Chapter 5
Maggie closed her laptop and dropped her head to the wooden table with a groan. “There’s nothing. No jobs that are even remotely suited to a burned-out flight attendant living in a small town.”
Yes, she was being dramatic. And yes, she was doing it in the middle of Bloom. She didn’t care.
She yelped at a zing of pain through her upper arm and shot up, grabbing at her bruised skin. “Did you just pinch me?”
Polly lifted a brow. “When you’re being pathetic, drastic measures are necessary.”
When her own best friend was calling her out on it, it had to be bad.
Polly leaned over the table. “You were a flight attendant for over a decade. You have a squillion years of travel experience. You have a super-popular travel blog and tens of thousands of followers on your social media accounts. Do something with all that.”
She rubbed her arm, mentally calculating whether she could pinch her friend back without retaliation.
“You can’t,” Polly said, reading Maggie’s mind.
Maggie rolled her eyes before glancing back at the closed laptop. “I stopped posting on my travel blog and social media accounts after…”
“After that crazy person started stalking you.” Polly shook her head. “I hate that someone did that to you.”
“I do miss engaging with everyone though. And it took me so long to build the following I have.” She tapped the top of her laptop.
She knew so much about the travel world. And there’d sort of been this part of her that thought maybe she could help others plan their trips. The idea needed more thought though.
Maggie turned to glance around the café. God, this place was beautiful, with deep woods everywhere—the countertops, the tables and chairs, and the beams on the high ceilings.
And the smell, man, it was glorious thanks to the fresh flowers that filled a long table to the right of the entrance. Some were already in bouquets, others in pots of water ready to be wrapped. The hanging greenery from the roof also helped the aesthetic.
Then, there were the huge bookshelves on the back walls, with the comfortable leather sofas around them.
All of that in combination with the coffee and cake—Polly had built something amazing and unique.
Maggie turned back to her best friend. “I’m not like you, Polly. You envisioned this place when you were eighteen and worked three part-time jobs to make it happen.”
“You make it sound like I had all these skills that you don’t. That’s not true. I just had a vision and I made it happen. You can too.”
“I’m supposed to have a job and an income and a house by now.”
Polly scoffed. “Adulting is overrated.”
“Overrated, but necessary.” She frowned at the empty tables. “Where are all your customers? Ten is usually your busy period for breakfast and coffee.”
Polly scowled. “Basil offers fifty percent off his pancake stack with eggs and bacon on the first of every month. He steals all my regulars, then comes by in the afternoon and gloats about how busy he was all day, serving the best pancakes in the world.” She used air quotes for the last part.
“They’re not the best in the world. They’re good at best.”
Maggie’s lips twitched. They weren’t simply good, they were amazing.
He did this thing where he sat a stack of thick pancakes in a pond of homemade honey-butter syrup with extra butter on top.
The pancakes were the perfect combination of moist and fluffy, and if Maggie could eat them three times a day without turning into a pancake herself, she would.
“And even if they were that good,” Polly continued, “my iced wildflower lemonade and French toast are better. Plus, my café smells like wildflowers.”
“And his smells like butter and bacon.”
Polly gasped. “Whose side are you on?”
“The there’s-enough-business-for-everyone side.”
“He’s the one who makes this a competition. The other day, he saw me walking past his shop and yelled out, ‘Not busy, huh? Guess everyone’s in here.’”
Maggie bit back a laugh. Or at least she tried to. A small chuckle slipped out, and Polly’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m sorry.” She really was. Polly was easy to rile up, and as her best friend, it was Maggie’s job to soften the blows.
Polly opened her mouth to say something but froze, looking at something over Maggie’s shoulder.
Maggie turned—and a silent gasp dropped from her lips.
Connor stepped in first, followed by Joel.
And then Ethan.
Her lungs did that thing where they constricted, and it felt like she might never take a full breath again.
Under the table, Polly squeezed her thigh before rising. “Hi. Welcome to Bloom.”
Ethan smiled. “Hi, Polly, it’s good to see you. This is Joel and Connor.”
His deep, rich voice slid over her skin.
Do not get affected.
But it was pointless. She was affected. Always had been.
“You boys gonna make sure no more tourists go missing near our river?” Polly asked.
Connor dipped his head. “We’ll try.”
Joel seemed to take in the shop. “Is this a café or a florist or a bookstore?”
“All three.”
He nodded. “Huh. Not very busy today.”
Oh no.
Polly stiffened. “We’re usually the busiest breakfast spot in town.”
“I saw everyone at the pancake place.” He shot Ethan a glance. “I wanted to go but the guys wanted to come here.”
The veins in Polly’s neck popped. “Basil drops eggshell into his pancakes. You’re better off here.”
Joel frowned. “Then why are so many people there?”
“You want a coffee or not?” she nearly barked.
As the two of them continued to talk—or squabble—Maggie shoved her laptop into her bag beneath the table. Mostly because she was trying to keep herself busy to stop from looking at Ethan. Just because she wasn’t looking at him though, didn’t mean she couldn’t feel his gaze.
She could. It zinged straight into her, making her skin tingle.
She rummaged around the bag like she was looking for something. She wasn’t. There was barely anything in it. A ChapStick. A phone cable. A half-eaten granola bar, which Polly had yanked from her hand the second she’d stepped into Bloom before replacing it with a chocolate croissant.
“Hey, Mags.”
She shot up and her head hit the side of the table.
Ouch.
Ethan dropped beside her and touched her head. “Are you okay?”
She stilled. All of her. Even her chest stopped moving. He was touching her head. Grazing the spot she’d hit like she was still his.
She shifted back. “I’m fine.” If fine meant hot, bothered, and completely overwhelmed by a man who wasn’t hers.
He frowned, his gaze so focused on her that she wanted to squirm. “I was wondering if you wanted to get a coffee?”
“Coffee?”
His lips twitched. “You know, the stuff you used to drink like there was about to be a world shortage?”
“I know what coffee is. I’m just surprised you want to.”
“Why are you surprised?”
For so many reasons. But the main one being, according to town gossip, he was dating someone. How would Nel feel about him having coffee with an ex? Unless Nel thought they’d been nothing serious?
She opened her mouth, not sure what was about to come out, but stopped at Polly’s gasp.
“What did you say?”
She looked up to see Joel raising his hands. “Hey, I didn’t mean any offense. I meant you have a low-maintenance, high-quality vibe going on here.”
“That describes a car.”
Maggie rose to her feet, but Joel was still talking. “Why do you take offense to everything I say?”
“Say something non-offensive and I won’t.”
Okay, that was enough.
Maggie pinched Polly’s side before she could say anything else.
“Ow!”
Payback. Maggie smiled at Joel. “What would you like?”
“I was going to order a coffee and a chocolate croissant, but—”
“Done. For here or to go?”
Joel opened his mouth, but Connor, always the peacekeeper, responded first. “We’ll take it to go.”
That sounded safer.
Maggie helped Polly serve behind the counter.
When Maggie handed Ethan his croissant, their hands grazed and a shudder rolled down her spine.
And that was her cue to go.
Once each of them had their food and drink, she pulled her bag over her shoulder before tugging Polly into a hug. “I’m going to go for a walk. I’ll see you later.” Then she whispered, “No more arguing with customers.”
“But—”
“You’ll give Basil more business.”
A small humph sounded.
Maggie waved to the guys, being very careful not to look directly at Ethan before stepping out of the café.
She’d only taken three steps when she heard the door open behind her.
“Maggie.”
Crap.
Suddenly, Ethan was walking beside her. “We never finished that conversation about grabbing a coffee.”
“You really want to catch up over a coffee?”
He frowned at her like the question was ridiculous. “Why wouldn’t I?”
He had to know all the reasons. But maybe he wanted this because, for now, they were living in the same town. Because they needed to coexist. Which they did.
She wet her lips. “Okay, how about—”
A car door opened a few yards ahead, and Maggie stiffened at the sight of the woman who stepped out.
“Maggie.” The woman’s voice was like nails against a chalkboard.
“Lilith.” She hadn’t said that name in so long.
Her aunt closed the distance between them. She looked up at Ethan. “Hi, Ethan.”
“Hi.” His voice was short and sharp. There was no warmth. But then, he’d never liked her because of how she’d treated Maggie.
Lilith looked back at Maggie, and she wasn’t sure why, but some of that work she’d done on herself—on her self-esteem, her confidence, on rewiring her brain to accept that she was deserving of her place in the world—began to slip.
As if Ethan knew, like he felt it in her, he inched closer, and that small warmth from his body was the only thing that kept her steady.