Page 18 of Library or Lattes?

THE OCTOBER WIND HAD BEEN rattling the windows of the Little Acorn all day, sending leaves flying down Main Street in angry spirals. Today the sky was that flat kind of gray that promised rain but never actually delivered. Even the blazing radiators seemed to struggle against the fall chill.

Or maybe the chill had nothing to do with the weather.

Usually, Geoff and I would run the front, and the ever-changing kitchen staff handled everything else. The baking, the washing up. I’d chat to Geoff all day and the hours at the coffee shop sped by. We’d tell each other anecdotes and share the gossip. Geoff would pretend to be exhausted by the customers, and I’d get orders started before they even sat down. It just wasn’t the same without him here. No jokes, no laughing. Today there were long silences between me and James, and we did our best never to be in the same place at the same time. He clearly didn’t remember our childhood kiss, and I wished I didn’t remember it either.

Jo from the library had come in on her lunch break wearing one of her amazing dresses. Today’s was turquoise, with little yellow flowers scattered all across it. “How are you, Willa?” she asked. “And tell me … is that James Parker? Hasn’t he grown up nicely?”

“Geoff broke his leg, so James is here to help out. And between you and me, I can barely get a word out of him.” I cupped my hand over my mouth as I spoke.

Jo laughed and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Well, he’s turned out handsome, quiet or not. Oh, and speaking of handsome men, tell Lennie she should see the new stack of romances I have waiting for her.”

“Sure thing; she’ll be so excited.” Even if she wasn’t into men. I made Jo a latte, looked at my watch, and took off my apron before my break. Lennie hadn’t been to the library for a while. She’d been too busy planning her next moves with Sara to check out someone else’s love story. And she’d almost talked to Sara. Almost.

Then James seemed to appear from nowhere.

He’d taken off his checked shirt and was just wearing a gray T-shirt now. For a second I found myself staring. At his smooth, dark skin, and how the muscles in his arms were bigger than I’d thought. Not that I’d been thinking about his muscles before. He looked almost cute in his apron, and the scowl that darkened his eyes was almost working in his favor.

“Are you going somewhere?” he asked me.

I smiled, thinking we might be having some staff banter at last. When the look on his face told me otherwise, I found myself stumbling over my words.

“I’m going to make myself a caramel latte and sit outside for ten minutes while I take a break. If that’s okay with you?” I took my hair out of its ponytail and retied it for something to do with my suddenly nervous hands. I kept thinking about cutting my hair shorter, but I always chickened out. It was halfway down my back now, and as much as I loved the way it looked, it was getting hard to deal with. James was staring at it as if it made him furious.

He shook his head and leaned on the counter beside me. Closer. His arm tensed, defining the muscles in it even more. I wasn’t watching, exactly, but I couldn’t help but notice.

“If I’m going to be stuck managing this place, I need to know what’s happening, I can’t have people just walking out whenever they like.”

I wasn’t “people.” I was practically family here.

“What time will you be back?” he demanded.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes, like usual.” I was smiling, also like usual, but underneath I was seriously confused and annoyed. Who did he think he was?

“Fine.”

I reached across him, toward the coffee machine, assuming he’d move out of the way. But he didn’t. “Excuse me, please.”

James sighed and moved. When he did, he brushed against me. And it shocked me that the anger in my gut didn’t ignite another fire but instead turned into something different. A flurry of butterflies, right there in my stomach.

I made my caramel latte, feeling his eyes on me the whole time. And when I finished, I grabbed my jacket, making sure to swing my ponytail on the way out the door.

I sat down in my usual seat, the same one I sat in every time I took a break, on the little wooden chair beside the table that looked out onto Main Street.

I rearranged the little vase of plastic mums on the table. Every table had a little vase of orange, red, and yellow chrysanthemums—another one of my ideas. They weren’t hard to find, after all—mums were everywhere this time of year. Lining the streets, outside houses in big old flowerpots. Joy and optimism, that was what they symbolized.

My eyes ran down Main Street as I sipped my latte. There were the hardware store, the bakery, the drugstore, Main Street Books. The trees that lined the streets, then opened out into the square. I could count the stores—and practically count the massive old trees—on two hands. This small town was all I’d ever known, and the more movies I watched set in Paris or London or Barcelona, the more I saw how much there wasn’t in Oak Falls. Without really thinking, I opened that email again. The one from the attorney. The probably scam. I let my eyes settle on the $25,000 for a few seconds before I came to my senses, closed the tab, and opened the group chat instead.

Nobody had written anything this morning. Were my friends even awake?

Me: I have news …

Weirdly, I was trying to think of a reason to talk about James. James, whose arms kept flashing in my mind.

Me: Carter Blake is back. He dropped into the coffee shop yesterday

Krista: WHAT?!

Avery: I think I just got heart palpitations