The Winter Games

by Sharp, Dr. Rebecca

  “Ash.” Josie turned her attention to me and smiled. “How’s the restaurant coming?”

  “It’s coming,” I replied with a chuckle. “Homestretch now.”

  “Oh, wonderful.” She reached out and pulled me in for a hug. “I’m so proud of you. I can’t wait to taste your first official meal.”

  “Who says you get the first one?” Larry teased, handing Josie her coffee.

  She gasped and waved him away with a laugh, murmuring to me conspiratorially, “I’m willing to bribe you with extra apple fritters.”

  “Coffee is more important than fritters,” came Larry’s response.

  He had a point.

  “We’ll see about that.” Josie winked at me. “Alright, boys. I have to run. I’ll be by in the morning with fresh muffins.”

  The bell dinged signaling her departure.

  Roasters was small and looking a little more rundown even in the five months that I’d been here. An L-shaped counter held a glass partition behind which sat various plates of food and pastries, some that were made here, and some made by Josie which she brought over at the beginning of each day.

  And sitting front and center behind that counter was the original La Pavoni espresso machine that Larry’s great-grandparents had brought over from Italy; it had been here so long, it was nicknamed Pavi. And it still shone and purred just as smoothly as probably the day it was installed.

  Nothing made an espresso like this machine.

  Not Starbucks. Not Nespresso. Not even God.

  The rest of the space which appeared not to have been updated since the eighties was filled sporadically with small cafe tables. On the left, just inside the entry, was a wall-length bench, the navy and white stripes of the fabric so worn they looked light blue at first glance until you went to sit.

  Above it was a mass of framed photos, going all the way back to when the first generation of Oceans opened the place in nineteen-oh-six. Photos with the roads still unpaved in that dusty sepia-tone that made the place seem like the Wild West instead of the West Coast.

  But it was the photos of the people, the generations of the Ocean family, spreading down the wall like a branch of the family tree that made Roasters feel like it was the roots of this town, like everything that grew in Carmel Cove, came from here.

  New people. New businesses. New futures.

  Maybe that was why it had been easy to stay here—because the fact I wasn’t family never seemed to make a difference in how I was treated as though I were.

  “Hey, Eve,” I greeted the cheerful, local girl who popped out from the back carrying armfuls of travel mugs.

  She brightened when she saw me. “Hey, Ash.” Her small smile was as brief as a breeze as she deposited her haul, grabbed new plates filled with food and was off to serve them to waiting customers, tossing over her shoulder, “Any chance you miss this and want to come back?”

  I chuckled.

  My first job out here had been behind this bar, serving a different kind of addiction.

  Eve had been here part-time, so we’d worked together for two-and-a-half months until I finally purchased the house and land for my restaurant. Since then, she’d been bumped up to head barista while I took more and more time off for my own business.

  “Tempting,” I threw back.

  The head barista position at Ocean Roasters seemed to be a revolving door for broken souls. It made sense… If there was one thing coffee could teach you, it was that being in hot water only made you turn out stronger.

  Ever since Larry’s granddaughter, Laurel, left for school and hadn’t come back, filling the position had also helped soothe the piece of him that missed her.

  Her picture hung on the wall, too. Laurel, her father and Larry’s son, Mark, and Larry—it was taken shortly before the boating accident which killed both Mark and his wife, Fiona, leaving Laurel in her grandfather’s care. He never talked about it—or Laurel. And I didn’t ask…

  I knew the look of someone who’d failed a loved one all too well; it was one that greeted me in the mirror every morning.

  “When is Eli coming back?” I wondered, realizing it had been a few days and I couldn’t remember what he’d told me.

  Eli Downing was broken barista number one, AKA my predecessor. He’d gone up to Monterey a few days ago for a job; he was the best and the most trustworthy contractor in the area—and not just because Larry said so; but he’d started off here, in Roasters, just like I had.

  And if Larry and I were close, well, Eli was like a son to him even though they weren’t related.

  “Next week sometime,” came Larry’s gruff response.

  Just like I did, Eli had stepped back from Roasters to grow his construction business, and recently partnered with Madison Construction, run by two brothers—twins—Mick and Miles Madison. They were new to Carmel, having moved up from Texas.

  But more and more, Eli was being pulled back to the coffee shop because Larry was getting old and worse, far too stubborn to be left to his own devices.

  “You think I should go back?” I asked with a low voice, returning to our earlier conversation about my sister’s engagement.

  Eyes peered at me from underneath loose lids that made them always look partially closed and as though he was constantly scrutinizing you—which he probably was.

  “I still… I still have thoughts. I’m still struggling,” I admitted, taking the Americano from his hand. “I don’t think I’m ready. Still feels like I’m missing something.”

  And I didn’t want to go back until I was whole—until I was whole enough to tell Blake and my family the truth of why I’d come out here.

  I didn’t want them to worry.

  I didn’t deserve their worry.

  “Gonna be waitin’ a long time if that’s what you’re holdin’ out for,” he groused, pulling off the lid to the hopper. “You’ll always be missin’ somethin’, boy. You’re human.”

  I cleared my throat. My gaze catching on the carved wood plaque mounted above the machine.

  Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

  The phrase almost as well-known as Larry Ocean—the man it came from.

  It gave me déjà vu to the day I arrived in Carmel Cove with no plan, wandered into Ocean Roasters and couldn’t stop staring at the words, wondering where I was, what I had, and what the hell I was going to do with myself.

  And then Larry handed me my coffee in a to-go cup with the name of the church and a date and time written on the coffee collar.

  I didn’t need to ask… hell, I didn’t even need to show up to know that it was an invitation to an AA meeting. But I’d gone the following day, intrigued by the man who knew more than I’d told him, and I’d been going to the same one every week since.

  “Was that a compliment?” I chuckled, trying to lighten the profound truth of his words.

  Larry was notorious for guarding full-blown compliments—worse than Gollum guarded the ring. Not the chatty type, Larry only spoke when necessary and with a purpose, which meant when he spoke, everyone listened.

  And when he complimented, it was more confirmation than seeing your name on Santa’s nice list that you’d done the right thing.

  “You tell anyone, they’ll never find your body,” he straight-faced retorted as he wiped down the steamer on the machine.

  I laughed, taking a long drink of the dark, unsweetened liquid.

  It wasn’t just with that coffee collar that Larry changed my life. He gave me a place to stay even though I had enough money to afford a hotel, threatening me bodily harm if I left before I was stable enough in my sobriety to get a place on my own.

  Leaving Nashville, the band, and the entertainment industry was a huge step in getting alcohol out of my life, but it also meant leaving friends and family who cared about me. Maybe I was dumb to walk away from their support, but I didn’t deserve it. I’d fucked up my life—demolished it like the explosion at Chernobyl. And they’d survived the blast; I wouldn’t a
sk them to linger in the toxic environment to help me clean up the pieces.

  Larry didn’t ask questions. He saw the void and he filled it with his donut cravings, trips to the gym at six in the morning to leg press weights that would have good old Mayor Arnold Schwarzenegger balking, and his famous Sunday spaghetti and meatballs topped with magic marinara was open to anyone who needed to be anywhere but where they were, and with anyone who would listen; he filled it without asking and without asking for anything in return.

  “So, you were spackling?” he asked as we made our way out the back.

  Tuesdays were shipment days so I knew there would be a truckload of boxes with to-go cups, napkins, utensils, filters, and, of course, paper straws. With Eli away, I wasn’t going to let Larry try to carry it all inside like his stubborn mule of a self would attempt to do.

  “Yeah.” I grunted as I hoisted the box marked ‘Heavy’ over my shoulder. “Mick and Miles are working a job over at the Rock Beach Resort, so I figured how hard could it be?”

  I’d never been one for manual labor before. But here, there was something to be said for building up something from scratch with your own two hands, my business and myself.

  After two months of recovering, of living with Larry and earning my keep working at Ocean Roasters, I finally felt like I had a footing—not completely stable, but with enough support to help me weather the challenges ahead. So, I used my considerable savings which, thankfully, hadn’t been wasted on anything but alcohol, and bought a property along the Big Sur coastline.

  I paid cash for the expensive but rundown house which probably would’ve been cheaper to tear down and rebuild, but maybe that was what drew me to it.

  At one point, I thought it would have been easier for life to just tear me down instead of fixing me up. And here I was. Being fucking fixed.

  After the purchase, I reached out to Eli who brought Mick and Miles into the project and the rest is history.

  “How long?” Larry asked as we carried the last of the boxes inside.

  “Four weeks,” I said, my heart pumping faster at the thought. It had taken three months, a new foundation, almost a new everything, but the original framework was preserved. And now I was four weeks of hard-ass hustling to finish everything in order to open in six.

  Six weeks until I opened my own restaurant. Until I was responsible for my own success instead of someone else’s.

  And I was fucking proud.

  It didn’t matter if it wasn’t open yet, and that I had essentially nothing but an empty space with a bomb-ass view. I’d climbed out of the worst possible version of myself. I’d scratched, clawed, and beat back demons I’d invited into my soul years ago and was doing something good.

  “On track then,” he mumbled. “Good.”

  “For now.” And for the duration, if I had anything to say about it.

  “You pick a name?”

  “Larry’s Lounge,” I joked.

  His glare made me laugh harder. “Don’t you tease me, boy, I’ll push you right off that cliff if you go and do something foolish like that,” he said with a tone that was ornery rather than threatening before changing topics, “You coming for dinner tonight?”

  Most days that I saw Larry came with his invitation to dinner. And it wasn’t just to me. His door was always open to anyone in town who needed a friend, a conversation, and a good meal to remind them the little things are just that… little.

  “Nah, I’m good but thank you.” I glanced down at my watch. I had a few hours before I had to meet Danielle at Ciao!, the Italian restaurant in town.

  “You seein’ that girl again?”

  Couldn’t put anything past him… not in Carmel Cove. “You know Danielle. You know everyone here. You should stop calling her ‘that girl.’” The air quotes came complete with an eye-roll.

  Danielle was a master vintner at Cliffside, one of the many wineries sprinkled along these parts. But that’s definitely not where I met her; we’d met at Roasters. She came in for her hazelnut latte every morning since before I’d moved here.

  I knew Larry was concerned because of her profession… and my problem… but Danny was great; she never even ordered wine when we went out to dinner, playing it off as it was her job to drink all day, and no one liked to work after hours.

  But the best part was that things were casual between us—and that’s what I needed. We’d only gone out a handful of times, and neither of us was looking for anything more right now. I needed a foundation for my life before I could think about housing someone else on it with me.

  “She’s not the one for you. That means I call her ‘that girl.’”

  Even he recoiled at the hard edge in his voice. This was happening more frequently, the sharp contrasts between good and bad moods… good and bad days. I’d have to give Eli a call; he would know what was going on.

  “Larry—”

  “Have a good night,” he ordered, and then turned and walked to his old Nissan pick-up to head home.

  That was another thing on the list.

  As soon as we were done with my restaurant, I needed to wrangle Eli and the crew over to Larry’s house which was almost in as bad a shape as mine had been, only he didn’t do anything about it. It was a shame, too, since his house had to be worth tens of millions for the property it sat on, peaked along the jagged coastline with a view even God, looking down from the heavens, would be jealous of.

  I sighed and made for my own beater. An ’82 Ford truck. Donation courtesy of Elijah Downing.

  Yeah, I’d found more than just my future here. I’d found the friends to support it.

  Ash

  THE BEST THING ABOUT MY work-in-progress restaurant was the view. Hands-down. Without a doubt. I swore I’d stumbled into a corner of heaven when I’d first stepped on the property.

  The building sat on a secluded bluff along the Big Sur cliff-covered coast. Set several hundred feet down a gravel driveway off the main road, the views of the ocean and the cliffs, no matter the time of day, were an ever-changing canvas of the most vibrant colors.

  The second-best thing about this property: it came with a guest house. Although guest house was a generous term. The rundown, two-room-plus-bathroom shack sat just off the top of the drive with trees and foliage partially obstructing the ocean view. Having it meant I’d been able to move off Larry’s couch the day the papers were signed.

  Quietly, I slipped out of bed, not wanting to wake Danny after last night. Glancing over, I saw her naked form sprawled in my sheets, sleeping soundly. We’d had a good night… satisfying night… and part of me wished she didn’t turn the bed into a midnight mash pit while she slept. I’d always imagined ending up with a woman who’d wake up in my arms. Then again, she’d never been the woman in those fantasies.

  Instead, images of uneven short hair, brilliant green eyes, and a body so compact I could cage it with mine—and never let it go—came to mind.

  Tugging on my sweats, I tucked my morning wood up against my stomach and padded down the small drop step into the kitchen-slash-living-room-slash-dining room. Basically, the place where coffee and food came from, complete with a small sofa that Larry had given me, TV, and a foldout table and chairs.

  I’d used the word ‘cozy’ to describe it to Danny which was guy speak for a room with a bed and a coffeepot.

  It was only seven, but I couldn’t stay in bed any longer. Something felt off this morning. Glancing out the window, I noticed the candy red sky along the horizon.

  Red sky in the morning is a sailor’s warning.

  And that was how I felt—a sugar-coated sense of foreboding.

  Figuring it was just the amount of shit I had to get done, I brushed it off and flipped on the coffee grinder.

  Larry’s Life Lesson Number One: Always use fresh-ground beans.

  My attention snapped to the small kitchen window, thinking for a second I’d heard something outside on the gravel driveway.

  Note to self, check on when the drive was
supposed to be paved.

  Probably just the grinder, I figured.

  The rich aroma easily filled the small space as I poured two mugs full of Roaster’s Morning Brew; it was enough to wake you up without a single sip. I’d barely taken two steps back toward the bedroom, mugs in hand, when there was a soft knock at the door.

  I had heard something.

  My brow furrowed. But who the hell was showing up at my hovel at seven in the morning?

  My brain quickly sped through the list of possibilities. Larry would be at Roasters. Miles and Mick were working in Monterey. Eli was out of town. And Danny was in the other room.

  My heart jumped into my throat, immediately worried it was some local official coming to tell me I hadn’t signed, dotted, danced and licked all the right lines of the numerous permits and licenses I’d needed; this was California, after all.

  God, if something happened to push back my timeline, I had no idea what the fuck I was going to do.

  Forgetting the coffee, forgetting my houseguest, and forgetting I was shirtless, I stalked over to the door, heart pounding, and yanked open the latch handle with the mugs in one hand expecting anything. Or everything.

  Everything but emerald.

  “Taylor?”

  I gaped and stared at the angel from my past, her jewel-cut eyes crystallizing around my gaze.

  Taylor.

  Here.

  I would’ve been less surprised to see the Pope, dressed as Santa, here to wish me Happy Hanukkah than to find Taylor Hastings at my door.

  Like everyone else from my past life, I hadn’t seen her in five months. But unlike everyone else, Taylor was the only one with the perspicacity to see my demons and know they’d driven me here.

  My heart continued to race for a whole slew of reasons I couldn’t give name to, and my body felt like it was waking up for the first time in months. All because of her.

  I couldn’t believe she was here… and it looked like neither could she.

  “Ash… Hi…” Her brilliant smile flashed for a split-second.

  She stammered like she’d expected someone else to answer the door to a rundown shack on the other side of the country.