Chapter Seventeen #2
I had some allergy medication I could take to get through it. I didn’t take it that often—my allergies normally weren’t bad enough for me to use it more than a couple times a year. But I was definitely glad I had it now; I didn’t know how else I’d get through the day.
“You’d better hurry,” Mom said, checking the time, and then she did a double take, leaning in closer to look at me. “Lucy? Hold on, are you—”
“I’m okay,” I interrupted her, going to my room.
If she realized I sounded stuffy from allergies and not from crying, she’d tell me to stay home today.
But she had the meeting with the bank, and Amber couldn’t come in until the afternoon, so if I wasn’t there, we’d have to cancel the café bookings for the morning.
I couldn’t let that happen. No matter how bad I felt, I had to be there in person to support her.
If I wasn’t, how could Mom tell I really cared about what she was dealing with?
That’s how you showed love for someone. That’s what made your love matter.
Wasn’t it?
It’s important that The Tiny Tiger’s open, I resolved, digging through the back of my drawer and pulling out the small box of prescription allergy tablets. I glanced down at the note on the side. Safe to be taken with or without food.
“Depending on how you react to these, you might want to have them with a snack,” my doctor had cautioned me. “It’s perfectly safe not to, it’s just that they can hit your system stronger on an empty stomach and everyone reacts differently.”
Hmm. Did I have time to grab breakfast?
A glance at the clock told me no.
Hurriedly, I knocked one back and rushed off to grab two matching shoes. I was running late as it was.
It’d be fine, right?
***
Was the toy mouse in Rumple’s room supposed to be multiplying like it could duplicate itself? I didn’t think so. I mean, it came in a pack that only cost three dollars and ninety-nine cents. Magic mice that could make a copy of themselves would be at least five dollars.
I squinted. Or maybe it was just one mouse and I was getting dizzier.
I turned to Rumple. “Do you see two mice? Be honest.” I gave him a firm look. “It’s just one, isn’t it?”
Rumple looked at the mouse, then back at me, like he was thinking something along the lines of, You remind me of Auntie Snowball after she hits the nip too hard.
I laughed, as one does when one has an imaginary conversation with a cat. Then I leaned down to kiss his little fuzzy forehead, except I ended up aiming wrong and kissed the air instead.
Bunny chose this moment to hop in and observe this action with a decidedly critical expression.
“Don’t judge,” I admonished. “I’m doing this for you, you three-legged ball of love.”
Yeah, I probably should’ve eaten breakfast.
I’d planned on snagging a muffin, but to eat the muffin, I’d have to spit out the watermelon gum I’d been stress chewing since I got here, which I did not want to do. I figured I’d eat later. I mean, Take with food hadn’t been a rule or anything; it’d merely been a suggestion.
Maybe it shouldn’t have been just a suggestion, though, because I was starting to feel kind of drunk.
Or, I guessed this was what it felt like. I’d never actually been drunk.
Okay. I could do this. Slightly wobbly, I stood up, grabbed two full trash bins without spilling anything, and then gave myself a mental round of applause.
This was the world premier concert of “I Can Do This, No, Really, I Can,” starring me. And the crowd was going wild.
If “the crowd going wild” meant an audience of cats staring at me with slight concern.
Carefully, I made my way toward the door.
All I had to do was dump these bins out the back and deal with the next three reservations.
Amber was coming in the afternoon after her dance class, and I could go home after she arrived.
Piece of cake. I didn’t need to worry about the band either.
Jake, Phillip, Aspen, and Leon were here to discuss their performance in two days, and from the sound of things, they hadn’t argued once.
The only thing I needed to do was resist the incredibly stupid idea of falling head over heels for—
I sneezed, making my head jerk forward.
Allergies, as it turns out, like hindsight, were a real—
I rounded the corner and nearly slammed straight into Jake’s chest before I could finish that thought.
Ugh. When did he get so tall? I’d nearly been taller than him before he left. It was disgraceful. I found myself scowling at his chest. Which was weird, because it was actually a really nice chest. It looked like the kind that would be nice to snuggle up to and fall asleep on.
Wow, a nap would be nice right now.
No, Lucy. Stop. Stay awake. Get to work.
Also: Stop staring at his chest. It’s not going to help the Don’t Fall for Jake agenda.
I forced my eyes away from his chest and up to his face.
Which, coincidentally, also did not help the Don’t Fall for Jake agenda.
Realizing how close we were standing, I took a jerky step back, my motor skills as haphazard as a toddler’s.
Jake glanced down at the twin trash bins in my hands. “Need any help with those?”
“No, thanks. I’m okay, just—”
Phillip, Leon, and Aspen all broke out into a clamor of cheers and giggles in the cat room, the noise cutting through to my allergy-induced migraine. My head spun like a disco ball. The noise needed to stop. Now.
“Please tell Alvin and the Chipmunks over there to keep it down,” I heard myself say out loud. Oh my God, what was coming out of my mouth? Were the allergy meds really hitting that hard? “My head’s killing me.”
“Okay,” Jake agreed. Had he lowered his own voice a notch for me? It sounded softer, somehow. Or maybe it was my imagination. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep them quiet.”
Apparently concerned about my headache, Jake studied me. His face did that thing where his eyebrows pinched together slightly and he pursed his lips. It was his mysterious, broody face. The one that caused, like, half a dozen people to fall in love with his poster, or whatever. The irritating one.
“Don’t do that,” I admonished him tiredly.
“Do what?”
“That.”
“You just gestured to my entire face.”
I nodded. Why’s the world spinning? “Good. You get it.”
“I’m not sure I do?”
He really shouldn’t play dumb, not when he was so smart. Jake’s English essays used to be the best. He picked up on subtleties and deeper meanings I didn’t. I always enjoyed clearer cut things, like geometry with if-then statements. Or history. This happened, here’s how we move on from it.
Except, of course, we tended to make the same mistakes again.
Which was why I found myself noticing that Jake had pretty eyes.
But I couldn’t like Jake like that. It was just me and Mom—who I let down, by the way!—and the struggling café and all the cats that counted on us.
It was that thought that made me suddenly blurt out, “Move.”
I frowned. I’d meant to say that to myself, but it came out sounding like it was directed at Jake. Crap.
“Please,” I added, trying to salvage the situation.
Jake watched me curiously for a moment, then stepped out of the way.
“Thank you,” I said to be polite. And then, because I had no control of my tongue anymore apparently, I added, “James Dean.”
Oh my God, was this who I was without a filter? Someone who referenced old movies Mom made me watch like Rebel Without a Cause? What was I going to mention next? An old novel like Catcher in the Rye?
Bet Jake’s English lit–loving heart would love that.
Not that I cared.
As I pushed through the back door, I heard Jake quietly talk to the guys about keeping it down and felt a surge of gratitude.
Focusing on my task, I heaved one trash bin up and dumped it into the recycle, before the sun caught my eye and I squinted in pain. Caught off guard, I swayed to the side, making papers flutter out over the edges of the dumpster.
Okay, maybe I was dizzier than I thought. Should I have told Mom and just stayed home today?
No. Never mind. I could do this. I didn’t let the people I cared about down. I’d be here for them.
I emptied the second bin, then set it down on the ground, exhaling heavily. I stood unsteadily on my feet for a minute, feeling like I was about to rock backward, when—
“Whoa, there.” Jake reached out, his hands coming up to steady my shoulders in the nick of time. The tips of his fingers skimmed down my arms to squeeze my hands, holding on to me so I didn’t fall. When had he come outside? I shut my eyes. “Hey—”
“Hey,” I greeted. It was only polite. Plus, he’d said it so nicely.
“Hey,” he repeated softly, sounding amused I’d interrupted him to say hi.
I kept my eyes shut, feeling too dizzy and tired to open them, but I knew if I did, I’d see one side of Jake’s lips curved up in a whisper of a grin, and a telltale dimple peeking through on one cheek.
“You okay?” he questioned, finishing what he’d initially meant to say.
“Super,” I lied. “Wonderful. Peachy keen.”
A beat, then, “Peachy keen?”
“It’s a saying,” I defended. Maybe if I concentrated really hard, I’d stay awake. “You know, like the cat’s pajamas.”
“Right.”
Jake’s hands were warm and calming as they curled around my shoulders like an anchor, keeping me steady as the sea around me went rocky.
I had to go back inside. I needed to. Just one more minute, then I’d brave the waves again. Sixty more delicious seconds of sunshine.
Sixty seconds passed. My eyes remained shut. Jake’s thumb brushed over my bare skin, sending a sudden flush of goose bumps over me, and I shivered.
Jake let go of me, and I bit back a whine. Instead, I opened my eyes to see him frowning. “You definitely don’t seem like the cat’s pajamas,” he said.
“Rude.”
“You’ve gotten to be a much better liar over the years, I’ll give you that,” he said, in that tone that was so flat, I didn’t know whether it was serious or sarcastic. “If you didn’t look like you were about to pass out into the garbage can, I’d have believed you.”
“Thank you, I’ve been practicing my lying skills. I started out with little fibs several times a week and now I’m up to spreading conspiracy theories daily. Did you know that North Dakota’s not a real place?”
Apparently, this remark did nothing to convince Jake of the Lucy’s Doing Just Fine propaganda I wanted to push, because he reached a hand out to my forehead.
His hand felt nice as it brushed back against my hairline.
“I’m not sick,” I informed him, batting his hand away before I did something incredibly stupid like move it to my cheek and nuzzle into it or something. “If you hear me sniffling, it’s just allergies.”
“Oh. You got bad enough to take your allergy meds today, didn’t you?” Jake asked, his eyes lighting up in recognition. “Wait—don’t tell me. You ran straight here to open the café and skipped breakfast too.”
I glared at him. “You missed your calling as a psych major.”
“Seriously, why’d you come in today? You know you feel miserable even with the pills. Remember what happened in eighth grade?”
“Do you?” I asked. “Because for a while there, it felt like you forgot about me entirely.”
Something I felt too sick to decipher flashed through his eyes, before he pushed whatever emotion that was away. “You should go home.”
“No way, we need to be open this morning,” I argued, trying hard to annunciate because my tongue was feeling heavy. “It’s more important than ever. We can’t be shutting down at random times.”
“Okay, but do you really need to—”
“I do,” I insisted before he could finish his sentence, exhaustion and desperation creeping into my voice. “You don’t abandon the people you love. No matter what.”
Jake paused, taking me in. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
I avoided his gaze. Quietly, I said, “I only really got it wrong once.”
The with you went unsaid, heavy on my tongue.
When my eyes flickered back to Jake, he was watching me closely.
After a moment, he said, “I get it, Lucy. But it won’t help the café if you mess something up because you’re too sick to think straight. It’ll just make things worse.”
I considered this, horrified. Out of everything Jake could’ve said, that’s what pulled me up short. What if I accidentally let a cat out? Or embarrassed myself in front of customers? What if they went online and wrote humiliating reviews? I’d never forgive myself.
Jake coaxed me toward the door. “There’s no one here right now. Just close up. Amber can reopen when she comes in later.”
The idea sounded nice, but then I remembered that I’d have to cancel the rest of the bookings this morning. The effect was like car brakes slamming.
“No!” I shouted, louder than I meant to. “We can’t lose another day. Please.”
Jake blinked, surprised at the intensity of my reaction, before nodding.
“Okay, then. How about I get the guys to help. I’ll make sure they keep the café running.
Leon’s really great with coffee, you know.
And you have a chore checklist in the cat room, right?
Aspen and Phillip can take care of that. Now can you go home?”
I crossed my arms skeptically.
“I’ll make sure everything is fine,” he assured me, and in a tone a shade softer, said, “Just trust me. Please?”
I breathed out an exhale. “Okay.”
“Here, let me have your keys,” Jake said, taking them from me and heading toward my car. “I’ll drive you.”
“Then how will you get back to the café?”
“I’ll walk.”
“What? No. You don’t have to—”
“Lucy, it’s fine,” he assured me as he unlocked the doors. “You’ve already proven you’ll be there for everyone, okay? Just let me be here for you right now.”