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Melanie just rolled her eyes and finished the coffee order she’d been working on. She called the customer’s name out, waiting for a man dressed in a business suit to come and collect his drink before she continued. “You’ve been mooning after her for six months, Rio. It was cute at first, but you should probably actuallymakea move unless you want someone else to snatch her up.”
I growled at the idea of someone else taking Madeline out on a date...becauseIwanted to take her out on a date.
“Besides,” Melanie continued, oblivious to my clear distress at the thought of Madeline going on a date with another guy. “I really think Adair and Marcus would like her. She’s hot with a capital H.”
I snorted at that, I knew for a fact that Adair would fall head over heels for the beta with the sad brown eyes. She was like catnip for a man like him. Marcus, however, would be the problem. The man had more baggage than the baggage claim at an airport. He tolerated the betas around him, but when it came to his personal life? He avoided them like the plague. It was why I hadn’t asked Madeline out yet...but Melanie didn’t know anything about this. She was just a college student who worked for me and was not privy to the deep inner workings of my pack.
With a frustrated sigh, I pulled my apron over my head and tossed it into the crate underneath the counter, “take care of the store today, okay?” I called as I grabbed my things from the office. “Don’t let the place burn down.”
Truthfully, I didn’t reallyneedto run the day-to-day at the coffee shop anymore. I had a good staff that pretty much ran things without me...and yet I still showed up every morning just so that I could hand Madeline her coffee.
Melanie made a noise of agreement as she dealt with a new customer, and I stepped out into the chilly November morning. A bus with Adair’s face on it passed in front of me, and I sighed. It was hard to believe that we were only a year out from the election. We’d gone through this once before when Adair had run for congress, but thisfeltdifferent. Like there was a lot more riding on this election than the first one.
Pushing my hands into my jacket pockets, I began the short walk to our apartment and thought about the first time that Madeline had walked into my coffee shop.
6 Months Ago...
Rain pounded loudlyagainst the windows of the shop as a deluge of water ran down the glass and obscured the outside world to everyone sitting inside. I was busy wiping down tables since two of my part-timers had called out this morning, forcing me to come in and open...not that there were many customers to deal with today. The weather forecast was calling this storm the biggest storm that the Bay Area had seen in over a decade, and I believed it. It reminded me of the hurricanes that I had dealt with when I visited my parents in Florida. My parents had trained my four sisters and me well in hurricane preparation. My sisters held the boards against the window while my father or I hammered the nails in. Meanwhile, my mother would be inside gathering candles, flashlights, and non-perishable foods. Now, I had the itching desire to board up the shop and hunker down in the apartment with Adair and Marcus...but this was California, and we didn’t do that here.
The bell above the door dinged, and a pair of women stepped inside, letting the wind tug the door shut with a teeth-jarring slam behind them. One was short and had blonde hair, while her companion stood over a head taller than her and had her dark hair pulled out of her face.
“I’m sorry, Maddie!” The blonde woman apologized profusely as she faced her friend. The taller woman was wearing a yellow raincoat that was bright against the dreary backdrop of the day...but judging by the way she was holding it away from herself, it had done very little to keep her dry. “I didn’t mean to trip you into that puddle, really.”
Despite her apologies, even I could hear the note of falseness in her words as the woman, Maddie, I surmised, unzipped her jacket and revealed the soaking wet interior. The white silk blouse that she was wearing was completely drenched, showing the outline of the black tank top underneath and, even though she was wearing a pair of black slacks and wet would be hard to see on them, it was clear that she was utterly drenched.
“Oh dear,” the blonde woman continued, “I’ll reimburse you for the top. I know it’s YSL, and your brother bought it for your birthday.” I didn’t know what YSL was, but it sounded expensive, and I knew that the shirt was ruined as soon as she began to dab at it with some napkins.
Making my way around the counter, I snagged one of the black Golden Gate Grind merch t-shirts that we sold at the shop. It was an extra-large men’s shirt and would probably look more like a dress on this woman’s slender frame, but it was better than soaking wet clothing.
I was just about to call out to them when I heard Maddie, who had been silent up to this point, finally respond to the woman’s apologies. “No, it’s totally okay, Natalia. It’s no big deal.”
I had fully expected her to snap at the woman for ruining her shirt but, instead, she just smiled a blindingly bright smile as she continued to dab at the material of her ruined blouse. That was a strange reaction, even I would have been irritated at Adair or Marcus if they’d tripped me into a puddle, accident or not.
“Miss?” I interrupted their conversation, and the woman turned around fully, giving me my first full look at her.
She was slender and on the taller side. She came right up to my shoulder, so she was probably 5’8 or 5’9. She was certainly taller than the blonde woman next to her. Her hair was an inky black color, and I was sure that, if it wasn’t wet, it would shine under the recessed lighting of the shop.
I held the shirt out to her. “Here, you should change out of that blouse so you don’t catch a cold.”
Her brown eyes crinkled in the corners as she smiled gratefully. “Thank you, how much is it?” She asked, and I just shook my head.
“Nah, just buy coffee every once in a while, that’ll make us even.”
She looked like she wanted to argue with me, so I just held my hand out to her, “I’m Rio, by the way. Rio Malik. I own this fine, if slightly damp, establishment.”
The woman looked at my hand for a moment, as if deciding what to do next, before finally sliding her hand into mine and wrapping her icy fingers around my hand. “I’m Madeline.”
