After three weeks of hard-core renovation and design fights with the decorator, they’d gotten Marshall’s Amp back up and running. No small feat, considering the place looked like an Alderaan diorama by the time Rollins and his crew’d finished with it.
The damage to the outer wall had been extensive, and much of the old brick had to be tossed. Using what could be salvaged, they’d instead broken up the formerly unrelieved wall with colored glass bricks and long windows. It lit up the inside of the coffee shop even before the wood floors and paneling had been stripped down and restained.
Now the coffee shop gleamed with the mod vibe Jules longed for. Deep pinks, greens, and chrome accents, and miles upon miles of pale honey wood. Realigning the counter away from the kitchen door opened the space up even more and made it easier to flow take-out customers out of the shop without tangling with anyone seated at the retro-style lounge chairs Jules found at a discount furniture store. Reupholstered and arranged around low glass and wood tables, they were comfortable, and he eyed one, wondering if he’d been insane when he’d agreed to the pink tweed.
She’d practically begged Forest to let her blow a few thousand dollars on a lava lamp wall sculpture, a six-foot-wide rectangle backlit in changing neon lights. He’d agreed as soon as she’d brought it up, and now he was glad for it. Dominating a formerly dead space near the long wall, the modulating blobs looked… cool.
Nearly as cool as he felt.
They’d decided to hold a soft opening, a small gathering of friends and family as a kind of test drive. A freebie meet and greet with coffee and nibbles of pastries on an invite-only kind of thing. Forest figured no one would come by.
He’d forgotten his lover was related to half the police force, and the other half seemed to drop by just for shits and giggles. Still, with the Amp’s spacious interior filled with Irish lilts and laughter, Forest felt… content.
Fuck that. He was goddamned happy.
“Holy shit. This is what happy feels like.” He looked around the shop, sifting through the sea of Morgans until he found Connor standing in a semicircle with a couple of his brothers. They were laughing about something, but Con must have felt Forest’s gaze because he looked up and their eyes caught. Winking, Con gave Forest a small off-kilter smile, and the warmth in his belly kicked up a notch.
The espresso machines were doing a brisk business, and the smell of roasted coffee beans and sugary pastries drew in people off the street. Jules gave him a curious look, as if to ask if she should kick out the uninvited, but Forest shook his head, mouthing for her not to worry. They had enough food to feed five armies, especially since the cops and firemen the Morgans dragged in seemed much more interested in coffee and chatting than donuts.
Not something he’d ever thought he’d see, cops not interested in donuts—but as he glanced over at Connor who was licking chocolate off his fingers, Forest was kind of glad he only had to keep one cop in ganache-enrobed pastries. The oldest Morgan boy definitely knew his way around a chocolate donut.
And Forest was more than happy to help him work off that chocolate afterward.
“Hey, Forest.” Miki nudged him in the ribs. “You doing okay, dude?”
“Yeah, just kind of… things are good,” he replied, glancing around the room over the singer’s shoulders.
“Freaky, isn’t it?” Miki leaned against the counter, brushing up against Forest’s side. They’d come to be good friends—close friends. Bonding over a shitty childhood could do that to a couple of guys, but most of all, Miki was an all-or-nothing kind of guy. Still, Forest had hope he could bring Miki around to seeing Brigid as one of the best things to ever happen to them.
He wasn’t holding out a lot of hope, but he was going to try.
“You get all happy inside,” Miki continued softly in his distinctive raspy purr. “And then you kinda want to check yourself because it feels so fucking wrong. Makes you a little scared.”
“Makes me a lot scared,” Forest admitted. “You ever get used to it?”
“Dunno,” he replied. “Haven’t yet. I still get up in the middle of the night and touch Kane to make sure he’s real. Sometimes I worry about being in a coma, and this is all bullshit my mind’s come up with to keep me busy or shit.”
“But I’m not in a coma,” Forest snorted. “Shit, at least I hope not.”
“Nah, maybe I dreamed this for you too,” Miki said, pushing off the counter. “Or maybe Damie’s doing it. You know, so we both have better lives. He’s good like that.”