AllFreeNovel
Share Us
So, can someone please explain to me why my pulse is racing just being in the same room as him?
Chapter Five
Emmy
“So, you’re the one who saved Emmy!” My nineteen-year-old employee, Reagan, slides into the space next to me. “I saw the article online.” She leans across the counter toward Owen, chin propped on her fist. “How’s it feel to be a hero?”
Then, she glances at me. “How’s it feel to be saved by someone who looks like him?”
My eyes go wide as I state in a steady, high-pitched, uninterrupted tone. “Reagan! Can you go help Mrs. Maxwell please?!”
“What? Why?”
I whip my head around. “I think she was looking for the latest Amelie De Pierre novel.”
She frowns. “It’s right on the front table.”
“Right, but she has cataracts, so. . .go. Please and thank you.”
Reagan huffs, but does as she’s told. I hired her in the spring, right when she graduated high school, because despite her nosiness and her punk rock look, she is actually good at her job.
I don’t prescribe to a lot of those broad-brush strokes when it comes to generation bashing, but the last three I hired who were her age had some pretty out-of-whack job expectations—and couldn’t put their phones down.
Gosh, I’m turning into an old lady.
Here’s hoping Mrs. Maxwell keeps her busy. The last thing I need is more humiliation.
“Ugh, I’m exhausted,” Mack says. “I’m going home to sleep. Call me later?” She reaches across the counter. “You’re okay, right?”
I nod absently. Mack has always been a little protective of me. I know there are a million stories about popular girls ditching their nerdy childhood best friends when high school and the clique brigade roll around, but that’s not our story. Mack and I always stayed close, and she never let anyone pick on me.
And as much as I pride myself on giving advice, when it comes to my life, Mack has always been a voice of reason. Which is why I kept my feelings for Owen from her.
I knew she would not support them.
My best friend’s feelings should be enough to keep my own in check, but as my eyes drift over to where Owen is sitting, my feelings scoff, yeah, forget that.
He’s aloof. Gloomy, sometimes. Hard to get to know, but not unlike a walnut.
You have to crack open the outside to get to the good stuff inside.
I don’t know why I’m more attracted to a brooding Heathcliff rather than a posh Edgar. Then again, it’s not every day a woman compares her high school crush to the characters in Wuthering Heights.
A part of me wants to beg Mack not to leave me alone with her all-wrong-for-me brother, but another part of me knows that the odds of anything romantic happening between me and Owen are basically zero.
There’s no danger of a person who looks like he could pose shirtless for a Booze and Brushes: Women Over Forty class falling for someone who looks like she was voted Most Likely to Join the Circus at their eighth-grade dinner dance.
Mack doesn’t stay, despite all of my silent, mental pleading.
When the door closes behind her, I feel Owen watching me.
I try to busy myself behind the counter, doing absolutely nothing productive. How many times can I straighten the same syrups? My palms are so sweaty, if I tried to make a drink right now, the cup would most likely slip right out of my hand and spill all over the floor.
“Can I get a coffee?” he asks.
“Oh! Right, of course.” If he sits there, casually drinking coffee, my entire body might catch on fire, and he’d have to save me all over again.
Then, I have an intrusive mental flash of the smoke, the fire, my things burning, eyes stinging, and I feel a slight tremor in my hand which I ball into a fist to make it go away.
