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Jenna couldn’t get her focus back after that. What kind of things was her sister hearing? Ugh, this was almost like the old days, when rumors would fly around and people would give her funny looks and her stomach would tie itself into knots.
No. She wasn’t that anxious girl anymore. Whatever it was, she could handle it.
Billy had taken the boys and Tyler for a cross-country ski, and they weren’t due back for another hour. She decided it was as good a time as any to finally check on her father.
She hopped in her car and drove through town. Most of the downtown businesses had finally gotten their holiday decorations in place. All the cheerful twinkle lights made everything look bright and happy. She especially loved the golden trumpet-bearing angels outside city hall. As she passed the SweetBitter Café, she noticed a sign for the special of the day, a peppermint mocha.
That was exactly what she needed to get through this visit to her father. She pulled up to the curb and hurried inside, where sparkling snowflakes dangled from the ceiling and silver tinsel adorned the espresso machine.
As soon as she walked in, Rick Gonzalez, the owner, looked up from the drink he was foaming and mouthed “don’t leave,” to her.
She placed her order with the girl working at the counter, who she didn’t recognize. But for some odd reason, the barista seemed to know her. She giggled as she wrote her name on a to-go cup.
“Do you mind if we take a selfie?” she asked as Jenna handed over payment for her mocha.
“Um…you mean…me and you? Two total strangers?” But she didn’t object when the girl pulled out her phone and took a quick photo. Maybe she’d just started the job and was memorializing her very first peppermint mocha.
Cup in hand, she stopped at the end of the counter and waited for Rick to join her.
“Happy special holiday foamy drink season,” she told him, lifting her cup in a toast.
But the normally chatty Rick didn’t smile back. “I need some guidance, sweetie.”
“Guidance?”
“What I’m supposed to tell all the people asking if Benna is a thing again?”
She cringed at the mention of that silly name from high school. “It really should have been Jelly.”
“And we were all jelly of you guys. Anyway, be that as it may, I need an official approved statement. Consider me your public spokesperson, since everyone else seems to think that’s what I am. All I want to do is run a coffee shop, but apparently I’m a news source.”
Jenna patted him on the shoulder. “Tough life. But you know you love being the one who knows what’s going on.”
“Es verdad,” he admitted.
“Wait, that’s actual Spanish.”
Rick was famous for making up his own Spanish-sounding exclamations.
“Si, I finally started to learn my own mother tongue. Lingua de madre. I’m on day sixty-two of my Duolingo streak. That’s five ahead of Billy, who is…what to you again? Ex? Ex-ex? Triple ex-ex?”
“If you’ve seen Billy, why don’t you ask him what to tell people?”
“I did. His answer had more than my standard quota of obscenities.”
With a sigh, Jenna took the lid off her mocha and blew on it to cool it down. “Does ‘no comment’ work?”
“Only if you want people to keep speculating.”
“Won’t they do that no matter what?”
“Es verdad,” he admitted.
“I think you have that particular phrase down,” Jenna said dryly. “How about this. ‘Don’t you have better things to worry about the week before Christmas?’”
“You’re killing me. Of course the rumors are flying. You two were the Lake Bittersweet golden couple. The baseball prodigy and his high school sweetheart.”
“Personally, I like to think of us as ‘the amazing botanical artist and her boy toy.’” Jenna took a sip of her mocha, wondering how she’d ever thought she and Billy could keep things secret in Lake Bittersweet.
