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“I love you too, Sweetheart.” I pulled her even closer and kissed her forehead. I was going to remember this night forever.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ruby spotted me the second I walked through the door of Java Jolt.

She had that gift that great coffee shop managers develop—the ability to track every person in a room while appearing to be focused only on the espresso machine in front of her. She caught my eye, raised her eyebrows approximately three inches, and then jerked her head toward the corner table where Angelica was already seated with two lattes and what appeared to be a croissant she hadn't waited for me to arrive in order to start eating.

I wound my way through the morning crowd, dropped into the chair across from Angelica, and picked up my drink.

Ruby materialized beside us approximately thirty seconds later, still holding a cleaning cloth, looking at me with laser-focused attention. "Don't say anything," she said, pointing between the two of us. "I want to know why Zoe has that shit-eating grin on her face." Then a customer called her name from across the room and she held up one finger. "Hold that thought." She was gone.

"I don't have a shit-eating grin on my face," I said to Angelica.

Angelica looked at me over her latte. “You so do.”

"Do not."

"Then why is your smile so wide?”

I took a sip of my latte. "I'm just happy it's not raining."

"You're in love," she said, as if this was a simple weather report. "It's adorable. You're glowing. It's slightly annoying because you never glow and now you're glowing and I can't even be mad about it."

I grumbled something into my cup.

"How was it?"

I looked up. "How was what?"

"Zoe."

"I don't kiss and tell."

She leaned forward. "We have been best friends since you spilled an entire pitcher of apple cider on me at the Jasper Creek Fall Festival and then laughed about it. I pulled back your hair when you had food poisoning from that gas station sushi incident that you still deny happened. I have earned this information."

"The gas station sushi incident is a fabrication."

"How was it?" Angelica enunciated each word carefully.

"Not answering."

She opened her mouth to push further, but Ruby reappeared, pulling up a third chair and dropping into it like she'd been waiting for this moment all morning.

"Okay. How is Adam in bed?"

I turned red. I could feel it happening and I could not stop it, which was infuriating.

Ruby and Angelica looked at each other.

"That," Ruby said, pointing at my face, "is all the information I need."

"If she's blushing that much," Angelica agreed, "Adam must be exceptional."

"I hate both of you."

"You love us," Ruby said cheerfully. "And clearly you love somebody else too, based on the grin you were wearing when you walked in. Don't look at me like that, I see everything in this shop. It's my gift and my burden."

"You know what I think?" I said, pointing at Angelica. "I think you're only this interested because you haven't gotten any in so long. You're too busy playing Hollywood Spreadsheet Bingo."