Single Dad's Barista Read online

  “You don’t know what you’ve missed, Evelyn.”

  “Ellery,” I correct him.

  He shuffles toward the door, to-go cup in his hand. Morris never takes a top, even when we have them. He might be eighty-five, but he still walks on the wild side. “Evelyn, I wish you’d speak up. I can’t hear a thing you say.”

  “I hear everything you say,” I murmur toward the countertop. He doesn’t hear. I’m not trying to be unkind, but boredom is fraying at my nerves this afternoon. In the corner table where she always sits to write for an hour every afternoon, Susan Liu’s shoulders sag with relief. She looks gorgeous, sitting there in the light. If photography was still my thing, I’d love to take her photo, there at the table with her laptop. Too bad the memory of the camera’s weight in my hands makes me feel vaguely ill.

  The door swings shut with a creak. Alone, I take a breath and survey my tiny kingdom.

  I’m brewing a fresh carafe of our signature blend—and yes, I’ll give you three guesses what it’s called. I mopped the floors during the morning lull, and dusted yesterday. The dish sanitizer is humming along, swish swish swish, onto the next batch already. Everything is in order...for the moment. We’re teetering on the edge of the coffee supply with only two bags of roasted beans left and two of espresso. Soon, I’ll make The Call. If the milk truck doesn’t show up...

  I can worry about all that later. For now, everything is in place.

  Except the t-shirts.

  There’s a low shelf of t-shirts underneath the counter where I put the freshly filled carafes. This way customers can fill to-go cups themselves after they pay. I have time to fill cups when we’re not in the tourist season, but starting this weekend, it’s all over.

  The shirts are a mess. People—Lou Brewer being one of them—cannot resist looking through them once a week minimum. There are never any new shirts. They look all the same. I’d ask Aunt Lisa about new ones, but I doubt she’d have the time.

  The sidewalk outside is empty, and in this moment, so is my brain. I come out from behind the counter and move across the shop. The swish swish swish of the sanitizer gets in my head. It’s like a beat. It’s like the music of the coffee shop. Do I sway my hips in time with it? Yes, I do.

  It’s the afternoon lull, which means nobody’s going to be in until Mary shows up at four after one of her yoga classes. It’ll be a different story this weekend, but for today, it’s just me and the shop and a bunch of shirts to rearrange.

  Swish, swish, swish. Sway, sway, sway.

  I bend down in front of the shelf and scoop up some of the shirts in my arms. They’re more manageable in a heap on the countertop. Swish, swish, swish. It almost reminds me of a Beyoncé song. In my real career as a photojournalist, that would totally be newsworthy. Sway, sway, sway. I can’t remember the words to the damn song, even with the beat in my head, so I make up my own. I don’t think you’re in here for these t-shirts, I think you want to chat. I don’t think you’re in here for these t-shirts, I think that we all know that. I laugh out loud. When life hands you lemons, dance to the beat of the sanitizer. Someone should cross-stitch that on a pillow.

  There are a lot of shirts. Nobody ever buys them. What about a nice little rolled arrangement? What if I roll each one up like so and make a little pyramid? I’ll roll them all first, and then stack them.

  Roll, roll, roll. Sway, sway, sway. My own words echo in my head, layering on the sanitizer’s groove. One shirt rolls through my hands, then another. This wouldn’t make a bad song. It’s kind of catchy. It’s kind of...infectious.

  I get lost in the song. The swish swish swish gets louder as the sanitizer moves into the meat of this wash cycle. Moments like these, when I can be free in my skin, dreaming, are the reason I haven’t lost it yet. Try running a coffee shop without being secure in the knowledge that you will have coffee. It’s a real stress, let me tell you.

  I don’t think you’re here for these t-shirts. What about some kind of backup singers? Add a fan to blow our hair back during the music video, and this could be pretty sexy.

  I’m pretty sexy.

  I roll more t-shirts.

  Not only am I sexy, I am a good dancer.

  Swish, swish, swish. It’s a powerful beat. Any dancer could make something out of this, but I’m at the top of my game. I’m Beyoncé at the Super Bowl.

  I feel it coming over me. It’s a crazy idea. No...not crazy. It’s accurate. It’s within my grasp. I pop my hips from left to right. The sanitizer is reaching its climax, and my song is thrumming in my veins.

  I could do it.

  I could twerk.

  I roll the final t-shirt and take it in my hands like a glitzy music video prop and drop it low. Am I doing it? Is this twerking? I don’t know, but it feels right.

  The sanitizer grumbles to a stop, the water draining out. I imagine it like it’ll be in the video, Barista Beyoncé waking up from her work-dream about being a superstar to that same sound, going back to reality in her empty coffee shop. Strike a pose. Done.

  “Whoa,” says a deep, smooth voice from the doorway. “Am I...interrupting?”

  4

  Dash

  I’m hard as a rock.

  Is there any point in denying it?

  I’m also as confused as one of those unicorn drinks everyone went crazy for not too long ago. I don’t know how long. All that nasty business with Serena put me into a fog for weeks on end, but holy shit, the sun is shining and the barista working at Medium Roast has an ass like I’ve never seen.

  My brain struggles to compute. This is not the middle-aged woman with coiled gray hair I’ve seen here before. That lady was working behind the counter or hovering outside near one of the little tables, wearing a sunhat.

  That lady was not workin’ it, her ass a solid foot from the floor but with so much attitude she might as well have been onstage.

  The first words out of my mouth tumble through my lips as she strikes a pose, looking for all the world like a rockstar with a rolled-up shirt in her hands instead of a microphone. I hear myself say them while I try my best to ignore the full-body reaction I’m having to the sight of her ass in her jean shorts, still perky. “Whoa. Am I interrupting?”

  She freezes, all of her going stiff, and turns slowly toward the door. With every second that goes, by her face gets redder and redder until it outshines the trendy teal of her shirt, which is tightened around her waist with—no joke—a hair tie. It has the logo of the shop over her chest, and God help me, I can’t stop myself from noticing that too.

  This woman must be on the verge of a bloodcurdling shriek. That’s the story her face is telling. But she gets one look at Rosie, staring at her too—and pulls herself back from the brink.

  She clears her throat. God, if I were her, I’d want to be staring at my feet right now, not looking back at me. “Okay,” she says. “This is obviously a nightmare.” She blinks once, twice, three times in rapid succession, as if doing so will make me disappear.

  I don’t want to disappear. No. Hell no. I want to stand here all day, watching her move. I’m not going to do that because I’m not a fucking creeper, but yeah, I want that. I’m not a creeper, and I have responsibilities that I care about, unlike Serena.

  “Not even close,” I tell her. “This is a dream come true.” Nope. No.

  Too late. The words are already out of my mouth.

  She reaches up and covers her hands with her face. “How much did you see?”

  For the first time, it occurs to me that there is no music on in here. It’s silent aside from the steady drip of coffee into a carafe.

  I pretend to consider the question while Rosie wriggles in my arms, losing interest in the cherry-red woman standing mere feet away. From the road, this place looked bigger. It’s not. It’s tiny as hell. Along the back wall is a countertop with two carafes on top and open shelving beneath where more teal shirts have been artfully stacked. “I saw a lot.” The image of her twerking—I think she was twerking—is b
urned into my brain in the most pleasant way. I did see a lot. I want to see more.

  She gives a brisk nod. “Good. That’s really good. A hot guy walks into the shop and” —she claps her hand over her mouth— "and I make a total ass” —A mortified glance at Rosie. “Ash borer of myself.”

  Holy shit, this is not the conversation I expected to be having when I walked in here. Not in the slightest. “It’s not as bad as you think,” I say with a laugh.

  With a long-suffering sigh, she straightens up. “Well, I’d better—”

  “Film a music video? You’re a dancer, aren’t you?”

  “Are you calling me a stripper?” Both of her hands fly to her hips and she cocks her head to the side. “Not that there’s anything wrong with strippers,” she continues a moment later. “Everybody has to make a living, but—”

  “I was not calling you a stripper.” Rosie turns and waves a chubby fist over my shoulder, squeaking the little squeak she makes when she’s noticed something interesting outside.

  “Good, because I’d probably be just as bad at that,” she says. Then, without turning fully around, she bends her knees and puts the last shirt on top of a teal pyramid.

  I can’t help myself. “Nice moves.”

  “You caught me at my worst, okay? I’m not taking any other chances.”

  “Your worst?” My erection is officially entering raging territory. “If that was your worst, I want to see you at your best.”

  She lifts her chin and makes her way toward me. Closer and closer she comes until there’s only a foot of empty space between us. Her blonde ponytail swings perkily in the air, swaying to a stop when she stands in front of me, face still scarlet.

  My heart hammers in my chest, pumping blood straight to the tent pole in my pants. Anything could happen in this moment. We’re totally off script. Is she even a real barista, or is she some mirage sent here to tempt me into abandoning my business goals?

  I don’t care. Right now, right here, I don’t care. She has startling gray eyes and soft, pink lips, and my God, I want all of her.

  She bites her lip a little bit.

  This is it.

  It’s happening.

  She’s going to jump on me like a lusty tiger. A babysitter will appear whisking Rosie off for some educational play in a comfortable environment, and I’ll bend her right over the counter and—

  “What’s…” she motions to the empty space between us. “What’s going on here?”

  Am I about to ask her on a date? Am I about to date this woman and then destroy her business? I’m not. Right?

  “You tell me.”

  Another wave of pink to her cheeks. “I have to get by.”

  “We’re all getting by.”

  “No, I mean…” she laughs. “There’s only one way to get behind the counter.”

  I step out of the way, murmuring an apology, but you know what? I’d like to get behind her counter.

  If you know what I mean.

  5

  Ellery

  I have died, and I’m being punished. That’s the only explanation for the events that are unfolding right now, in my actual life. There can be no other explanation for why this gorgeous man—this choir-of-angels-singing, ripped-as-fuck man walked into my coffee shop at the moment I’d succumbed to the fantasy of being a good dancer. A dancer at all, really.

  It doesn’t matter that the air here is supersaturated with the scent of coffee. I can still smell him as I brush by. Clean. Manly. Responsible.

  It could be the baby in his arms that’s making him look so responsible that my panties are damp already, but I can’t make that call right now. I’m busy surviving this.

  Back behind the counter, I move to the handwashing sink and take my sweet time. After I shut off the water, I whirl around as fast as I can. If this were heaven, he would be gone, and I would be left to die of embarrassment on my own.

  “You’re still here,” I say, because this is my brain on a sexy man.

  He gives me the world’s most attractive grin. Not for me, my mind screams. Not for me. He is certainly not for me. For one thing, he is a coffeehouse patron. For another, he is here in the afternoon. Only people who truly love coffee buy it in the afternoon, long after there’s any real need for it. Fall for a coffee-lover? No way. “You sound a little disappointed.”

  “I’m not,” I say, shaking my head too fast. “I’m completely not disappointed. But the longer you’re here, the longer it’ll take to cleanse my mind of that incident.”

  “I don’t remember any incident.”

  “The incident where you saw me trying to twerk, and then I called you hot? You don’t remember—” Cool. Yes, this is cool. I waggle a finger at him. “You’re trying to bait me. I don’t know who you are, but I’m not falling for it.”

  “Bait you?” His laugh might as well be golden for how beautiful and sultry and smooth it is. “Look, I came in for some coffee. This is your show.”

  “It wasn’t a show,” I grumble.

  “What song were you dancing to?” He cranes his neck, looking around. There are speakers in here, but they’re not on.

  “The sanitizer.”

  He comes over to the counter and stands in front of it like a normal customer. Only his green eyes are locked on me, not on the menu above me. “Is that a new band?”

  “Sure. It’s Bill Sanitizer and the Squeaky Cleans.” Oh. My. God. I can’t stop myself. This is a disaster happening in real time.

  “No way.”

  “Correct. That is not a real band. I—made it up.” I sigh helplessly. “I was dancing to the beat of the dish sanitizer. It makes this swish swish swish sound, and—” Can the earth swallow me up? Is that a thing? Three, two, one, now. It doesn’t happen. I’m still here, digging my own grave.

  He nods solemnly. “There’s something to be said for the beat of your own drum.”

  “We don’t have to say anything else about it, though.”

  “Let me say this…” he rushes the words out. “You weren’t bad.”

  I suck in a deep breath and put a customer-service smile on my face. “Welcome to Medium Roast, Lakewood’s premier and only coffee shop,” I say it loudly, for the benefit of the hidden cameras. There are hidden cameras, right? That’s what this is. A big, enormous prank, starring a supermodel disguised as a dad. “What can I get for you today?”

  He looks at me, gaze steady, mouth quirked in a smile. “Here’s what I don’t want to do.”

  “Let’s focus on what we do—”

  “I don’t want to hit on you.”

  A small part of me deflates like a punctured balloon, complete with whining sound. “You don’t?”

  “No,” he says, but the fire in his eyes doesn’t convince me. “I do not want to hit on you in your place of employment.”

  My eyes bug out a little bit. “This,” I look around behind him, “this isn’t real, right? I mean, you kind of already hit on me, and—”

  “This is real,” he says, his tone going serious. “The dancing got the best of me before, but I’m trying to be an upstanding citizen. From now on, at least.”

  Challenge accepted. “Were you not an upstanding citizen before?”

  “I’ve always been upstanding.” I’m sure he has. I let myself risk a glance over his body. Oh, yes, he’s upstanding. “But I’m new in town, so I don’t want you to think I spend all my time walking into coffee shops and hitting on women who happen to be dancing inside.”

  I snap my fingers and point at him because that is where I am at in my life. “And I don’t spend all my time dancing in coffee shops.”

  “Touché?”

  “Totally.”

  “All I want,” he says, pointedly keeping his eyes above my chest, “is a coffee. Black.”

  I narrow my eyes and look at him across the counter.

  He looks back at me.

  “...and your name.”

  “There it is,” I say, slapping a hand down on the counter. The baby
in his arms, so far silent, jumps a little bit and frowns at me, her eyes huge and already welling with tears. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare your baby.”

  He cuddles her in close, shushing her with a smile. “It’s fine, Rosie. She’s playing.”

  “I’m working here, sir.” I don’t know why this man is unleashing the prim Englishwoman inside of me, but it’s happening, and I can’t stop it. I also can’t resist. Fish, meet hook. “And my name is Ellery Collins. Everybody calls me Ellie.”

  He digs into his pocket, coming up with a crumpled five-dollar bill. “Ellery,” he repeats.

  “Don’t forget it,” I say with a laugh that’s so weird and awkward I want to shove it back into my mouth and swallow it whole. While I ring him up and get his change, he goes for the stack of to-go cups next to the register.

  “Oh, I won’t,” he says as I drop the change into his waiting hand. I don’t dare touch him. If I did, I might explode. “I’ll have plenty of chances to practice.”

  I can’t think of a damn thing to say while he fills his cup and reaches for a top.

  “Can I—let me help.”

  “No need,” says this prince among men who can do three things at once without batting an eye. Then he heads for the door. “See you tomorrow, Ellery.”

  6

  Dash

  It’s like Rosie knows. She normally sleeps until seven, seven-thirty, but on Friday she’s up at six, babbling in her crib.

  The sound tears at my heart. It’s only going to last so long, this baby thing. It’s exhausting. Sometimes I’m so sick of baby talk that I pretend to be a game show announcer instead. Still, lying in my bed, listening to her in the other bedroom of the cottage, there’s only one thought that beats at my brain: Why? Why? Why?

  It’s pointless to wonder. I know that. But in this post-dawn haze, the sun barely above the horizon, hardly peeking in through the matchy-matchy curtains, I indulge myself in a few minutes of what the fuck-ery. Serena left me, and our baby, for a mystical tea journey. How? Rosie’s voice must not have sounded as sweet to her. She must not have felt that ache in her chest, knowing that the minutes are speeding by faster and faster with every passing day.