AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You have been since your first day here.” I then list all the ways he’s already inconvenienced my customers with parking, noise, and lack of air conditioning—even if that one wasn’t technically his fault. I’m proud of myself for leaving out the fact that if he hadn’t bought Station 19, none of this would be a problem in the first place.
Luke raises his eyebrows skeptically. No one has complained yet today, or any other day actually, but how could he know that? He clenches his jaw, takes a slow breath, and concedes. “Fine. I’ll do it later.”
Looks like this peaches and cream Italian soda is now my second favorite thing that happened today. I don’t try to hide my smile as I turn and walk back toTurbine.
~
The last customer of the day leaves, and I have twenty minutes to rush closing before my barre class across the street. I wasn’t technically supposed to be working, but I was here all afternoon anyway, so I covered for a part-time barista, when they asked to leave early.
The whirring from earlier starts up again, and this time, I can’t help but smile. I peek at Luke through the legs of the chair I’m placing upside down on a table, so I can bask in my mini-victory.
He’s pushing what I found out is a concrete polisher slowly across the floor, with his back to me. I allow myself a few seconds to admire the definition in his broad shoulders and sculpted arms as they move under his black t-shirt. bandana hangs out of the back pocket of his worn jeans again, but it’s not enough to obstruct the view of his ass.Of course, that’s thick and muscular, too.
Having a win, even a small one, on Luke should feel amazing, but the sense of victory doesn’t come. He shows up by at least six-thirty every morning, so that means he’ll have to work an eleven or twelve-hour day while his friend is in town. The sound was, at worst, mildly irritating from my side of the windows. If I’m honest with myself, it didn’t have any impact on my business. Still, he should have notified me about all the noise and other disturbances beforehand, so I’m not out of line.
Devon: Here!
Me: Meet you out front!
Fortunately,Devon’s text saves me from further self-reflection. She’s waiting for me by the front door when I lock up, her tall, slender frame and immaculate posture looking statuesque under the lights of Station 19’s triangular front awning. Her platinum hair is styled in chic loose waves that stop at her shoulders, the only person I know who can workout with their hair down and not come out a sweaty mess.
We walk into the barre class three minutes before it starts. It’s packed, but Bea is teaching and she saved us two spots right up front.Guess I won’t be phoning it in like I’d planned.
Devon leans over to whisper to me halfway through the class, “Sadie’s coming to visit.” Sadie was Devon’s roommate in college and quickly became a friend to both of us. She lives in Portland, but one of the joys of living in a vacation destination is that people are always willing to come visit.
“Yay!” I whisper back to Devon, “When?”
Devon whispers, “Next month.”
Bea comes around and passes out those blue mini exercise balls that guarantee I’ll be sore tomorrow. Squeezing these makes every exercise ten times harder. Looking over at Devon, I fake a whimper.Somehow, this class is even harder than I remembered.
“Try to think about margaritas,” Devon whispers.
Times like this remind me I don’t know what I would do without her. Sure, I never would have moved here without her. But even if I’d never left home, life without Devon wouldn’t feel right. Hell, sometimes I wonder how I made it through the years when she was in college, and I was slinging lattes back home. Me staying home, insisting I’d never need a degree, and I already knew exactly what I wanted for my career was not well received by my parents, my siblings, my teachers, or really anyone other than Devon.
She always believed in me, believed I could prove everyone wrong. She’d stay on the phone with me for hours while she did her homework and I daydreamed out loud about what my coffee shop would someday be like. It’s her voice in my head that tells me to keep going when I don’t think I can anymore, which has been happening more often since Lucas Pine stole Station 19.
Sometimes Devon is there for me by doing something huge, like designingTurbinefor free. Other times, like tonight, it’s the small things. There’s no way I would have made it to this workout without her as a motivator to go, but the quaking in my quads is just what I needed to take my mind off my problems.
“This is the last set, I swear.” Bea smiles, counting us down from sixteen.
Thirty minutes later, all thoughts of a tough workout are behind me, and there’s a margarita the size of my head in front of me.
“Tell me all about your day,” Devon says, before scooping her first chip into the guac.
“You sure?” I’ve been doing a pretty good job of keeping my shit together, smiling, and acting like nothing’s wrong every day while I’m at work. But that means every night when I get home, Devon’s been a sounding board for all of my stress. “Haven’t you heard me complain enough over the last couple of weeks?”
“You could try not complaining,” Devon says drily.
I mock a gasp. “Okay, rude.” Over her margarita glass, she arches a dark brow at me that’s intentionally in stark contrast to her platinum hair. That’s all it takes for me to back down. “Okay, fine. Not rude.” She has a way of cutting to the point that I can’t help but admire.
“Do you need to elongate your pity party?”
“No, you’re right.” I knock some of the salt from the rim ofmy glass into my drink with the tip of my knife while I figure out how to positively frame my day. “It’s actually a good thing the place I visited on Desert Canyon was so expensive. If it had been cheaper, I’d have been tempted to go with it, and we deserve something with more heart.”
“We?” Devon asks, waving a smooth, ivory hand between us.
“Yeah,” I mimic her hand motion, “You and me.”
