Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Adelaide
Ipurposefully don’t look up Zander Browning when I get home. I sit and stew about it. I don’t go to The Nook and consult Tabitha or text her for more info. I wait two more days until Zander invites me out again.
Zander
Hey, I’ll be in town tonight. Weekly Saturday dinner with Gran. Do you want to meet up?
I read his words over and over. A seed of doubt has wormed its way into my brain and I hate it.
Nothing has changed between us. He keeps calling me a silly goose and it lights me up every time.
We continue to flirt back and forth, getting to know each other through the more trivial details of our lives.
Favourite foods (strawberries for me, shepherd’s pie for him), lucky number (4 for me, 21 for him), comfort TV show (Gilmore Girls for me, Ghosts for him), and my errant wonder of any allergies (shellfish for me, shockingly nothing for him).
We even asked each other what our dream jobs were as kids.
I remember desperately wanting to be a figure skater, despite never having taken a lesson in my life, followed by years where I swore up and down I’d be a hairdresser.
Because that’s what my mom did before she left and took Beaver Creek’s only salon with her.
Zander, on the other hand, remembers wanting to be a dinosaur.
Which I thought was adorable, but he didn’t look at me when he said it.
It’s odd to think the dinosaur confession is what made me connect some dots, but that’s exactly what it did. So, despite what I’m learning and loving about him, I’m realizing maybe Simon’s right. There is something he’s hiding.
I glance at the unfinished crochet in my lap. I’m making a dress out of granny squares. I should be writing or digging through archives or something, but I’m putting this stupid dress together.
My cousin, Willow, who lives rent free in my house, looks over at me.
Her thin eyebrows are raised, lips pressed together.
She doesn’t ask any questions, just eyes me suspiciously, one hand poised on the page she’s flipped in her magazine.
There’s an animosity between us, one that wasn’t there when we were kids, one born from her “temporary” stay post-graduation turned indefinite.
Three years ago. I wouldn’t have minded if she’d asked or talked to me about something other than everything I’m doing wrong in my life.
I know she’s waiting until I crack and finally kick her out, so she can run to her dad—who happens to be my mother’s brother—and complain about how unfair it is that I got the house that’s been in the family for years, despite my mother’s absence.
I turn back to my phone. Well, anywhere’s better than here.
Adelaide
I’m on deadline but could probably use a break. What do you have in mind?
Zander
We could write together? Go to Dam Good Coffee or the library?
“Did you make that?” Zander asks when I show up at the café in the granny square dress.
I take his hand, because I can’t help myself, and twirl.
Perhaps heavy yarn isn’t the best material to wear in mid-June heat, but at least it’s a tank-dress.
It’s an A-line shape, fitted to my body, showing off a healthy dose of cleavage I hadn’t anticipated and the wide curve of my hips I had.
The squares are all bordered in white, tying together the dress with the pops of pastel colours on the interior.
I feel like the most perfect rainbow burst, just as I’d intended when I started the project two months ago.
“I did!” I say, crashing into his chest.
I knock him slightly off balance and his arms wrap around me as he rights himself. It feels right. Like I don’t need to question it even though I’ve spent hours questioning him since Simon’s vague confession. We both laugh awkwardly and pull away from each other.
“I’m impressed! Do you make most of your clothes?”
“Not fully. I’ll usually buy something and fix it up, make it a bit more my own.
Like adding cute pockets to a dress. You should see my collection of jeans.
I’ve embroidered, like, 95% of them.” I hold out my arms and let his eyes rove over my crochet creation.
“This is entirely my own creation, though.”
“Granny squares,” he says.
“Yeah. Something your Gran makes?”
He lets out a huffy laugh and shakes his head, which flips his hair into his face. He runs a hand through his piecey bangs, messing them up, making me want to do exactly the same thing.
“No. Though, that would make sense, wouldn’t it? I just know a guy who makes a lot of blankets.”
“Sounds like you’re in the contraband blanket business.”
“I’m not really in the contraband anything business.”
A curious look comes over his face, like he’s put down shudders over a stupid flirty joke. A line of worry forms between his eyebrows. Simon’s voice rings out in my mind. He got into some shady things. Is this the natural moment to ask? Do I even want to know?
“Oh, no, of course not,” I say, clearing my throat. “I was just—”
“You’re fine,” he says. My eyes are drawn to his hands, fidgeting with the pockets of his jeans. Once again, Zander is wearing a basic, black T-shirt. “Should we head in?”
I follow him into Dam Good Coffee’s second location in town, the one attached to the library.
Seems as natural a place as any for two authors to hang out.
Zander holds the door open for me. Maybe it’s dumb, maybe the bar is on the floor, but I’ve been with three men—one from town and two when I was in university—and none of them held the door for me.
Though I prefer to write at the B&B, Dam Good Coffee has more typical writing vibes. It’s all low, acoustic music playing, with the comforting scent of coffee beans wafting through the air, but painted pink.
“What’s your order?” Zander asks. “I’ve got it this time.”
I let him know my specific summer coffee order: an iced vanilla oat milk latte.
He parrots this to Kinslee, who has taken my order every time I’ve come in here over the last few months, then orders an assortment of pastries.
While Zander pays, she eyes me appreciatively, shooting me the universal woman-to-woman he’s cute look.
Within minutes, the two of us migrate to the back of the shop.
Not because it’s busy. I assume we’re both at this vantage point to people watch, as any good writer should be.
I pop my coffee from the tray and take a sip.
I let out a sigh that colours Zander’s cheeks.
He opens the box of pastries and I scan the options.
There’s a mixture of croissants, Danishes, and butter tarts.
I slip a strawberry Danish from the box and lay it down on a napkin.
“So, you may have noticed I came laptop-less,” I say.
I sink my teeth into my pastry. It crumbles down my chin and leaves custard residue on my upper lip. I lick it away and watch Zander’s throat bob. His fingers freeze around the butter tart he’s pulling from the box.
“I noticed,” he says with a smirk. “I am similarly topless. Ran out the door and forgot. I did grab a notebook from Gran’s when I dropped Lucy off, though.”
I smack my lips and place my Danish down on its napkin, then duck under the table to my bag. I pull out the bright pink notebook I bring with me everywhere.
“That’s blinding,” Zander says.
I giggle. “It is. That’s exactly why I had to have it.”
“Be a cupcake in a world of muffins.” He reads the blue text on the front. I’m almost certain this notebook is for girls in middle school, but I don’t care. “That’s you.”
“Thank you,” I say, feeling the heat creep up my neck.
“I mean that as a compliment, I hope you know. If anyone was ever a cupcake, it’s you. You’re so bright and fluffy. You’re like sunshine and I’m the boring muffin.” He pauses, bites his lip. “Bit of a mixed metaphor, I know. I’m supposed to be good at words, aren’t I?”
“The writing thing and the speaking thing are two completely different things. I know what you mean.”
He grins behind his butter tart. Oh no. I think I like him a whole lot.
“So, what’re you working on?” he asks, brushing crumbs from his jawline.
“In here?” I ask, flipping through the pages. “Everything. Everything goes in here because I take it with me everywhere.”
“Ah, I have my phone for that.”
“Mr. Fancypants with his modern-day writing tools here.”
“You’re a purist, are you? Coffee and a little notebook? Got a typewriter, too?”
“Would you be surprised if I said yes?” He laughs, his eyes crinkle. I feel everything in my stomach flip. “It’s for show. But it is a typewriter.”
“It’s pink, isn’t it?”
“No. It’s a vintage Royal in green.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Are you sure you’re not Mr. Fancypants?”
“That’s Mrs. Fancypants to you.”
I pause, realize what I’ve implied, and shove a large helping of Danish into my mouth. Zander silently laughs at me while I struggle to chew. He nudges my coffee toward me as I choke on crumbs.
“Thank you,” I say, coughing. I take a sip, savouring the foamy oat milk. “I’m not proposing marriage. Only making fun of, what I assume is, tea.”
He glances down at his white coffee cup wrapped in a pink cardboard sleeve. The string from a teabag hangs out one side.
“Do you have some sort of beef with tea?”
“Coffee is the superior writing drink.”
“If it helps, this is earl grey. So, black tea.”
“That does not help because it means nothing to me.”
“Have you—have you never had tea before?”
I place my remaining square of Danish onto the napkin and brush my hands together. There’s a twinkle in Zander’s eyes. They catch me. Make me dissolve into a fit of giggles, even though nothing is really that funny. I’m just giddy with the idea of him.
“Shut up,” I say, shielding my face from him so he can’t see how flaming red I am. “You’re not allowed to judge me for being a hater.”
“I won’t if you’re a hater with foundation. Here,” he says, nudging his tea toward me, “Try it.”
I wrap my fingers around his cup. “If this is terrible, can I throw it at you?”
“I’ll allow it.”
He sits perfectly straight, broad shoulders back, head tilted slightly to the left. His hands are splayed on the table. The confidence is hot, and I desperately want to prove him wrong, if only to see him in a wet T-shirt.
I bring the cup to my lips, take a sip, all under his intense gaze. My first thought is how intimate the action is. My lips where his were just moments before. The idea of his lips on mine sends shivers through my body. My next thought is shit.
“I don’t like it,” I say, sliding the cup across the table.
Zander smirks, drinks from his cup, covers the peach mark my lipstick made.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Good. You shouldn’t. I’m very untrustworthy.”