Chapter 20
BILLIE
“This is a bad idea,” he tells me again.
“You look cute. This is a great idea. You’ll be fine.”
“What if someone wants something?”
I place my hands on my hips and stare him down. “They will want something. This is a cafe. They’re the customers. The whole point is for them to want something and for you to give it to them.”
“But—” he starts, and I silence him with a raised finger.
Today is Jacob Ford’s first day at work in his first real menial job. I’m making him stand behind the counter at the cafe for a few hours.
He argued against it, of course, deciding he’d be useless at it and not wanting to put the effort in.
I told him that this was his way of repaying me for room and board.
He tried to spin it that the effect his kisses had on me was payment enough, but even after he attempted to prove it, and we lay in my bed breathless and sweaty, I still wasn’t dissuaded.
It’s good for him, I told him. To be treated like a person, he’s got to act like one. And to act like one, he can’t go around feeling like he’s worth more than a lowly server.
“You can use the register. You know what a croissant is. I’ll make the coffee. You just stand there and smile. You’ll be fine.”
He opens his mouth as if to argue, then clamps it shut again, his shoulders sagging as he sighs. “Fine, okay. But if this goes wrong, it’s not my fault.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Whose fault will it be if you make a mistake then?”
“Yours?”
The wide-eyed pout he gives me is utterly irresistible, and my heart melts inside my chest. I lean forward to kiss him, our lips brushing chastely, before pointing to the door. “I’ll take the fall. But I think you’ll be just fine.”
Like a wet dog with its tail between its legs, he slinks out to the front, the ties of his apron flapping behind him.
I give him a second before I follow. It’s a Thursday, which is why I roped him into this today; it’s usually our least busy day. Plus, it’s the afternoon, so all we’ll really get are occasional tourists and the regulars who’ll treat him like entertainment and forgive him if he screws up.
Already his first customers are arriving. They’re tourists, bumbling up to the counter, frowning at my handwritten chalkboard menu to try and decide what they want. They talk quietly among themselves, and Jacob stares blankly at them. I give him a nudge. He frowns at me.
“Say hello,” I mouth.
He frowns again like the concept is completely alien to him, then takes a deep breath and says, “Hello, there. Do you want something?”
I bite my lip to stop myself from laughing. It’s not the worst way he could have started this conversation, but it’s certainly not the way I would have trained him to.
The gaggle of tourists don’t seem to notice his weird behavior, and instead they debate about what they want for a long while. Jacob stands there frowning at them.
“Make conversation,” I hiss, the silence growing intolerable.
“Have you decided yet?” he asks. Again, not great, but better than nothing.
One of the girls comes to the front of the gaggle, with long black hair and vibrant blue makeup, and grins before ordering lattes with all of the sweet syrups we have.
Jacob freezes like he doesn’t even understand what he’s being asked to do, and I have to try not to roll my eyes. No wonder he’s a CEO. If he had to do this as a job all the time, I think he’d be fired very quickly.
“Do you serve food here?” asks a different girl, pale and fair-haired. Jacob opens his mouth, then closes it again before looking at me uncertainly.
I decide to spare him the pain and jump in. “We usually do. But unfortunately, the kitchen is closed today. My friend Jacob will be happy to help you if you want a pastry of some kind.”
“Friend?” he mouths to me, before turning back to the group and doing his best to smile.
The gaggle pour over the pastry display and finally put in their orders. As I make the coffee, he plates up the pastry, meticulously centering each one on the plate before handing it over. The group goes to sit at a table, and I hand Jacob a tray.
“What’s this?” he asks.
“You’re going to take them their coffees.”
“What…?”
I give him a despairing look. “What, did you think they just appear in front of them? You’re working today. You can serve.”
His lips waver as he tries to formulate some sort of response, but words fail him, and he gives in to the role he’s playing.
Carefully, he lifts the tray, staring wide-eyed at all the drinks as they wobble.
He shuffles over to the table and places each cup down in the middle without a word before sauntering back over.
No doubt he’s waiting for me to tell him he did a good job, but he’ll be waiting a long time for that.
“Next time,” I say, trying to keep my voice stern even though amusement wants to filter through. “It would be better if you handed them the drinks personally.”
“I did,” he says, cocking his head to the side, genuinely confused.
I can’t help the chuckle. “Have you never been in a cafe before? They announce the drink and hand it to the customer. With words… like a person.”
“That’s stupid,” he huffs. Although from the shade of red his face is turning, I can tell he has no real argument for me. He’s definitely the kind of person who would get mad at waiters for not getting his order right.
Part of me hopes I’ve done at least a little to change that. To show him that everyone is human and deserves consideration.
He leans on the counter, relaxing like he thinks he’s done his hard work for the day, but he barely gets a moment of respite before his next customers walk in. This time, it’s people he knows.
“And what the hell are you doing here?” says Louise with a huge smile on her face as she and Sage come up to the counter.
Jacob gives them the first real smile I’ve seen him give all day. “Working.”
“Lowering yourself to the level of the peasants, huh?” Louise is joking, but the tips of Jacob’s ears turn pink. Sage shoots her a look as if to say, don’t torment him, to which I’m sure Louise would say he’s a billionaire, he can handle it.
Before the silent conversation can go any further, he stretches out a hand to the chalkboard. “What do you want?” Then, feeling my stare burning into his back, adds, “Please?”
Sage politely but conspicuously covers her mouth with her hand, trying not to laugh too openly at him. “We’ll both take iced matcha lattes, please,” she says.
“Extra cream for me,” chimes in Louise.
Jacob dutifully writes down the order, though I’ve started making the drinks before the pen touches the paper. The slip is destined for the trash, unread.
“And what pastries do you want?” He stares blankly at them, and I roll my eyes, turning back to the coffee machine. I hear Sage’s giggles get louder, and Louise lets out a sigh.
“Hey, Bills,” says Louise, “you need to rethink your hiring process.”
“He’s doing his best,” I say, jumping to his defense. Not that he needs me to defend him. And not that he is doing a good job with this at all.
“Do you want these to go?” Jacob asks, waving the croissant he has pinched in his tongs at them.
We all stare at him — this guy with a flushed face, an annoyed frown, more money than sense, and a croissant — and burst out laughing.
Sage eventually manages to say, “Yes, please,” and Jacob crams the pastries in a bag, slamming them in with so much force it’s a surprise the bag doesn’t rip. He thrusts the bag at them, and I slide the drinks over the counter.
“Thanks a million, Bills. Jacob,” says Louise, before she winks at me and the couple turn to leave.
Jacob is still flushed and frustrated. “Jacob,” I say quietly. “Let’s have a talk in the back.”
We head through to the back room, and Jacob slumps into a seat with a sigh. “You’re firing me, aren’t you?”
“What? No, you’re doing fine.” He gives me a doubtful look. “No, really. This is all new to you. You’ve just got to loosen up a little. Talk to them like you talk to friends.”
“Easy for you to say,” he grumbles. “Everyone is your friend. Nobody likes me.”
“That’s not true,” I say. He raises an eyebrow. I summon all my courage and quietly say, “I like you.”
He looks up at me, his green eyes glistening with emotion. “You do?”
I walk over to him slowly, my heart pounding in my chest. For a second, I hesitate, standing in front of him, not quite reveling in how small and human he looks, but definitely noticing it.
Then I take another step forward, straddle his legs, and sink down onto his lap, wrapping my arms around his shoulders.
Like instinct, his arms are immediately around me too, supporting me. A wordless promise that he won’t let me fall.
“I do,” I whisper, then close the gap between us and lean in for a kiss.
Suddenly, it’s too hot in the break room, which is nothing more than a glorified cupboard.
I gasp as Jacob’s hands slide down my back, and I tilt my head so I can nip at his neck, his stubble coarse on my lips.
He lets out a long breath, and I continue kissing his neck, letting my own hands roam his body, driven on as I feel the bulge in his pants growing.
“God, Billie,” he growls. “What spell do you have on me?”
“A wicked, magic one,” I answer. “The same one you have on me. This is so not the right place for this.”
“We can stop.”
“Did I say stop?”
I don’t give him a chance to reply because our lips crash together again, colliding with a renewed passion, the hot desire of lust burning inside us both. I’m aching for him, longing. It’s a primal need, something base and unfamiliar to me. Something exciting.
When he stands up, I yelp, clinging to him as he lifts me in one deft motion, my legs wrapping around his hips, the proof of his desire undeniable. He places me down on the countertop and kisses me again. “Please,” I murmur. “I want you so much.”
“Not as much as I want you.”
The break we take is longer than it should have been, but I don’t care. I should have flipped the sign around to ‘closed’. We probably lost business.
But I don’t care.
Jacob fills my mind like an obsession, like an itch I can’t scratch. Worst of all, I’m starting to like it.