“What are you drinking, Mrs. T?” Tyler asked from behind the coffee machine.
“Are you moonlighting as the barista?” Sam asked him.
He gave her a wink. “Yeah, my new boss is a real hard-ass. Makes me do everything.”
Mom and Sam put in their orders. I glanced around and saw Chase glaring at me through the front window of the shop, half a sad-looking sandwich hanging out of his mouth. I rolled my eyes.
“My barista’s on break but he’ll be back any minute now,” I said, looking pointedly at my watch and then at Chase.
He flipped me the bird.
Then, because karma was beautiful, he suddenly looked behind himself and darted for the shop door. He shoved it open, dropping his sandwich in the process, and I heard a loud hissing and the beating of wings as he leapt inside. He pulled the door shut, and Lucille slammed herself against it. Then, apparently satisfied she’d cleared the sidewalk, she ate the remains of the sandwich and waddled away again.
“Uh,” Chase said. “Goose.”
“This place is amazing,” Sam said, rapt.
“Mom, Sam,” I said, “this is Chase, our barista. Chase, this is my mom, Lindsay, and my sister, Sam.”
Chase looked between them and said awkwardly, “Hey.”
“Dude,” Sam said, “that goose almost got you right in the nuts!”
“Jesus Christ, Sam,” I said, and Tyler burst out laughing.
Chase rubbed the back of his neck, his mouth twitching. “Yeah. Lucille’s a menace, just like her owner. At least he doesn’t go for your nuts, though.”
“Well, small mercies,” Mom said. “Chase, what would you recommend for lunch?”
“Uh, everything’s good,” Chase said. “Maybe the quiches, though? They’re pretty popular.”
I hadn’t expected him to recommend something he knew I’d made instead of Tyler. It honestly wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d stood there and told my mom and my sister that my baking was shit, just because he was a dick. But maybe he wasn’tentirelya dick, and that wasn’t just the kiss talking. It was the way he’d been scared when he thought he’d been trapped in the walk-in. There was something going on underneath Chase’s dickish exterior was all. Something I was starting to realize that not many people saw, because he wanted it that way.
Chase moved behind the counter and picked up the tongs.
“Grab one yourself too,” I said, “since Lucille ate your sandwich.”
He darted a wary look in my direction but put the quiches in bags and slid one onto a napkin for himself. Then, like a squirrel at a feeder shoving sunflower seeds in its face, he pretty much inhaled the whole thing. Mom and Sam hadn’t even gotten their bags open by the time Chase had finished his quiche. He ate the same way he’d kissed me earlier—hungry, desperate, and kind of filthy.
Then he sidled up to the register, his wallet in his hand, and Tyler snorted and nudged him away. I made a note to tell him how things worked around a bakery and wondered if his sad peanut butter sandwich was his first choice for a packed lunch at all or if he was pinching pennies. Most people were these days, one way or another. But yeah, I wanted a hard worker, not a hungry one.
Mom and Sam stuck around for a while longer until I had to get back to work.
“Don’t be late for dinner tonight,” Mom said. “I’m making your favorite!”
“Is it Shit From a Jar?” I asked.
“You know it!”
“I’ll grab a loaf of sourdough as well,” I said.
Chase looked at me sideways, and when Mom and Sam left, Tyler and I went back into the kitchen. I said, “Chase is weird.”
“Uh-huh,” Tyler said. “So weird that you probably shouldn’t have stuck your tongue down his throat?”
“I wish you hadn’t seen that.”
“Me too, buddy.” But he was grinning. “Chase is just prickly, that’s all.”
