Chapter 9 Sierra
Sierra
“What an incredible day!” Sophie turns up the music. “People really showed up for us.”
“I know. Where did they all come from, right?”
It’s early evening at the smoothie bar and our last customers have just left, happily slurping smoothies. Sophie dance-wipes the equipment down as she does at the end of every shift whenever she joins me at my pop-ups.
I’m feeling effer-fucking-vescent as we tidy up.
Sure, my life back in the city is in ruins. And my new small-town life, temporary as it is, has been made shittier by one particularly maddening local. But I have Cutie Fruitie, a small business I built myself from the ground up, and no one can take that from me.
No one. Not even a rude, entitled, grossly overstepping, and infuriatingly attractive lumberjack-looking bar owner.
Here in my shop, no matter where it pops up, I’m in slay mode. I’m at my best. Doing what makes me happiest. Which is making super-fun, nutrient-dense, and delicious smoothies that put a smile on my customers’ faces.
And if our grand opening day here has been any indication, we’re a hit in Orchard Cove. As it turns out, things here—other than Mason—are truly looking up for me.
“I have to give it to the forest witch,” I muse. “She was smart, inviting me here. I know tourism is supposed to really pick up for the summer season this week, but a lot of the customers I served weren’t even tourists.”
“It didn’t hurt that it was pretty warm out today, too,” Soph points out. “And maybe opening day, locals are curious? I wonder if it’ll be dead now until the weekend.”
“I hope not.”
“It does seem like there’s been a lot of gossip that Mason doesn’t want us here, though . . .” she ventures.
“So far, maybe that’s been good for us?”
“Which means they’re either super supportive of him and just getting eyes on us, super against him, or just plain thirsty and bored out of their fucking trees from living in a small town too long?”
“Let’s hope it’s the latter and not the ‘super supportive of him’ thing.
I will not let that man interfere with my business.
If he shit-talks me around town, we will have words.
” I saw Mason today, when I popped out on my lunch break, arriving at the bar in his Sea Haven-branded truck.
I don’t know if he saw me and I did not go talk to him.
But I will, if he gets in my way.
I step out from behind the counter to go flip the Closed sign when the door suddenly opens—and in walks Mason’s brother, Layne. With his daughter.
I stop in my tracks and backtrack around the counter as Layne says, “Hey, Sierra. Are you closing?”
“No worries,” Sophie says, when I just stutter out a hello. “You’re just in time. What can we get you?”
Kaylie looks around the shop with delight.
“Ice Cream” pumps over our portable sound system as they approach the counter, which is actually a bar.
The guts of a former restaurant remain in Pier Seven and my pop-up barely uses a quarter of the space, but Sophie and I have done our best to Cutie-Fruitify it, as we like to call it, with fairy lights and colorful signage and music.
Kaylie’s eyes zip like pinballs from the Slay All Day neon sign to the stacks of multicolored smoothie cups to the rainbow balloon arch.
“This place is so girly-pop!” she cries.
I’m struggling to scrape myself together as thoughts whirl around my head like fruit in a blender. Is Mason about to come storming through the door? Does he even know his family’s here? Is this some cruel test?
But when Layne smiles at me, a warm, friendly smile, I remember that he’s miles nicer than his brother. And anyway, why would he bring his daughter with him if he was here to do something hideously arrogant like offer me money to leave town?
So, I greet her like I would any ten-year-old VIP whose uncle is not an outrageous d-bag. “Hey, Kaylie! That dress is fire. You win best outfit of the day.” I hand her a lollipop.
Her eyes almost pop out of her head. “Really?!”
“By miles,” Sophie concurs.
“But maybe save that for tomorrow,” I suggest. “After lunch. If you’re here for a smoothie. We don’t want too much sugar all at once.”
“Okay.” She hands the lollipop to her dad. “We never have anything this fun here!” she declares.
“Then good thing we came to town, huh?” I meet Layne’s eyes. “Layne. I think I met your dog the other day. Scaramouche?”
“You met Scar?” Kaylie says.
“Yup.” I lean on the counter on my elbows so Kaylie and I are more eye to eye. “You let your dad name your dog after a lyric in a Queen song?”
She rolls her eyes. “I know, right? So old-school. Why were they even called Queen if they were all boys?”
Oh, my. Sidestepping that one quick.
“So, tell me, who’s the bigger music fan, your dad or your uncle?” Not that I care about her uncle. Just making conversation here.
“Hmm. They both listen to music a lot, but I’d have to say my dad because he plays guitar.”
“Impressive,” I say mildly, feeling oddly victorious that Mason lost that little competition.
“But I listen to the best music,” she asserts.
“I’m sure you do. Who are your top five?”
“Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, Tate McRae, Taylor Swift,” she rattles off immediately. “Girls are slay, obviously. But Benson Boone is cool, too.”
“All excellent choices.” I look up at her dad, who’s checking out the menu on the wall above.
“Do you guys know what you want? Or would you like some help deciding?” And can we please get this over with so you can leave before Mason hears through the local gossip chain that you came in here, and I get blamed for it?
“What do you recommend?” he asks.
“Hmm. Do you like raspberries, Kaylie? And strawberries, et cetera?”
“Yes.”
“Given your appreciation of female pop stars, it’s a Britney Spears-inspired Berry Baby One More Time for you.” I hear Sophie already making it behind me. “Would you like a poof of cotton candy on top?”
Kaylie bounces on her toes. “Yes!”
“And for you . . .” I give her dad a narrow-eyed appraisal, making her giggle. “You get a Good Day Sunshine.”
“Sounds good,” he says, amused.
“Is that a song, too?” Kaylie asks, delighted.
“There’s a song and a smoothie for everyone,” I say sagely as I tap the order into my tablet.
Sophie hands me Kaylie’s smoothie, then goes to make Layne’s. I place the cotton candy on top with a pair of tongs, then pass it to Kaylie. “Did you see the rainbow? We have a nice little selfie moment, over there.”
She immediately asks her dad if she can borrow his phone, and when he hands it over, she zooms over to the Cutie Fruitie-branded selfie wall, the rainbow balloon arch with a purple-grape balloon cloud on one end.
“It’s on the house,” I tell Layne when he tries to pay. I lean on the counter between us and when I’m sure his daughter isn’t hearing this, add, “Consider it a keeping-the-peace offering between us mortal enemies. I wouldn’t want anyone to draw blood in front of your lovely tweenager.”
I’m not sure which part of what I just said surprises him most, but he’s definitely taken aback. “Well, thank you. But are we mortal enemies? I didn’t realize.”
“I guess your brother didn’t inform you.”
“Of what?”
“That he ordered me to stay away from his family. You’ll excuse me if I don’t come out from behind this counter. I wouldn’t want him to glimpse us fraternizing and incite a riot.”
Layne’s lips quirk. Maybe he thinks I’m kidding. “And why does my brother think you’re his enemy?” He says this like it’s as ridiculous as it is.
I hand over his smoothie when Sophie brings it over, and Sophie makes herself scarce, cleaning up. “Oh, he was very clear,” I say. “I’m not welcome here. I should go back where I came from like a good little city girl. I stole his precious building out from under him, yada yada.”
Layne’s eyebrow creeps up. “I see. Well, Mason can be . . . a little . . .”
“Pig-headed?” I fill in, as he seems to be grappling for the right adjectives to somehow excuse his brother’s deplorable social skills while not totally throwing him under the bus. “Ridiculously objectionable? Outrageously wrong?”
“Sure,” he says carefully. “As most of us are from time to time? But if he’s reacting so strongly to your . . . presence . . .” His gaze drifts over me thoughtfully and he lowers his voice. “Maybe he’s just not used to being so . . . challenged.”
I get the feeling from his tone that he thinks the particular “challenge” I present his brother is not simply of the business-rivalry variety.
Is he under the delusion that his brother actually likes me? This poor, sweet, misguided man. He’s so nice, the sunshine he naturally exudes seems to be blinding him to his brother’s unbridled assholery. How unfortunate.
I guess love really is blind.
I open my mouth to point this out as delicately as I can (not very) but am interrupted (perhaps fortunately) by the return of Kaylie. She’s already eaten the cotton candy and inhaled half her smoothie, and her eyes are bright with the sugar high.
“When are you coming over again?” she asks me.
“Oh. Uh. Sometime. Maybe. The shop keeps me pretty busy.” And your uncle might shoot me on sight, so.
“Oh.” She seems disappointed. “Uncle Mason keeps talking about you.”
What.
“Ah, she means, only nice things, of course,” Layne says awkwardly, draping an arm around his daughter’s shoulders and tucking her into his armpit. She whispers something to him, and he shakes his head at her: No.
And out of nowhere, I remember it. Again. My hand, reaching down into the heat of Mason’s jeans. The delight of finding his thick cock hard and ready, and wrapping my hand around it, squeezing, feeling him throb in response.
I knew I was being a tease. I told him no.
No kissing. No sex.
And now I remember his words, raspy with pleasure and the pain of holding back. Of resisting me.
You’re making this so hard for me.
That’s what he said.