Chapter 2
TATE
In my defense, Tom started it. He didn't introduce himself, by the way. I learned his name from Jason.
Tom came over to my space with that jaw so sharp it could cut glass, shoulders broad enough to fill my doorway, and muscles on muscles.
I don't know how he managed to walk straight, carrying the attitude of someone who had already decided I was a problem before I’d said a single word.
Also, add in the weight of his ego. Must be the only workout he needs.
When a person looks at you like that—when they're six-foot-something of oozing arrogance and displeasure standing in your doorway making you feel like an inconvenience in your own building—sometimes, you say something you cannot take back.
Sometimes, you say "dive bar" when you actually mean "cozy library cafe with a carefully curated romance section and an espresso machine I have already named Brewce Wayne." These things happen.
The problem—the immediate, physical, happening-right-now problem—is that Brewce Wayne arrived this morning.
He's enormous. Cream-colored, gleaming, absolutely beautiful in the way that commercial espresso machines are when you've been researching them for six months and finally pulled the trigger on the exact model you wanted, despite making a dent in your bank account.
Brewce came in a wooden crate that took two delivery guys to maneuver through my front door, and he is currently sitting in the middle of my space under a blanket like a very expensive, very incriminating piece of evidence.
Which is exactly what he is.
I stand next to the crate with both hands on my hips.
"Need help with that?"
I turn. The contractor, Mike, is standing in the doorway to the back room.
"I need to move it to the back," I say, with the vague hope that I sound like someone who has a plan rather than someone who told a lie one week ago and is now dealing with the consequences.
Mike lifts one corner of the crate, testing the weight. "What is it?"
"Espresso machine."
We get Brewce to the back through a combination of careful navigation and me saying, "left, no, your other left, okay now straight.
" By the time we have him positioned against the far wall next to the boxes, I'm sweating, and Mike is barely breathing hard.
I'm aware this says something about our respective fitness levels, but that is so not the priority right now.
"Thanks," I say.
He grins. "No problem. Let me know if you need help with anything else."
He goes back to the front room, where he's been building shelves all morning, shelves I would tell anyone who asked were for bottles but are actually for books.
I stand in the back room surrounded by the truth of what I'm actually doing and wonder how long I can maintain this before something breaks.
The delivery schedule on my phone poses another problem.
This week alone, I have ten boxes of books (already here, stacked against the left wall in neat rows that make my heart happy every time I look at them), one commercial espresso machine (Brewce, currently heavily guarded), one revolving display stand for paperbacks (arriving Wednesday), bags of specialty coffee beans (arriving Thursday), and one three-tiered glass pastry display case (arriving Friday, and will definitely not fit under a blanket).
None of this says dive bar. All of it says exactly what I'm building, which is absolutely nothing to do with the story I told Tom.
My plan, such as it is, involves intercepting every delivery personally, moving everything to the back room before Tom notices, and maintaining the front of the space as a convincing dive bar until I figure out how to tell him the truth without sounding like someone who lies about their business model out of spite.
The plan has gaps. I'm aware of the gaps. The plan currently ends at "don't let Tom find out." I know that's not a complete plan, but it's the plan I have, and I'm committed to it the way you commit to things you started impulsively and cannot gracefully exit.
Nana would find this hilarious. She would tsk and tut, quote someone, and say, "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." Because now, on top of the stress with opening a business I have no experience in, I need to keep up with all the lies I've said.
The thought surfaces before I can stop it, and once it's there, I can't push it back.
I lean against the wall, look at the boxes, and think about my grandmother, who died four months ago and left me enough money to quit my job and follow my dream.
But that's not all. She also left me a collection of vintage rock memorabilia and home bar furniture—currently the only reason this lie is even remotely sustainable.
Nana was small, loved cardigans, and made shortbread and pies that could bring grown men to tears. She also had a secret life.
She followed bands around the world in the late sixties and seventies, and when she told the stories, she always ended with, "It was extremely fun and absolutely none of your business, darling." Obviously, she was at Woodstock '69. Not just the front row, either, but backstage.
I thought she was exaggerating.
But the collection that arrived with the estate was not the collection of a woman who exaggerated.
It was signed. The kind of thing you accumulate when you've been in rooms with these people, rock icons, rubbing elbows with them, and not when you bought posters at a flea market and made up stories.
The Rolling Stones poster in my front room has a signature I still can't make out.
The Black Sabbath one has two. There's a guitar on the wall that I'm afraid to touch because it looks expensive and possibly historically significant. Maybe there's a recording of someone playing it somewhere. If not Hendrix or Clapton or the Stones, then possibly someone with the initials JB. That’s the best I can decipher from the squiggle I see on the back. I’ll have to research that a bit more.
And the barstools.
God, the barstools made me laugh when they arrived.
Six of them were sitting in a storage unit along with everything else as though my tiny grandmother had been secretly running a bar in her spare time.
I thought they were a mistake. Some kind of estate sale mix-up.
Now they're stacked in the corner of my front room looking exactly like something that belongs in a dive bar, and every time I look at them, I laugh again.
I need air, so I walk out the front door into the afternoon.
William Shakespurr is on his crate. The wooden one by the dumpster that he's claimed as his personal throne.
He has a collar now. Forest green, small silver tag with his full name engraved: William Shakespurr.
Still not sure he likes his name, but he hasn't hissed at me so far, so I'll take that as a yes.
He allows me to pet him exactly three times before walking away, and I've learned not to push for four.
Every single time Tom comes through the back door of his bar, though, William hisses.
I find this concerning but also a little bit vindicating. Animals are good judges of character. I'm choosing to let this mean something.
I sit down on the step, and William opens one eye, assesses me for a second, then closes it again. The afternoon is warm, early summer warmth that hasn't turned brutal yet, so the block is fairly quiet.
Minus the unfriendly neighbor, I really, really like it here.
"Hello, Tate."
Beth is crossing the parking lot with a paper bag in one hand and a mini ice cream tub in the other. She does this every day, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon.
I've probably gained two inches around my waist, and I don't care. Whatever she brings is always delicious.
She hands me the bag. Inside are a still-warm loaf of sourdough and two raspberry scones. My mouth waters.
Beth told me that she makes opinions about people in the first thirty seconds and rarely revises them, and she said it plainly, as fact rather than warning. She also mentioned that Tom has bought bread from her every Sunday for five years, and she has never once given him a free loaf.
She brought me one on my first day of moving here.
"You know Tom's been watching," Beth says.
"I noticed."
"He watched the place before you, too. Every time someone looked at leasing it, he'd get tense."
"Why?"
"Same reason anyone watches anything. He's scared and worried. He's been here five years, barely keeping his head above water most of that time. When he finally gets a little more stable, someone moves in next door. I'd be tense too."
I think about Tom standing in my doorway one week ago, and well, he looked about as scared as a brick wall.
"He's not exactly warm," I say carefully.
Beth laughs. "No. He's not. Last winter, when the deli beside my bakery caught fire from faulty wiring, he let them use his kitchen every day for a week so they could keep up with orders and deliveries."
Beth leaves after ten minutes the way she always does, and I'm alone on the step with half a loaf of sourdough and thoughts I'm not ready to organize.
William Shakespurr has moved from his crate to the step beside me, which he's never done before, and I hold very still because I don't want to break whatever treaty we've just negotiated.
The back door of Sullivan's opens. Tom comes through it—Sullivan's t-shirt, tattered jeans, sneakers. He has a garbage bag in one hand, and he's heading for the dumpster. Then he sees me and stops.
For one full second, we just look at each other.
Then William Shakespurr hisses.
Tom's mouth does something that might be the beginning of a smile or might be indigestion. It's gone before I can identify it. He throws the garbage bag in the dumpster, and I watch the way his shoulders move under the t-shirt, the way his hands are wide and well, massive.
Dear God, I need to stop noticing things about Tom's hands immediately.
He walks back toward his door but stops. "You get a lot of deliveries."