Tori walks past me, giving me a deathly kind of glare as I hear the front door slam shut to Liam’s house. She gets in her Tesla, backing away, glaring at me the entire time. To be fair, I haven’t moved from my spot by the stairs since I heard them. The polite thing to do would’ve been to keep moving, but I just couldn’t. I’m sure the look on my face is pure shock, but that’s fading fast. Men are pricks. I don’t know why I keep letting them fool me.How can I be this bad at reading people?
Well, let’s put all this fury into a workout, Britain.I enter the key code to the garage and the door rolls up revealing a surprisingly nice home gym, complete with a rower, my one rental requirement everywhere I go. I’m going to let this fuel me, push me, and then, then I’m going to go get a tall stack of pancakes from the diner, alone. Because I am a strong, independent woman.
After my pancakes and bacon (because why the fuck not?), I head over to The Grounds, Sandy’s coffee shop. It’s very much equal parts shop and cafe. There’s bistro tables and chairs on the right, then there’s the left side, chock full of everything “Spearhead Lake.” There’s sweatshirts, and Yetis, and hats, and coffee mugs, all perfectly arranged and orderly. There’s also home goods and candles, and I make a mental note to put a big dent in her stock before I leave.I know what everyone’s getting for Christmas this year.
I walk up to the counter and look over the menu. I’m happy to see she offers three kinds of non-dairy milk, thank god. There’s also a glass cabinet that’s housing muffins, sticky buns, and a couple loaves of different kinds of bread.You just had pancakes, I remind myself.
Sandy pops out from behind a curtained back walkway and heads straight towards the counter and register. “Look who it is! I was hoping you’d come by this morning.” I smile at her friendly attitude, a refreshing change from D.C.
“Hi, Sandy. Couldn’t resist a free cup of coffee,” I say, smiling. I’m friendly, but a couple decades spent around people who only want to talk to you based on your profession or position in life tends to dull your spirit. Being outgoing is a muscle I’m going to have to work harder at now that I don’t have a partner to fall back on.
“What can I make ya?”
“Can I have an almond milk, vanilla latte?”
“Sure thing, baby,” Sandy says, then shoos me away from the counter while she turns around to make it.
There’s only one other person in here right now, an elderly gentleman with thick reading glasses on, perusing the local newspaper, The Bee. I may as well get a jump start on my shopping while I wait. I head to the stacks of sweatshirts and start looking for my size, holding it up to see if it’ll be baggy enough for me. I decide on the XL since I fully intend on entering “loungey hermit mode”ifI keep staying here. I grab a couple different sizes for the girls and one for Jess, too. I also grab a wine glass Yeti cup,I’m going to be needing that, and take my loot to the counter.
Sandy turns back around, my latte in hand, and I see she’s made it for here, in a large white mug on a plate with a biscotti sitting on the edge.Of course, I should've known she’d want me to stick around to drink it.
“Set all that to the side. Let’s sit down and chat while your mug cools.” It’s not a question, so I pick out the table by the window and Sandy follows me, my mug and plate still in her wrinkled hands. She’s wearing an apron that’s covered in printed flowers, jeans with cowboy boots on underneath, and a button-down flannel shirt. She reminds me of a character from a Hallmark movie, and I love it.
We sit down and get comfortable, like two friends who’ve known each other for years. It reminds me of Rose and I smile, missing her.
“Alright baby, dish it.”
“I don’t know what you mean?” I ask.
“You didn’t think the free coffee was really for the music, did you?”
“Umm, maybe?”
“Well, it was, but it was also so you’d come here and tell me your life story.Andwhat you were doing looking all tight with William Millar.”
“Ahh,” I laugh, “I’m afraid there’s not really much to tell, about my life story, or William Millar.”
“Whenever someone says that, I know the story’s gonna be three times juicier than I imagined.”
I laugh again. There’s something about her that just makes me want to tell her. “Alright, brief synopsis, and I’ll allow five follow-on questions, deal?”
“Deal.” She laughs, then sets her elbows on the table and leans in. I give her the rundown of me leaving home, a broken-hearted 18 year old. I tell her about Damian and my life with the girls, about Georgia’s passing, then about Damian and his new…Summer. Then I finish off with William Millar.
“There’s not really much to say about Liam. I met him when I was 18. He was sort of my mom’s boss? She worked for his dad, William senior actually, but then he passed away. And when Liam took over his share of the business, my mom stayed on, but she technically started working for Connie after that. But, I digress. It was just by chance that my assistant booked my stay at his rental for the next six weeks.” I shrug, but keep going.
“And, well, yesterday was a hard day. I found out my ex is going to propose to his girlfriend, in like a week and a half, and we haven’t even signed the final papers. Then seeing Liam again at his work brought back some unpleasant memories, and when he came home last night, I think he just saw me and felt bad. So he offered to take me to get dinner. Which led us to Colton’s, which led me to you.”
“Uh, huh. You really believe that?” she asks.
“Which part?”
“The ‘by chance’ part, and the ‘he just felt bad for you part.’ When you’ve been around the sun as many times as me, baby, you learn there’s no such thing as chance. Nope. Another thing I’ve learned is when a man looks at a woman the way he was looking at you, he don’t feel bad for you, sweetheart.” My cheeks turn pink, and I give her a gentle smile in return. I’m debating telling her about this morning. I don’t really know how big of a gossip she is, so I won’t say much.
“But he has a girlfriend. So, it’s not like anything could really come from him looking at me any type of way, even if I wanted it to.”
“William doesn’t have a girlfriend,” Sandy says.
“Umm, I’m pretty sure he does.”
