Emmett looks to his wife, mirroring my position with his sleeping daughter against his chest, his tattooed hands resting on her back.
I met Emmett at my first staff meeting at Hey Honey’s, and I have yet to see him crack a smile that isn’t at Drew, their daughter, Lennon, or their son, Knox—let alone hear him say more than a sentence or two.
“We’re doing a strawberry old fashioned to go with your strawberry matcha and then we’re also thinking of some kind of margarita,” Drew answers, tucking her red wine hair behind her ear with one hand. She uses her other hand to rub slow circles on her son’s back as she tries to relax him to sleep. “I know you guys are also doing coconut syrup for one of your new ones, but Emmett vetoed it for us.”
“Coconut sucks,” Emmett grumbles in response.
As if against my will, my mind goes back to a different grump of a man who I crossed paths with this morning, and I have to roll my lips together in an attempt to conceal my smile.
Drew looks at her husband, shaking her head with a soft smirk. “So we’re thinking pineapple.”
“I don’t think pineapple is the way to go for you guys,” Mia says to Luke, twisting her long blonde hair and grabbing a claw clip she had on the strap of her purse, securing the hair in place.She turns to Drew. “I should have the Lenny’s social media graphics and new specials menus done and printed by the end of the week, by the way. I just need to stop by and get pictures of the new drinks.”
Drew mouths a thank you as Luke nods his head, pondering.
This is usually how these meetings go. Luke and Mia do a bulk of the chatting while Annie and Drew occasionally add their thoughts or ideas. Mia’s husband, Eddie, almost always finds an excuse to take their daughters to go do something, and Emmett goes where Drew goes, so he just sits and listens, never saying much. The bookstore owners from next door, Elsie and Sierra, usually come to these meetings too—all the owners of this building wanting to coordinate and support each other’s businesses—but they couldn’t come tonight.
That leaves Ava, Reagan, and me. We’re here more out of obligation and to know how and when the menu changes, and I will admit that it’s fun to watch the Lenny’s and Hey Honey’s people interact.
I’ve never seen such strong love and friendships before. It’s almost healing to watch them all together—seeing what love, both romantic and platonic, is supposed to be like.
Before Luke can say anything, Annie comes out of the bathroom. “What’d I miss?” she asks. She changed from her scrubs she’s required to wear as an exotic animal veterinarian at the Milwaukee Zoo into a sky blue sweat set that compliments her long, chocolate brown hair.
Mia answers before Luke can. “Your fiancé here thinks we should keep the lavender chai for summer.”
Ava, the unofficial notetaker of all these meetings, chimes in. “So far, we have the coconut caramel cold brew and the strawberry matcha. Luke wants to keep the lavender chai, and Mia thinks we need something else,” she summarizes.
Annie nods. “We definitely need something else.”
Luke reaches his arm around the back of Annie’s chair, scooting his own closer to hers. “You’re right, Annie girl. Lavender was a hit, but it’s not a ‘special’ if we keep it around too long.”
“Gee, that sounds familiar,” Mia scolds, smacking Luke in the shoulder.
“One of the Lenny’s specials has pineapple,” Drew explains to Annie, both of them ignoring how Luke gives Mia a smile of mock-innocence only for her to flip him off. “But we were saying it might not work for you guys.”
“I could make a pineapple butter cake for the summer baked good,” Annie offers, her brown eyes roaming over to the part of the counter with all the bakery items.
Even though Annie’s primary job is a vet, she’s explained to me how she’s a stress baker, and she’s currently in a three-year externship with the zoo before she becomes fully licensed as an exotic animal vet, meaning she’s oftenverystressed and our bakery is oftenverystocked.
“That still leaves one more seasonal drink,” Ava says, her pen coming to her mouth as she looks over the notes she’s been taking in her planner.
I look down at Evee in my lap as I listen to Luke, Mia, Annie, and Drew ramble off different flavors to go with chai. While it is my drink of choice over coffee or other teas, I prefer it with just some almond milk—nothing fancy. I always try our seasonal flavor, but it’s never as good as the original.
Tuning the four of them out after a few seconds, the small cherries embroidered on Evee’s pajamas catch my eye and spark an idea.
“Cherry.” The word slips from my lips, and it takes me a second to realize that no one is naming random syrup flavors anymore.
I look up and find too many pairs of eyes on me, and I feel my skin prickle from the attention.
“Oh, sorry,” I mutter, but then I feel Ava’s hand reach over Reagan sitting beside me and squeeze my knee, reassurance that I didn’t say something wrong or talk when I wasn’t supposed to—reassurance I didn’t know I needed.
“Cherry,” Luke says with a nod, looking to Annie. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”
Annie rolls her eyes, but there’s a smile on her face. I feel like I’m on the outside of an inside joke.
My face must show my confusion because I hear from my left, “You’re not missing much.” Drew is looking at me with her kind, green eyes. “But if you ever want to get your boss a gift, she can never have enough cherry lip products.”
Drew gives me a genuine smile, and I feel myself smiling back. She leans down to press a kiss to her sleeping son’s head, and I feel myself tighten my arms around Evee.
