CHAPTER THREE #2
I’d be lying if I said I’m not disappointed when I arrive and he’s not here.
Cherry and Quinn are behind the counter again, though.
Even though I only met them yesterday, the familiarity is comforting.
I scoot onto a barstool, order a coffee, and try to read for a while, but I can’t focus.
Once the shop clears out a bit, I say to Cherry and Quinn, “This is a bit awkward, but are either of you free tonight? I have a spare ticket for a ghost tour.”
“A ghost tour?” Quinn’s brow crinkles. “During the festive season?”
“Quinny, what do you think A Christmas Carol is about?” Cherry says, drying a mug with a pristine white towel.
“Anyway, I’ve got something on tonight. As much as I would love to walk around in the cold and drink shitty mulled wine while some old pensioner makes up spooky stories.
” She hands me her phone. “Here. Put your number in. It must be scary, not knowing anyone in a completely new city. If we don’t see you at least once a day, we’ll call you. ”
I give her a theatrically skeptical look as I type in my number. “Sounds like a ploy to get me to spend money here every day. And how will this help if I’ve already been kidnapped?”
Quinn shrugs. “You’re in London,” they say, as if it’s an obvious response to the hypothetical.
“Your main risk is being metaphorically sliced to bits by our sharp wit,” Cherry adds.
Behind me, the bell jingles to announce a newcomer. An icy draft sweeps in and swirls around my ankles and up the back of my neck before the door closes. I catch a hint of spiced bergamot and musk in the cold air. Adrenaline lights me up like a breath on banked embers.
Cherry grins, boosting up with her elbows on the bar. “Oi, Jake. What are you doing tonight?”
“Cherry, no,” I whisper, but she must be able to tell I don’t mean it. She glances at me with a knowing smile and a wink.
Jake approaches, playing along. “I don’t know, Cherry. What am I doing tonight?”
I don’t turn around, but I feel the warmth of his body as he sidesteps to stand between my stool and the empty one beside it.
Resting a forearm on the bar, he looks down at me, and I meet his eyes.
He’s wearing mahogany pants and a rich toffee-colored roll-neck sweater.
His mouth twitches sideways in a fleeting smile.
Everything about him is charming and casual, but there’s heat in the way he glances at my mouth before returning his attention back to my eyes.
It makes me squirm in my seat. In a softer tone, he says, “Morning.” Like it’s just for me.
“Morning.” I look back down at my book, but the words slide together and fade like I’m looking through a cloudy camera lens.
Cherry cups her chin in her hands, blinking up at Jake. “Be a love and keep our new American friend company on her ghost tour tonight. She’s flying solo.”
“Last time I flew with our American friend, she tried very hard to get away from me.”
I smile and roll my eyes. “Cute.”
“Isn’t he?” Cherry says. “Espresso today, Jake?”
“Please,” he says. He’s responding to Cherry, but he’s looking right at me. “I’ll go along. If she’s asking.”
Quinn approaches with a blocky old Polaroid camera, pausing to meet my gaze just before raising it to press the shutter button. “Here. For the photo wall.”
Something unspoken passes between us in that brief moment.
Like Cherry taking my number, this is Quinn’s contribution to helping me feel safer here.
An acknowledgment and a record that I exist in this time and place with them.
If it makes Jake feel weird to be documented like this, he doesn’t show it.
In fact, he leans closer so we’ll both fit in the frame.
Quinn snaps the photo, Cherry hands Jake a freshly pulled espresso, and then we’re left alone at the bar. Jake raises a knee to slide onto the stool beside me.
“I assumed you usually sat at the window table,” I say.
“Mm. What makes you think that?”
“Because it’s the best spot in the whole place.”
He chuckles. “You’re not wrong. But today, this is where you are.”
I groan and lean back, laughing. “Does this effortless British charm usually work for you?”
Jake looks thoughtful for a moment. “To be fair, here we’d simply call it ‘charm.’”
“Wow.” I close my eyes and shake my head.
“But yes, I suppose it does.” The warm color cast from his sweater makes his eyes look more golden than green today. “And I appreciate you calling it effortless. I’m actually trying very hard here.”
“Oh my god, you’re exhausting,” I laugh.
“You have no idea,” he drawls. Then he nods at my open book. “Not much that’s better than a good book and a good cup of coffee. Are you enjoying it?”
“You could say that.” I close the book and drift a finger over the cover. It’s a worn-out paperback edition of my favorite book of all time, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. “I’ve probably read it a hundred times.”
He sips his espresso. The tiny cup makes his hands look even more impressive. “That good, hm?”
“The best. I used to read it a few times a year, but it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to. I figured I’d get some free time on this trip to fit in a reread. Do you know it?”
Jake’s knees are angled towards mine. If I twisted on my stool an inch or two, we’d be touching. “I’m familiar with the title. Never read it though.”
“It might be a bit lost on you. It’s a coming-of-age story about a seventeen-year-old girl and her dysfunctional family in a crumbling castle in the English countryside.”
“Sounds bleak.”
“It’s probably more relatable for someone who was also a seventeen-year-old girl with a dysfunctional family at some point in her life.” I’m surprised at how easily this slips loose.
He knuckles his chin. “I don’t know that I’ve ever read a book more than once.”
That makes me swing around on the stool to face him, and my knee glances along his. “Are you serious?”
“Too many books out there to repeat the same one.” He traces a tiny star carved into the wood of the bar. “Do you know—if someone reads an average of ten books a year, that’s fewer than a thousand books in a lifetime?”
“How dare you,” I gasp.
Jake laughs. “It’s true. Do the maths.”
“Let me live under the delusion that I have time to read everything I’ll ever want.”
Again, he laughs. Then his expression sobers. “Why would someone reread the same book?”
“Comfort, I guess? I’m safe inside this world, because at any point in the story, I know the full scope of its past and the direction it’s going for the future. And the characters feel like real people I have a relationship with. It’s like my memory can’t tell the difference.”
“I highly recommend real relationships.” Jake sips his espresso, then he sets it down in front of him. “And new books. How do you know you’re not missing out on something incredible?”
I’m not sure if Jake’s “something incredible” means books or relationships, but a conversation about one is significantly safer than the other. So, I go with that. “I try, sometimes. But if I’m not hooked in the first ten pages or so, I put it down.”
Jake is motionless except for his thumbs rubbing slowly against each other. “I wasn’t talking about books, Evie.”
I meet his eyes and try to keep my tone light. “Relationships are a lot like books, actually. No matter how good they are, they always end.”
“Ah. I’d argue that unlike books, people can love you back.”
I swallow hard and look down at my hands in my lap. Jake must sense the vibe shift, because he picks up his espresso again and glances away. Softly, he says, “I’ve offended you. I’m sorry.”
“I just prefer to have these sorts of conversations after a few glasses of wine instead of with my morning coffee.” I tuck the book under my arm and hop down from my stool. “Bye, Jake.”
Halfway to the door, the aftertaste that Bye, Jake leaves in my mouth makes me stop and turn around.
Beyond knowing that he lives nearby, I have no reason to believe I’ll ever run into him again after I leave this coffee shop.
And I really didn’t like the way it felt when I arrived this morning expecting to see him but he wasn’t here.
“The tour leaves from the Nell of Old Drury pub at seven,” I say.
Twisting to face me, he drapes his arm over the back of his stool. “So, are you asking me to go with you?”
I pinch my lips together in a wry half-smile.
Jake leans forward. “To be clear—I’m all in, either way. I’m just curious if I’m responding to a question or a command.”
“It’s a question, Jake.”
“Well, then. My answer is yes, Evie. We’ll be seeing each other tonight.”
I smile, he smiles, and just like that, I’ve got a date with Jake Frost.