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I fought the urge to ask about Jasper or what he’d been up to during the day. It wasn’t my business, I reminded myself, and it also didn’t matter. Leo was with me now. He hadn’t disappeared like I’d been worried about. We talked about trivial things like the weather, Pickles’ new obsession with sitting at the living room window, and a new song Leo couldn’t stop singing. We drove across town and eventually, Leo turned down some streets that took us away from the touristy section.
He parked the bug in the driveway of the quaint seaside condo. It was very different from the mansion that graced the cover of the tabloids. Peeling tan paint, shutters slightly coming undone, and a roof that hadn’t fared well in the last windstorm, the tiny seaside shanty was still charming in its own right. A sandy front yard with a white picket fence and a cobblestone path leading to the front porch, which was adorned with rockers, all gave it some checkmarks in my book.
“It’s adorable,” I proclaimed as we walked up to the front door.
“It’s perfect. Quiet, set back from everything. It might be my favorite place I’ve ever lived,” Leo admitted, and I could see the tabloids certainly had gotten a lot wrong. “Spoiled,” “pretentious,” and “flashy” were words they used to describe Leo. I wished they could see him now, happily ushering me through the front door to show me the egg chair by the front window where he liked to have his morning coffee or the tan couch in the sitting room that had a hole in the arm rest but was the comfiest thing ever, according to Leo.
“So, I’ve got everything ready. Just let me get some stuff out of the fridge,” he said, showing me to a seat at the kitchen island. He hadn’t told me what he had planned but watching him frolic about the kitchen made me happy.
He pulled out some already stretched out pizza dough, enough to make three full pizzas, and a smorgasbord of toppings.
“Is it just us tonight?” I asked with a grin.
“Yeah, why?” he asked.
“Because I can’t eat an entire pizza myself,” I said.
“Oh, it’s fine. Cold pizza for breakfast is the best, so I’m happy to have leftovers.”
Popstars. Just like the rest of us, I thought with a smile. We animatedly talked about pizza, favorite childhood dinners, and everything in between as we put together three wildly different options. A traditional pepperoni with three cheeses; a gouda, pesto, and bacon pizza; and a pizza with a crumbled takeout cheeseburger, some leftover French fries, and a special sauce. We threw caution to the wind on that one, and I was excited to see how it turned out.
While Leo put on his oven mitt carefully and set the timer, he got out a bottle of wine. It looked fancy, and he assured me he’d bought the best bottle they offered at the Quick Stop Liquor Shop down the street.
“I’m used to boxed wine, so you didn’t have to go through the trouble,” I said. He smiled.
“You’re so different than any girl back home,” he observed then, taking a seat near me. He wasn’t laughing, though; he was uncharacteristically serious now.
“Probably because I’m poorer than any girl you know back home,” I said, half-kidding and half-not.
“It’s not that. It’s the way you carry yourself. With conviction but kindness. With a sense of tell-it-like-it is mingled with a soft sweetness. I can see why your employees at the coffee shop loved you. You have enough confidence and go-get-it spirit to make the tough decisions but also enough sense for people to really care about them.”
“I did enjoy being in charge and trying to make a place where people wanted to come to work,” I said. I took a sip of my wine and then looked at Leo. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course,” he said, his accent thickening on the words in an adorable way.
“I’ve been thinking a lot the past few days about Tillie’s Brews. I know this seems insane. But, well, I’ve been thinking that maybe I was just in the wrong locale. That maybe here, things would be different.”
He smiled then. “There she is,” he said.
“Who?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“The Tillie who doesn’t quit. I’ve known since you first told me about the coffee shop that you were meant for it. So many first businesses fail, but it would be a shame if that stopped you from doing what lights you up.”
“It’s just a lot. It’s a substantial risk.”
“Everything always is, everything worthwhile,” he said, sipping his wine. “And I’m glad you mentioned this. Because I wanted to show you something but was worried how to broach the subject.”
He stood from his seat then, and my heart raced a little bit, the suspense hanging in the air. He pulled out his phone and did some navigating. Then, he showed me a photo.
It was a dilapidated building on the corner of the main street in town. I recognized it as the spot where a Mexican restaurant had been about ten years ago. Since then, it had been vacant, no one wanting to take on the massive overhaul of the place.
“Okay,” I said, eyeing him.
“It’s perfect, Tillie. With some TLC, it’s a terrific location. And it’s already set up to be a small restaurant, so it would be easy to transform it into a café with the right vision. Tillie’s Brews Two,” he said, his excitement infectious.
I stared at the photo, picturing it. And I had to admit, I lit up inside. But then the realities of my situation started to creep in. All the fears of the past wormed their way into the excitement, tainting it.
“I can’t afford it, though. And who is going to give me a business loan with a failed business already under my belt?”
