuss here doesn’t like it.”
“A man can’t have preferences?”
Rachel’s phone buzzed. A look of alarm covered her face as she checked it.