Unwrapped

by Amelia Wilde

  He looks at me, gaze steady, mouth quirked in a smile. “Here’s what I don’t want to do.”

  “Let’s focus on what we do—”

  “I don’t want to hit on you.”

  A small part of me deflates like a punctured balloon, complete with whining sound. “You don’t?”

  “No,” he says, but the fire in his eyes doesn’t convince me. “I do not want to hit on you in your place of employment.”

  My eyes bug out a little bit. “This,” I look around behind him, “this isn’t real, right? I mean, you kind of already hit on me, and—”

  “This is real,” he says, his tone going serious. “The dancing got the best of me before, but I’m trying to be an upstanding citizen. From now on, at least.”

  Challenge accepted. “Were you not an upstanding citizen before?”

  “I’ve always been upstanding.” I’m sure he has. I let myself risk a glance over his body. Oh, yes, he’s upstanding. “But I’m new in town, so I don’t want you to think I spend all my time walking into coffee shops and hitting on women who happen to be dancing inside.”

  I snap my fingers and point at him because that is where I am at in my life. “And I don’t spend all my time dancing in coffee shops.”

  “Touché?”

  “Totally.”

  “All I want,” he says, pointedly keeping his eyes above my chest, “is a coffee. Black.”

  I narrow my eyes and look at him across the counter.

  He looks back at me.

  “...and your name.”

  “There it is,” I say, slapping a hand down on the counter. The baby in his arms, so far silent, jumps a little bit and frowns at me, her eyes huge and already welling with tears. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare your baby.”

  He cuddles her in close, shushing her with a smile. “It’s fine, Rosie. She’s playing.”

  “I’m working here, sir.” I don’t know why this man is unleashing the prim Englishwoman inside of me, but it’s happening, and I can’t stop it. I also can’t resist. Fish, meet hook. “And my name is Ellery Collins. Everybody calls me Ellie.”

  He digs into his pocket, coming up with a crumpled five-dollar bill. “Ellery,” he repeats.

  “Don’t forget it,” I say with a laugh that’s so weird and awkward I want to shove it back into my mouth and swallow it whole. While I ring him up and get his change, he goes for the stack of to-go cups next to the register.

  “Oh, I won’t,” he says as I drop the change into his waiting hand. I don’t dare touch him. If I did, I might explode. “I’ll have plenty of chances to practice.”

  I can’t think of a damn thing to say while he fills his cup and reaches for a top.

  “Can I—let me help.”

  “No need,” says this prince among men who can do three things at once without batting an eye. Then he heads for the door. “See you tomorrow, Ellery.”

  Chapter Six

  Dash

  It’s like Rosie knows. She normally sleeps until seven, seven-thirty, but on Friday she’s up at six, babbling in her crib.

  The sound tears at my heart. It’s only going to last so long, this baby thing. It’s exhausting. Sometimes I’m so sick of baby talk that I pretend to be a game show announcer instead. Still, lying in my bed, listening to her in the other bedroom of the cottage, there’s only one thought that beats at my brain: Why? Why? Why?

  It’s pointless to wonder. I know that. But in this post-dawn haze, the sun barely above the horizon, hardly peeking in through the matchy-matchy curtains, I indulge myself in a few minutes of what the fuck-ery. Serena left me, and our baby, for a mystical tea journey. How? Rosie’s voice must not have sounded as sweet to her. She must not have felt that ache in her chest, knowing that the minutes are speeding by faster and faster with every passing day.

  No, I’m not a sentimental man.

  Not about shops like Medium Roast, anyway. My goal is to far eclipse that place, and judging by the state of the interior, it’ll be one of the easier things I’ve done in life.

  “Da-da,” coos Rosie. “Da-dee.” She sings the word, her voice rising and falling, a few times. When I peek over her bedside her little face lights up in a smile. She’s only got two teeth on the bottom, and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Then there’s the giggle. God, kill me now, that giggle.

  I settle into the rocker in the corner of the room, brought all the way from the big city, and we have her first bottle of the day. Then it’s the high chair in the kitchen for some baby oatmeal and mashed bananas. She eats it all, and I announce every bite like she’s won Plinko on The Price is Right. I dress her in a tiny pink shirt and matching short-alls, then smooth her wispy hair.

  Forty-five minutes down.

  Am I antsy? No, not at all. I’m not desperate to get back to Medium Roast to see if Ellery is there. I haven’t been tossing and turning, thinking of her all night.

  Fine. Most of the night.

  I bundle Rosie into the car. I don’t want to show up there before seven, because Jesus, how desperate am I trying to look? Rosie and I cruise along the lakeside for another twenty minutes, singing The Song a few times for good measure.

  As soon as I pull the car into a spot down the block, I know something is different.

  The sidewalk in front of the shop is busy. Shit. This must be what it’s like for the morning shift, tapering off through the day.

  Why didn’t I think of that?

  Because my brain was addled by that dance move. That’s why.

  Well, I’m not going to let a little crowd deter me from the morning ritual I’ve kept up since college. Huxley men finish what they start. I’m not quitting because my ex-wife turned out to be a complete traitor. Maybe it would be better if I hadn’t invited her along all those years we were together. I’ll never admit it out loud, but I feel her absence at times like these, and it takes the edge of my anger. It makes it hurt more. And fuck that.

  Rosie kicks her roly-poly legs getting out of the seat, pointing at everything she sees on the sidewalk. “Bird,” I say as a seagull waddles haughtily across the concrete, going for a discarded piece of muffin. “Bench. Man. Lady. Table.”

  There are people sitting at each of the two tables in front of Medium Roast. One is occupied by two middle-aged ladies in neon workout gear. “Daddy’s day out?” one says with a smile as I walk by with Rosie, heading straight for the door.

  “Today and every day,” I say. I don’t stop to see her reaction. Today is not the day I let it get to me.

  This is it. This is the moment when I find out if Ellery was real or a fever dream from a road trip with a baby.

  The door tugs back against my hand, a little burst of air-conditioned air escaping onto the street. Inside, the shop is humming with activity. There are six people waiting in a line in front of the counter, one of them brandishing an empty carafe by the handle. The guy has to be eighty years old. “Evelyn,” he shouts, even though there’s a woman up front placing her order. “You’re out. How long until the next batch?”

  There, standing behind the counter, is Ellery. Not Evelyn. Jesus.

  I’m not crazy. She is real, and she’s here now.

  “It’s coming, Morris. Three minutes,” she calls.

  “What?”

  “Three minutes,” she calls again, then turns back to the woman in front of her.

  “The time, Evelyn,” shouts Morris.

  “Three. Minutes!” she shouts back, and it silences the murmur of conversation in the shop. “Three minutes,” she says again, into the quiet, then waves her hands like a conductor. “Carry on, carry on.” A couple at the back of the line laughs. Ellery shakes her head, giving the woman at the counter an apologetic smile, then risks a glance over the rest of the store.

  Our eyes meet.

  Her hair is a little tousled, but her eyes are huge and gray and alive, dancing with a kind of private humor. “You came back.” I see the words on her lips, though I can’t hear them
because old Morris is airing some other grievances about waiting for coffee.

  “Damn right,” I mouth back.

  That’s when I feel it.

  That first twinge of guilt.

  Can I run her shop into the ground? Yes, it’s a little worn around the edges, and yes, it looks half-stocked at best.

  I get into the line.

  One thing at a time. Who knows? Maybe I’ll open my shop, and this one will only get more customers.

  “Announcement,” Ellery calls from the front, and the chatter dies down again. “I’m out of espresso. Only decaf espresso from here on. If you want a latte or a cappuccino, it’ll have to be decaf or with regular coffee.”

  Or maybe not.

  “What?” The woman ahead of me whispers the word to her man. “Out of espresso?”

  She’s right. What’s going on at this place?

  What’s my alternative? Scrap the plans for my own shop to keep this strange, strange place alive? I don’t think so. I started it. I’ll finish it.

  “Brrrp,” says Rosie.

  “That’s right,” I say absently. “That’s right.”

  Chapter Seven

  Ellery

  The espresso announcement puts a damper on things like I knew it would.

  I knew it from the moment I opened the shop this morning. In all the commotion I caused yesterday, I forgot to look out the front windows of the shop for the delivery guy. When Aunt Lisa and Uncle Fred first opened up Medium Roast, they did the roasting themselves. She was always terrified of burning the coffee beans, so no matter what blend it was supposed to be, they all turned out...

  You know. You know how they all turned out.

  Now that they’re down in Bradenton with Fred’s mom, they’ve contracted with a guy from forty-five minutes upstate.

  It’d be well and good if his trademark wasn’t micro batches of each roast. It means that when he does show up with coffee beans in his signature green bags, they’re....micro. It’d be the perfect supply for Lakewood in the winter when all the tourists are safely at home away from the snow. During tourist season? Not so much.

  I called the guy—his name is Leonard—this morning at six-fifteen. Unsurprisingly, there was no answer.

  I called my aunt after I opened, while all the regulars poured their coffees. No answer.

  So I did the only thing left to do.

  I faced the day knowing I’d have to make that announcement.

  It’s more than a little embarrassing to have to do it in front of the hottest mystery man Lakewood has ever seen. I don’t have to ask around to know that it’s true. If anyone that hot had ever stepped foot in this town, someone would have told me about it immediately. Probably Mary Marshé, who loves to know things first almost more than she loves yoga.

  Morris is in rare form today, and it takes all my concentration to focus on the lady at the front of the line.

  “It’s, like, a latte, but with caramel.” She mimes pumping the caramel into a cup. “Two pumps.”

  “And you’re okay with coffee? I have no more espresso.”

  She shrugs one shoulder, then the other. I take that as a yes.

  “Evelyn.” Morris rattles the carafe. “How much longer?”

  I turn back to the woman, who is, thank God, still wearing a wide, easygoing smile. “One second?”

  “No problem,” she says, and bows her head gracefully back down to her phone.

  The carafe behind me has just finished filling. The coffee inside it is going to be too hot to drink for another twenty minutes at minimum once it’s in the cup, but I flip the top down and pull it off the machine anyway. Then I hoist it up and come around the counter, parting the customers like the Red Sea. Once the carafe is firmly on the countertop—next to the second carafe, which is also full—I move back toward Morris and take the empty one out of his hand. “There you go.”

  He kisses his fingers. “You’re a peach, Evelyn. A peach,” he shouts.

  I go back behind the counter, so aware of the mystery man at the back of the line that every nerve is humming with it. He looks every bit as hot today as he did yesterday. From the brief glance I stole, I did gather that he is wearing a blue t-shirt and not a black one, but it emphasizes the cut muscles of his upper arms just as well as yesterday’s version. Does he have to flex that much when he holds his daughter? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I only hope he keeps doing it.

  Focus, Ellie. I’m dealing with hot liquids here, not to mention the state of affairs between my legs. The heat rises with every second he stands there, looking at me.

  Who is he? Where did he come from?

  “Caramel,” says the lady at the front of the line. She mimes again. What is the deal with the miming? “Two pumps.”

  “Got it.” I flash my most winning smile and turn away. Skim milk—she’ll want skim, I can tell. Stainless steel frothing pitcher. Pour it in up to the bottom of the pour spout. Assume the position behind the espresso machine, hand on the knob, and—

  I can’t help one last glance. He’s so sexy, standing there in the morning glow, his gorgeous baby daughter in his arms, watching every move.

  My hand slips on the knob for the steam wand.

  It’s too much, too soon. The wand isn’t even fully in the milk yet, so the steam screams along the surface with a high-pitched whine.

  “Oh, shit—” I try to salvage the situation and overcorrect. Milk shoots out of the pitcher and hits me everywhere. The face. The front of the shirt.

  There’s an empty sucking sound, like a straw draining the dregs of a soda from a glass. Everyone else is staring at me, including mystery man, but Morris—good old Morris—is pumping furiously at the other carafe, which is apparently broken. Coffee sputters out of the spout ineffectually. My entire face turns beet red.

  “Everything is fine,” I announce. What the hell else am I supposed to do, other than give notice to the six—no, eight—people standing in here watching my entire life spiral down the drain of embarrassment?

  “You okay?” calls mystery man. Why didn’t I ask for his name? I could have. Oh, that’s right—he caught me trying to twerk in the middle of this very shop.

  I keep my eyes on my own paper this time around. I’m extra careful with the espresso machine. It’s taken way too long—way—to make this woman her drink, but finally, I hand it to her. She looks at the cup, then back at me. “Two pumps?”

  I don’t roll my eyes, and yes, I would like a pat on the back for that. But I inhale deeply and put forth my best self. “Two pumps,” I say, and I say it with a smile.

  Behind that woman comes Morris, who after all this leaves two dollar bills on the counter and shuffles out without saying anything else, and a couple who decides on regular coffee spiced up with some flavor shots.

  At last, the mystery man approaches.

  I hold up a hand. “Name first.”

  His half-smile is so smoldering it could brew another carafe all by itself. “Then what?”

  “Name first.”

  “Dash Huxley. Short for Dashiell. Which my parents have never used, by the way.”

  I nod sagely. “Mine always called me Ellie.” The memory of my dance yesterday flashes up like some kind of nightmare projection, and my face goes hot. “Are you in town for the summer? I thought you might be kidding, yesterday.”

  “I wasn’t kidding.”

  “I see that now.”

  “I’m not here visiting.”

  My heart speeds up. His gorgeous body is going to be walking around Lakewood permanently? Well, not permanently. Nobody stays here forever. I don’t want to be here forever. Unless he’s here.

  Stop.

  “You moved to town?” There’s a movement over his shoulder through the glass of the corner window, and my body is instantly on alert.

  “I did,” he says, his gaze flickering down the rest of my body and then rising to linger on my face. “I—”

  “Wait.” It comes out a little sharply, but this i
s important.

  “What?”

  More movement. Oh, shit. It’s a group. It looks like a tour bus group. Really? Right when I have a moment to flirt with Dash, Lakewood’s newest eligible bachelor?

  Is he an eligible bachelor?

  “Order,” I tell him, dragging my eyes back to his chiseled face. “Quick. And remember, I don’t—”

  “—have any espresso,” he finishes for me. “A black coffee would be great. Medium.”

  I reach for the cup with military precision and put it on the table. Adrenaline surges. They’re coming. Any moment now. Any moment—

  “Go now,” I tell him as the first person shuffles into view.

  He laughs out loud. “I haven’t paid—”

  “Come back tomorrow,” I say, heat flushing through every inch of me. Every inch.

  Dash smiles, and it is all I can do not to leap over the counter and run away with him into the sunset. “It’s a date.”

  Chapter Eight

  Dash

  I’m not obsessed with Ellie.

  I’m not.

  This is something else entirely. Something else is waking me up in the middle of the night when Rosie is finally sleeping and there’s a long, silent stretch where I can relax for the first time all day.

  I never made it to the new building yesterday, and I can’t quite explain it. I’ve been getting regular updates from the contractors, but I’ve been anxious to see it with my own eyes since we pulled away from the apartment I used to share with Serena.

  She was something else yesterday. Ellie, not Serena. For all I know, Serena is still gallivanting around Southwest Asia with Pine Deep. The name makes me snarl into my pillow, and yet...

  It’s hard to concentrate on hating him when Ellie is so intriguing.

  I can’t tell if she’s happy or devastated. That’s what it is. Catching her dancing like that, totally unguarded, makes me think she’s comfortable there. Content. But the way she snapped into another mode entirely when that big crowd came reminds me of bracing for the next wave in one of those amusement park wave pools. Impressive, in a way. Weird in another way. Being a barista strikes me as the kind of job where one could be a little more laid back. Chatty.