BECK (OTTER HOUSE):Nikki’s begging for a peanut butter and jelly cream cold brew from bad beans. She says “pls pls pls (sabrina carpenter voice)”
BECK (OTTER HOUSE):I’m okay with it—she’s doing well
Bad Beans had quickly become our favorite coffee shop when we moved to Dahlia Point. It wasn’t actuallyinDahlia Point, but after scouring social media for the best coffee places in the area when I’d come home for spring break, Nikki had insisted upon trying it despite the twenty-minute car ride inland toward the airport. It was worth it, obviously, and she never let me hear the end of it, insisting we take the drive out there at least once a weekend. They had a menu about a mile long and constantly rotated seasonal drinks and specials—when Taylor Swift dropped herThe Tortured Poets Departmentalbum, they had a special cookies and cream cold foam drink for that day only, or on Star Wars Day (May 4) they served some weird blue drink that was supposed to resemble what they drank on Tatooine. Nikki liked to experiment and get different drinks, but I stuck to my iced vanilla latte.
Some people associated vanilla anything with being boring, but I preferred to think of it as keeping to a routine. I knew what I liked, and there was no point in deviating. Routine kept me focused, especially during a time when my focus was desperately needed.
Bad Beans happened to be on the way to Otter House, so I usually stopped to get a latte for myself, but I didn’t get one for my sister unless I’d gotten approval beforehand. Her meals were supervised, and typically, outside food and drink wasn’t allowed. Repairing her relationship with food took priority over peanut butter and jelly cream cold brews. But with those three words, my mood lifted.She’s doing well.
I rolled my windows down and blasted Holly Humberstone, sticking my hand out to feel the late-spring air breeze through my fingers. I’d finished almost a quarter of my latte by the time I made it to the palm tree–lined driveway of Otter House and pulled into a marked visitor’s spot in the parking lot. It was clear a conscious effort had been made to not make it look like a recovery facility, with perfectly manicured landscaping and a big stone fountain with a pineapple at the top in front of the building. It was probably one of the reasons Nikki had felt comfortable with this place over the several others we’d looked at. It didn’t feel so sterile and sad, and maybe it was somewhere she could actually see herself getting better.
After putting both of our drinks into a carrying tray, I trekked across the parking lot, balancing the tray in one hand while my tote bag hung half open off my shoulder as I tried to stick my keys into it. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and as I struggled to fish it out of my jeans, I collided shoulder to shoulder with another person going about a hundred miles per hour in the opposite direction.
“Oh shit.” A guy’s voice startled me, and before I could react, I toppled backward and fell down hard onto the concrete. A mess of ice cubes and coffee spilled down the front of my T-shirt, soaking me in sticky liquid. I groaned as I shakily got to my knees, feeling my whole lower body vibrate with pain.
“Goddamn it.” I grimaced at the sight of our lattes, now a crime scene of cold brew, espresso, and oat milk in the parking lot. There was no salvaging them.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
I was so distraught I’d almost forgotten about the latte assassin, but there he was, already on his feet and decidedlynotcovered in cold brew, extending a hand to me.
“Come on, let me help you up.” There was an unexpected kindness to his voice—something foreign, like he might as well have been speaking another language.
My eyes were immediately drawn to a scar that trailed up from the base of his thumb and wrapped around his wrist, disappearing into the inside of his forearm. It was deep, but a soft, faded red color, which meant it had healed the best it could a long time ago. He wore a silver ring on his pointer finger that glinted in the late-morning sun.
“Are you gonna take my hand?” His deep voice pulled me out of my daze. “I look kind of ridiculous just standing here now.”
I cautiously slipped my hand into his, feeling calloused skin on his palm.
“All right, now the other.”
He motioned for me to take his other hand, crossed over the other arm, and with more force than I expected, hoisted me onto my feet. At five seven I liked to consider myself almost tall, but I barely came up to his chest, and with the sun backlighting him in a paradoxically angelic way, it felt like his shadow was swallowing me whole.
I finally got a good look at his face, and had to remind myself to breathe. I have never believed the sight of someone could literallytake your breath away, but my lungs were struggling.
His jawline was angular and strong, and light freckles dusted his nose and cheeks. Another scar grazed the bottom of his chin, though not nearly as angry looking as the one on his wrist. His hair had probably been styled back at some point, but most of it had come undone, and chocolate-brown locks cascaded in messy waves onto his forehead. But it was his eyes that sucked me in—the deepest blue, dark and endless like the ocean in a storm.
Then he smiled at me, endearing and just a little guilty, and everything in me softened.
“I really am sorry. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I replied. “No use crying over spilled coffee.”
He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck, dropping his gaze to the now-empty plastic cups that gently rolled around on the pavement. He bent down to pick them up and stacked one into the other.
“There’s a coffee shop down the street,” he said, gesturing outward with the plastic cups. “I can get you something else, if you want.”
I almost said yes to that enticing smile of his—the kind that I was sure got him whatever he wanted. But I was there for a reason, and the more I dillydallied with the latte assassin, the less time I had with my sister.
“Don’t worry about it,” I reassured him. My whole body still buzzed, but whether it was from the impact or something else, I wasn’t sure. “I need to get going.”
“Okay, well . . . see you around,” he said with casual assuredness before sidestepping and letting me walk by, and I tried to convince my body not to betray me and look back at him.
“Morning, Nat.” Beck was already at the check-in desk, and greeted me when I walked in with a puzzled look. “You’re, uh . . .” She gestured to the front of my baby-pink T-shirt, where my spilled latte was on full display. “Guess your coffee run was unsuccessful.”
“Don’t ask.” I fished my ID out of my wallet and handed it to her. “Thank god Nikki has enough clothes here to stock a boutique.”
Beck grinned as she handed me my visitor’s pass before walking me back to Nikki’s room.
