B is for Barista (The ABCs of Love Book 2)

by Brenna Jacobs

  Bentley didn’t say anything.

  Lex held her hands in front of her as though her fingers needed inspecting. “Ivy’s rings.” It wasn’t a question, but he knew she expected him to answer.

  Maybe Lex wouldn’t react like he thought she would. Maybe she’d be totally into the idea of him getting to know Ivy better. On a personal level. “She’s interesting.”

  “And you’re interested?” The knives were back, slicing her words through the air.

  “I didn’t say that.” Please, he thought. I need a customer right now.

  No chime from the door.

  He made another complete rotation around the inside of the counter. When he got back to his sister, she was standing perfectly still, as though she might not have even breathed since he last spoke.

  “Don’t do it,” she said.

  “Don’t do what?” he asked, mostly sure what she meant. But he was going to make her say it.

  She put on her sincere face. “Don’t go there. Don’t let your man-of-the-people act allow you to get caught up in the mystique of the angry goth girl throwback. No one would be amused.”

  He stood up straighter, taking half a step away from her. “Lex, every single part of what you just said is offensive.”

  She leaned closer over the counter. “You have a job to do. One job for the next couple of months. Make this,” she pointed at the vintage Russian samovar next to the cash register, “the only thing you find interesting.”

  He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Seriously? Didn’t we just have this conversation and you said how well it would sell? Me, dating the coffee girl? You were fine with it a week ago. More than fine.” Bentley glanced toward the back, assuring himself that Ivy wasn’t going to walk in on the middle of this conversation.

  She pursed her lips. “That was when I knew you weren’t going to actually try it.”

  It was like her words and her tone took him back fifteen years into the past. Every holdover emotion from his childhood yearned to scream, “You’re not the boss of me.” Instead, he took her hand and leaned across the counter to kiss her cheek. “Thank you for being so good at your job,” he said.

  The chime rang as the door opened. A crowd of high school kids came up to the counter and Bentley focused on his one job.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Centennial Glen’s Wednesday Afternoon Art Project was in full swing when Ivy arrived for her shift. A local artist, a sweet guy names Jonas who taught painting at the high school a couple of blocks away, was leading a watercolor painting activity. After she clocked in, Ivy wandered around the cramped and stuffy gathering room to see everyone’s lighthouse paintings. Jonas must be a good teacher, because the paintings all looked, well, exactly like lighthouses. This made it easy for Ivy to go around and admire the projects, telling the residents what nice work they were doing.

  Ivy imagined that Jonas could make something truly remarkable with these people if he’d had a budget. As it was, they were using pieces of something called “multi-media” paper cut into quarters because they couldn’t afford actual watercolor paper. And even Ivy, who didn’t know anything about art, could tell that the paints were the kind parents buy for little kids—cheap discs, easy to clean up, and eventually disposable.

  Remembering coming here and crafting with Grammy made Ivy nostalgic. For Grammy, obviously, but also for the times when she didn’t understand what it meant that the Glen had to cut so many financial corners. Grammy had spent her own money to buy the nicest kind of yarn when she made Ivy’s beanie, even as everyone else did their crochet projects with cheap polyester yarn. She felt her mouth turn up at the thought of that beanie on Bentley’s head. She’d have to ask for it back, because he hadn’t seemed eager to return it.

  She shook her head to clear thoughts of Bentley Hollis. It was all too confusing, anyway.

  Before the last few weeks of changes at the care center, it hadn’t occurred to Ivy that the inexpensive crafts were another symptom of the Glen’s financial distress.

  But now everything—every flickering lightbulb, every off-brand packaged snack, every shift with insufficient staff—seemed to shine a light on the fact that selling the property was the best decision for almost every reason. She hated that. Money was stupid, she thought. Or at least not having any was stupid.

  Ivy sighed, but when she heard how dramatic she sounded, she turned it into a sigh of appreciation for the lighthouse she was inspecting.

  Moving from one resident to another, Ivy kept glancing around for Lucille. She didn’t seem to be here. Not that she’d be hard to miss, but occasionally Lucille wore a bright wig or a turban and Ivy didn’t know it was her until she saw her face. After making her way around the group, Ivy headed for Lucille’s room. Dierdre sat at the computer at the nurse’s station, typing into the keyboard. The crease between her eyebrows looked particularly deep today.

  “Hi, Deirdre,” Ivy said. No answer. She was so focused that she hadn’t heard her. “Dierdre?”

  She looked up from the monitor. When she saw Ivy, her shoulders slumped.

  “Happy to see me?” Ivy joked.

  “Sorry. This is looking bad.” Dierdre swiveled the monitor so Ivy could see. It looked like a document full of words. Ivy shook her head to indicate that it didn’t look so bad to her.

  “Looks like the city council and the building commission gave first round approval for that new project on our property. I had to go digging around a little, because they’re working some privacy clauses into their arrangements, but the name on the project is Titus Cameron.” She looked over the top of the glasses she was wearing. “Isn’t that the…”

  Ivy interrupted. “The coffee shop wonder-boy?” She could feel her face getting hot. No way. It wasn’t fair. Couldn’t some other company be the one to ruin her life? Why did it have to be the shop she loved? Stupid Titus Cameron and his stupid brilliant business plans.

  As if Ivy needed another instance of rich men behaving badly to add to her growing pile of evidence.

  Dierdre was reading the document to Ivy. It was a letter detailing how the residents of Centennial Glen would be affected by the proposed construction and something about due process and frankly, Ivy didn’t understand much of it.

  “So, you’re asking them to…” Ivy prompted.

  “Reconsider.” Dierdre rubbed a spot near her temple with her knuckle. “Hold a public meeting. Unzip the privacy arrangements so we can see what’s going on. I’m sure they have lawyers ready to fight us on this, but how much can it hurt to ask?”

  That was the question, wasn’t it? And at what point would Dierdre decide to ask Ivy to try talking to someone higher up in the company? That could only end badly. She could see it—Ivy, petitioning for a meeting with Titus Cameron, which obviously would end in her getting fired from Velvet Undergrounds, followed by the demolition of the Glen. Ivy would sit, unemployed and un-caffeinated, atop the rubble of her former life.

  Dierdre put her face back up to the monitor and began another round of aggressive typing. Ivy backed away and headed to Lucille’s room.

  Knocking on the door was more habit and formality than protocol. The nurses and CNAs had open access to all the resident rooms, but Ivy still always felt a little intrusive simply walking in. When she rapped on Lucille’s door, she heard a muffled, “Come in. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Lucille always knew it was her. She could tell from the knock, she said, and from the feeling of giddiness she got anticipating Ivy’s visits. Ivy believed that was about ten percent true. Mostly she figured that Lucille knew her work schedule and didn’t get many visitors.

  “Hi, Lucille,” she said.

  “Business or pleasure?” Lucille asked, giving her the most unsubtle wink.

  “Both, of course. Numbers first. How are you feeling?”

  Lucille answered dutifully about her bum elbow and the itchy skin behind her knees while Ivy took her blood pressure.

  “All right. Now it’s time for you t
o tell me more about the new young man at the shop.” Lucille put her hands on her thighs and leaned forward as though this story was going to be the best entertainment of her week. Well, Ivy thought, that was possible.

  “Turns out he’s actually rich, not just rich-looking,” Ivy said without preamble.

  “Which, in addition to being handsome, a young man ought to be if at all possible.” Lucille used her fake British accent, which Ivy had learned meant that she’d stolen that line from some famous book. She used to ask where the lines came from, but Lucille got mixed up and frustrated when she couldn’t remember an origin. Ivy had figured it was better to just smile and nod. And laugh a little, because Lucille was delighted when she could make Ivy laugh.

  “And he is also handsome, as I recall?” Lucille prompted.

  Ivy reached her left hand back and rubbed her right shoulder. Knots. The kind rich people got massages for. The only massage Ivy had ever gotten was when she went to the furniture store and sat in one of those electric massage chairs for a fifteen-minute demo. Those fifteen-minute demos had occasionally lasted for an hour.

  “Not really my type,” Ivy said, but she didn’t do a very good job of hiding her grin from Lucille. Stop it, Ivy tried to command her mouth. But she couldn’t help the intruding thoughts of Bentley’s gaze, his charm, and his sweetness. The only thing she could actually dislike about him was his money.

  “Of course not your type. Because your type has more of a rumple to it. Your type is somewhat disheveled. I preferred my young men to look like Cary Grant, and you like them a bit more like James Dean.”

  The first time Lucille had made this distinction, Ivy had to look up pictures. As it happened, Lucille was exactly right. Furthermore, their tastes intersected precisely at the face of Paul Newman. And they both agreed they’d marry Gregory Peck’s eyebrows.

  Ivy picked at the dark blue nail polish on her index finger. “He’s the kind of guy who wears an ironed shirt every day. By choice.”

  “You see him every day?” Lucille sounded like she was trying hard to sound casual.

  Ivy shook her head. “You know what I mean. Like, he chooses buttons instead of T-shirts.”

  Lucille smiled. “I love that in a man.”

  “Exactly. It’s like he’s an eighty-year-old man inside a twenty-five-year-old body.”

  Lucille ignored the ageist commentary. “And so now we’re going to talk about his body?” she asked, rubbing her hands together.

  Ivy laughed. “Stop it. People can’t talk like that these days. No way. He’s not an object, you know.” She tried her best to make her face serious.

  Lucille nodded as if to agree that Ivy’s argument was reasonable. “He’s not even an object. He’s only an idea until you bring him around to meet me.”

  Ivy looked up from her nails. “Why would I do that?”

  Lucille shook her head. “I didn’t mean you should bring him around to meet me right now. Later. When things get more serious.”

  Standing up from the chair, Ivy started picking up potted plants and putting them back down. She rearranged a few magazines on the tiny table. “You’re being silly.” She didn’t look at Lucille, because she didn’t need to. Ivy was positive that Lucille was grinning in the way that meant she knew better. Today was not the day she could stand up to that.

  How was it possible that thirty minutes ago, Bentley Hollis had ceased to be attractive to her, but now, with Lucille’s interest, everything Ivy liked about Bentley seemed to weigh more heavily than the one thing she didn’t like? How was it possible that Lucille’s grin made all the negativity of Ivy’s experiences melt away? What had prompted this shift in Ivy’s mind?

  Ivy kept talking.

  “Things won’t get serious. There are no things. Nothing is serious or even on its way to being serious. He’s not interested in girls like me.” She let out a very small sigh that she hoped Lucille wouldn’t misinterpret as regret. Because it absolutely wasn’t regret.

  Lucille made a noise that sounded like “pshaw.” Ivy knew that meant Lucille disagreed.

  “It’s true,” Ivy said, wishing the words hadn’t come out so whiny.

  “How on earth could you know something like that?” Lucille asked. Ivy could feel Lucille’s gaze on her, even though she did her best to avoid meeting her eye in the tiny, cramped room.

  “There’s this girl that hangs out in the shop and she talks to him when she thinks nobody’s looking. She’s like some kind of a model. She just looks like money, you know?” This was a safe place to venture some eye contact with Lucille, who nodded, because Lucille was no dummy. Of course she knew what a woman who looks like money is like. Ivy explained anyway. “Perfect hair, and these totally subtle clothes that would make a girl like me disappear.”

  Lucille’s eyebrows asked a question that her voice was keeping silent about. “Like, she wears a lot of white. And tan. The color tan. And she’s…”

  Ivy realized that she was gripping her hands together. She unclenched her fingers and rubbed her hands down the thighs of her scrubs.

  “Anyway. He likes girls like that. Not like this,” she said, gesturing to herself. She knew that Lucille understood her, that she wasn’t looking for a contradictory compliment.

  Ivy sat in the chair opposite Lucille, leaned in, and lowered her voice. “But I am not afraid to admit to you that his buttoned-down cuteness is kind of appealing.” Ivy sneaked another glance at Lucille, who continued to say nothing. “He has made this very adorable effort to relax.”

  Ivy could tell that Lucille was trying not to say something. Or not to laugh. Or basically trying hard to filter in some way. Ivy continued. “I know. You need more details, and here you go. I will give them to you. His hair. It’s become kind of rumpled. And his clothes, well, a little less starchy. He comes to work now with his shirt untucked.”

  She let out a little laugh, and Lucille smiled. “The first time, it was buttoned up all the way to the top of his collar, but it was untucked. I’m waiting for him to wear a shirt without a collar before I make any big decisions about liking him.” Ivy could feel the grin all over her face. That was just about enough of that. She tried to think of something not awesome about Bentley. Like his propensity to hide his family’s fortune. Yes. Exactly like that. Much less awesome. “Anyway, I think it’s cute, his effort to untuck. It’s easy to find it cute right now, especially since I know nothing’s ever going to happen between us.” Ivy sat back against the chair, nodding at her own closing argument. But even as she nodded, she remembered the feeling of electricity that passed through her hands as she touched his hair.

  Lucille nodded back. “Now they train you to see the future over there in the coffee shop?” Lucille asked, her eyes doing that sassy old-lady twinkle. “That’s how you know nothing will ever happen?”

  Ivy couldn’t help it. She laughed. “Yes. In fact, they do.” She put her fingertips to her temples and closed her eyes, making a quiet humming sound. “Right now, I predict that there will be meatball stroganoff for dinner tonight.”

  “Oh, you’re very good. Staying to eat?” Lucille got up from her chair, a process that seemed to take a little longer now than it used to.

  Ivy occasionally bought a plate of whatever was on the menu at the Glen, lingering with Lucille. It was an indulgence she’d started when Grammy was still alive, and, after all, a girl had to eat.

  But today there was something important, even critical, that she needed to do. “Lucille, wait a minute. I have to talk to you.”

  “We can talk at dinner,” she said, nodding toward the door. “Best seats will be gone if we wait too long.”

  “Please?” Ivy said. “Just for a minute?” The older woman held the back of the chair. She took an audible breath and stood up straight, like she knew something bad was coming.

  Ivy could see the tension in her arms and face. Best to just get it out. Rip off the metaphorical Band-Aid. “They’re tearing down Centennial Glen and turning this property into so
mething that will make money.”

  Lucille made a face like she was tasting something bitter. “When?”

  Shrugging, Ivy told her she didn’t know. “There’s a process, apparently, and they’re in it. But I figured if I’d heard about it, you deserved to hear about it, too.”

  Lucille nodded her head as though that had solved something. “Right. So you need a new place to work and I need a new place to live. No problem.” It was so like Lucille both to put Ivy first and to treat this like it wasn’t a tragedy that Ivy almost laughed.

  “Exactly. No problem at all.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Bentley watched the door for Ivy. No, for customers. He was watching to see what kind of customers came in on a Tuesday afternoon. Not obsessively staring at the door until Ivy came in for her shift.

  The Tuesday afternoon customer, as it happened, was a varied blend. Like always. The numbers showed that Velvet Undergrounds was popular with every coffee-drinking demographic, as well as a small but consistent non-coffee-drinking crowd who came for table space and pastry. And as far as Bentley had witnessed, there was not a dangerously slow time. Mornings before nine were crowded, both with people staying and those who carried their cups out. After nine, there was a comfortable stream of customers, and Bentley was surprised to see how many people had a coffee and a pastry for lunch every day. He had already learned to recognize a few daily visitors and prided himself on knowing what they wanted before they made their orders.

  Afternoons saw a lot of students, both high school and college kids, gathering around circular tables or on squashy leather couches. Early evening was usually the quietest time, but business picked up again when people came in for after-dinner treats.