"What do you know about responsibility?"
"I paid my way through college with my own capital and investments. Until I dropped out, because I saw a better opportunity. And it was worth it."
"It was?"
"I did $100,000 in sales last year."
Okay, so the kid knows business.
"Why would you give that up now?"
"Because rainbow bagels are going to be huge."
"Enlighten me. I'm just helping out my… wife. But I've been told these are huge with millennials."
"They're huge on social media. Always trending. People love a new twist on a classic, and there's not another bagel shop within 50 miles of here. It's a smart business move."
"Okay," I say, "so say I give you a chance at this. You look like you know computers and business, but do you know people?" I look at his clothes: a graphic t-shirt and cargo shorts, and hair that hasn't been cut in way too long. "You've gotta be presentable."
"I, uh," he stumbles. "Dealing with people isn't exactly my strong suit."
"Food service is a people business."
"Look," he says, "Just give me a month to prove myself. I'll show you I'm the right person for the job."
For some dumbass reason I say yes, right on the spot.
"Alright, you little tyke," I say after a pause. "I don't have a better option, so let's see what you're made of."
He grins. "You won't be sorry." He sticks out a greasy palm for a handshake, and I eye it warily. I look him in the eye. "Let's get you some new clothes and a damn haircut."
11
Tess
"So we need a jigsaw for the wood shelving, a new set of drill bits, five tubes of caulk, and… what am I forgetting?" I say. I sit in the passenger seat of my car while Hunter drives. I don't normally let anyone else drive my car, but right now I'm just fried from all the work and the heat. The HVAC people didn't show up for our appointment, so the shop still doesn't have any AC. Even though summer is about to kick in full strength, and even though the shop opens in just five days.
"And a couple of spicy Italian sausages from the hot dog cart," says Hunter. "I'm fucking starving."
I collapse back into the seat and stick my head out the window like a panting dog. First thing I'm going to do when I start making a profit is fix the AC in my car. There's just no break from the heat.
When we get to Home Depot, Hunter heads straight for the hot dog cart and I follow him. He gets two spicy sausages with ketchup, relish, and sauerkraut. I get one regular jumbo dog with just ketchup and mustard.
We sit on the bench outside to eat and people-watch. It's a Saturday here in Springville, and all the young couples are out and about, getting supplies and upgrades for their houses. It makes me happy to watch them. Hopefully someday, I'll have a house of my own. And maybe even a real husband.
Next to me, Hunter scarfs down half a sausage in one bite, and he gets a smudge of ketchup on his face. His striking, angular, handsome face. I giggle. "Come here," I say, and I dab at the spot with one of my cocktail napkins, but I can't get all the ketchup out. "You'll need to wash that out," I say with a giggle.
He shrugs and puts down the second half of his sausage in one more monster, manly bite. "Whatever. Not like I'm trying to impress a woman right now."
"You know, you can do whatever you want," I say. The pit of my stomach burns. I know that what I'm saying is true, and it shouldn't bother me, but it does. I see the way other women look at Hunter in public, and I like them thinking he's mine. But soon, Hunter's going to be gone for good, and once again I won't have a man in my life.
Which is fine. I mean, that's the best thing for me right now. And that's why I haven't just done it with Hunter like Meg keeps telling me to.
It would be so easy and it would feel so damn good. No man has ever gotten me off like Hunter has, and every night I lie in my bed, I imagine him sleeping on the floor just one room over. It would be so easy to get out of bed, invite him in to my bedroom, and let him fill me up the way I know he wants me to.
The way I want him to.
But I'm afraid that if I do, it's going to hurt when he leaves. So I've made do with my vibrator in the shower. That's the only time I can be sure he won't hear me.
We finish our hot dogs and enter the store. We grab all the small stuff first, and then go to the saw section. There's a Black and Decker, and a Stanley, and some off-brand Chinese saws. "I'm going for the Black and Decker," I say. "I like buying American."
The saw I want rests on a high shelf above the display units, so I reach up on my tip-toes to pull one down. But the box is much heavier than I expect, and I yelp and jump back as I realize the box is about to fall on my head.
I bump into Hunter as I back up, and my ass presses into him. His cock is hard, pushing against me like one of the steel tools hanging on the shelf. His hands shoot up over my shoulders, and he catches the box above my head before it lands on me.
He sets it down as I turn around to face him.
"Hunter, I…" I smell his scent, and even though it's mixed with the smell of sausages, I don't mind. I like the smell of sausages as long as they're on him.
I can't seem to focus on anything except his lips, and his eyes drop down to mine.
We both press closer to one another, and before I put a stop to this crazy decision, our lips touch. It's like the time we posed for a kiss in front of the statue, but this time it's completely organic, completely natural, and it's fucking hot as hell.
Hunter's tongue lashes over mine, sweeping over my lips and teasing my tongue. I let him inside, and my hands move over his shoulder, down his biceps, and I lean further into him.
His lips spark on mine like cinnamon fire, and tingles of pleasure shoot through my body.
When the kiss finally breaks, I awkwardly look off to the side, brushing the back of my hand against my lips, and Hunter coughs.
"That was, uh…" My voice trails off.
"That was a mistake."
I look back up at him. "Do you want to make it again?"
He undresses me with his eyes, and they smolder like beautiful ashes.
Our lips crash together again, and I can hear people talking and carts moving around us, but I don't give a damn. And neither does Hunter, because I feel his hands explore my back, my hips, and finally he slips one hand into my back pocket, cupping the curves of my ass in his palm.
I break off the kiss and gasp. "This is not appropriate behavior in public."
"There's a back room right there," Hunter says with a wink, pointing to a hallway with a sign that says "Employees Only."
I compose myself and pull away from him.
"That was a hell of a practice session," he says, running his hands through his thick, dark hair. "We're getting pretty damn good at this."
I can't help grinning, because even though I know it was so wrong, even though it's going to make things so much more complicated, it felt so damn good.
But then someone I recognize walks by us, and my smile falls right off my face onto the scratched gray concrete below.
It's a man. Not just any man. It's my ex-husband, Roger. He's alone, not with some woman—thank God—and he's dressed up like a pretty boy in slacks and a short-sleeve pink polo shirt. I always hated how those things looked on him.
"Tess, this was truly unexpec—"
"Roger," I say, moving closer to Hunter, "what are you doing? Why are you talking to me?"
"Well it's not like I expected to see you—"
Hunter puts an arm around my shoulder and interrupts Roger mid-sentence. "Who are you?"
"This is my wonderful ex-husband," I say, looking right into Roger's eyes. He casts his gaze down to the floor. "My wonderful ex-husband who cheated on me. How's the mistress, by the way?"
"It was a mistake—" he begins.
"I don't really want to hear it."
"I don't want to hear it either," says Hunter. He rubs my shoulder with his thumb, but I don't know how convincing our act
ing is right now. "She told me about you. She doesn't need you in her life."
"And who might you be?"
"Her—"
Oh, god. If there's one person we should not pretend in front of, it's Roger. I don't have any feelings for him anymore, but if he thinks I've already remarried after six months, then he's going to think I'm a complete psychopath looking for a quick rebound. And I don't want anybody to think that about Hunter. Hunter is… worth more than that.
I interrupt Hunter before he can say "husband."
"He's an old friend," I say.
Hunter stops rubbing my shoulder.
"An old friend you're… sleeping with?"
"Oh, shut up," I say angrily. "It's not any of your business. And you have no right to talk."
"I have to tell you, man," says Hunter, "you're a goddamn tool for leaving this woman."
"Who are you, anyway?"
"More of a man than you'll ever be."
"Let's just go," I say, and I walk away from Roger, pulling Hunter behind me by the hand. He grabs the jigsaw box and stuffs it under one arm, and we leave a speechless Roger behind.
On the car ride back to Maple Ridge, neither one of us talks. I'm fucking pissed off at Roger for showing up and ruining that moment Hunter and I had together. I'm not sure what it meant, but all I know is that I want to kiss him again, and I can't keep denying it to myself any more. But he seems mad.
"I'm sorry that happened," I finally say.
Hunter stares straight into the traffic ahead, moving into the HOV lane. "Not your fault."
"I don't have any feelings for him anymore."
"Never said you did." He seems tight-lipped and quieter than usual.
I know it's not going to do any good to ask, but I hate conflict, so I finally just ask, "Are you mad at me?"
"Why would I be mad?" He grips the steering wheel tight, tighter than he needs to.
"It just seems that way."
"Well, I'm not."
"Then what are you?"
"Nothing. Focused on the road."
"You know," I say, taking an educated guess at what pissed him off, "The only reason I didn't tell him we're together, is because, you know, we're not."
Hunter takes his eyes off the road for a second and looks me in the eye for the first time since we left Home Depot. "You don't need to tell me that."
I feel confused, mixed up inside. "Right, and I know that too." I pause, then add, "So then what happened between us back there?"
"What do you mean?"
"The kiss."
He shrugs. "I can't keep my hands off you. I haven't made a secret of that."
"I know," I say, and I hold back a little laugh because it doesn't seem appropriate right now. "But that seemed like something more."
He looks at me again, and suddenly I find myself wishing he were focused on the road again. "What are you looking for, Tess?"
The truth is, I don't even know any more. I keep making decisions that I know are complicating things, but I can't seem to stop myself from continuing to make them.
"Nothing," I mumble. "Just what we already agreed to." I turn my head and stare out the passenger window.
I think I see Hunter glance at me out of the corner of my eye, but I can't be sure.
12
Hunter
The grand opening of the Rainbow Café comes before we know it. By opening day, my hands and forearms look like a tie-dyed shirt straight out of the 1990s.
Turns out, making rainbow bagels is a lot harder than it sounds. Should be simple, a bagel plus food coloring. But when I taste-tested the very first rainbow bagel, it tasted like fucking dog ass. The dough was as chewy as gum and it tasted like a Chinese chemical factory.
It practically put Tess into a tailspin, and we pulled two all-nighters in a row getting the recipe right. She pulled it off, though.
And this Monday morning, the line for rainbow bagels runs out the door and down the sidewalk outside. Maple Ridge hasn't gotten this hyped since… well, since ever.
Tess works the register while Jason operates the boiler. That kid already proved his worth a dozen times over. Got the boilers unclogged and working again after we gummed them up with too much fucked-up dough, and saved us from having to call in the technicians and delay the opening.
I just do what needs to be done, and right now, that means bussing tables.
"I love a man who wears an apron," says a forty-something woman sitting with her friend. She cuts into her bagel with a fork and knife, and giggles at my get-up. "You single?" she asks. "Or got any friends?"
I chuckle, wiping down the table next to theirs for the next guest. "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm taken." I cringe inwardly. Hunter Thorne has never been a taken man. Definitely not a man to pretend he's taken.
"You're making some girl very happy, then," she says, flashing a smile at me.
"Flattered," I say. Small talk isn't my cup of tea. "That's my wife," I say, pointing toward Tess at the cash register.
"You mean you own this place?"
"Technically… half," I say. "Excuse me, ladies." I head to the back to wash dishes before I have to field any more questions from thirsty old MILFs.
By mid-afternoon, the initial rush of customers recedes and we finally get a chance to catch our breaths. A few customers sit at tables by the windows, enjoying the gentle sunlight streaming in through the window. Above our heads, carved bamboo fans swirl around, cooling the air. The shop has a very modern, warehouse feel to it. Normally I'd call it a hipster paradise, but since I technically own half of it, I can't help feeling a little proud of it.
"A hundred and forty-five customers," exclaims Tess. She flips through the receipts from the morning while I wipe down the espresso machine. In the back, I've got Jason on dish duty. "And we're all out of rainbow cream cheese."
"Told you that'd happen," I say, polishing the milk frother with a damp rag. "Five quarts goes damn fast." Not surprising, either, Shit's delicious. The bagels may be made with nasty-ass food coloring, but we make the rainbow cream cheese with M&Ms, and I just might've licked half a quart of it off my fingers single-handedly.
"I told you this would work out," I say, rinsing my rag in the bar sink next to the espresso machine.
Normally, Tess bristles at me when I'm right, but right now I don't think a nuclear winter could wipe that smile off her face. She's living her dream at last.
Jason shouts from the back that he's stepping out for five. I notice that the only customers in the shop are busy talking amongst themselves, so I step closer to Tess and slide a hand down her side, over the curves of her hips. I lean in and whisper in her ear, "That was a hell of a kiss the other day."
She draws in a sharp breath as my palm glides down her body, but she doesn't push me away. "I don't know what came over me—" she begins.
I shush her, quietly in her ear. "I want you," I whisper.
She tenses up. "You know what I think about that."
"Do I? I think you're just afraid of it."
"What would I be afraid of?"
"That it would mean something more than two friends making each other feel fucking amazing."
Before she replies, a group of six or eight hipster-looking college kids barges in the front door, setting off the door chime. Tess draws away from me, moving back to the register to keep the appearance of professionalism and propriety.
"How can I help you?" she says. I power on the espresso machine. These fucks just look like the pretentious coffee-drinking type.
The lead hipster, a long-haired, skinny-jeans doofus with a man-bun, orders first. "A triple-mocha caramel latte. With skim. And one of these fabulous new bagels."
"Fabulous new bagels," I mutter to myself in a high-pitched voice. I start making his drink as his hipster friends place their orders. I'm not a coffee guy—to say the least—but it's not exactly rocket science. A latte means with milk. Triple mocha, three shots of mocha syrup, one of caramel, and skim fucking milk. No fucking prob
lem. Done and done.
After they've been served, the same hipster returns to the counter while Tess works in the back. I have my back turned to him, wiping down the espresso machine for the millionth time today. I know he's waiting for me but frankly, I don't feel like dealing with his shit right this minute, after he interrupted my moment with Tess.
But the fucker taps on the little metal bell sitting by the register. And he clears his throat.
I spin around. "What?" I can only take so much dealing with strangers in one morning before I become very grumpy.
"This coffee is… totally messed up," he says, looking down his nose at it.
I move closer to him from behind the counter, and I stink-eye him. "What do you mean, 'messed up?'"
He looks nervous and avoids eye contact with me. "It's like… it doesn't taste anything like what I usually get at Starbucks."
"That's because it's artisan," I say.
"Are you sure about that?"
"Don't question me."
Just then, Tess emerges from the back. "What's going on here?"
"The Cure is complaining about his coffee," I say.
"Well, what seems to be the matter?" she asks.
"Nothing," I grunt, before he can answer. "It's a great drink. I made it that way. Believe me, it's great."
"It's all sugar, and it's acidic," the guy says, and runs a hand over his man bun. I should slice that tumor off his head for him. Would be the best thing anybody ever did for the poor fuck.
"I'm sorry about that," says Tess, taking the cup from him. "I'll get you a new one."
"You know," I say to the hipster, "I don't think you know what you're talking about."
"Excuse me?"
"With that abomination on your head, you clearly have bad taste. So I don't see why I should take your criticism about my coffee."
"Hunter!" says Tess, slapping her palm against the counter. She's cute when she's mad. "You can't speak to customers like that!"
"Like what?" I say. "You could sell motor oil to these people as long as it comes with a flower drawn on top. Starbucks tastes the damn same as the coffee in MREs."
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