The Gossip and the Grump (Three BFFs and a Wedding #2)

As for what I’ll do if I discover this kombucha bar isn’t the path for me, I’ll sell it.

After it’s no longer recognizable as the café Chandler grew up with. “I found a place to get a new SCOBY so we can start brewing kombucha samples.”

“Are you picking it up or am I?”

“I’ll get it tomorrow.”

We pull into the parking lot of the little townhouse neighborhood, and Zen steers me to the correct row of parking garages across the street from the line of brown, two-story townhouses where our unit is located.

“Do you remember the code for the door?” I ask them after we’ve parked and pulled out the rest of our luggage that we didn’t bring in with us when we arrived late last night. They let us in, and I haven’t looked at the reservation.

“Does a duck wear shoes?”

“Can you get the code for the door again please?”

They flash me a grin in the dimly lit parking area. “Ducks totally wear shoes. Grab my bag too. I’ll go get the door.”

I fling Zen’s backpack over my shoulder and grab a rolling suitcase with each hand. They’re already across the street from the parking garage to the front door of the townhouse. And I’m moving as swiftly as I can to follow.

It’s fucking cold out here. Hope the heater’s set above seventy.

Should’ve sent them to bring in the rest of our bags hours ago.

I’m nearly to the sidewalk in front of our unit when a laugh at the next door over catches my ear.

“You’re so silly, puppy,” a little girl says while a massive dog licks her face.

“Jitter, be nice,” a very familiar female voice says somewhere on the other side of the dog.

And even though I know that dog, and I know that voice, my chest tightens in undeniable desire.

Not for Sabrina, I tell myself.

But for the life she has.

The dog. The little girl shrieking with laughter. The lights glowing inside the house.

Home and family the way you see it in the movies.

I scowl to myself, put my head down, take three more steps, and everything goes topsy-turvy.

Ice.

I hit ice.

I hit ice, and my feet slip from under me. The bag on my shoulder drops, throwing me more off-balance. I grip the two suitcases, but both are on wheels, and both go in opposite directions, which leaves me landing hard on one hip and an elbow at the snow-covered curb.

“Uncle Grey,” Zen says.

There’s a woof, two more shrieks, and then I’m drowning in fur while the dog reaches me first and lies down so close to me that he’s practically on top of me.

He whimpers.

And then Zen’s there on one side, Sabrina on the other.

“Are you okay?” Zen asks. “Where does it hurt? Did you break anything? Can you move?”

Cold seeps through my coat. Cold and wet seep through my suit pants. The dog whines and puts his face in mine.

“Jitter, come,” Sabrina says quietly. “Give him breathing space.”

“It’s your ass, isn’t it?” Zen says. “You broke your ass.”

“I did not break my ass,” I grit out.

Jitter whines again and moves his head to rest on my chest while I try to push myself up.

Ice water is already penetrating my gloves.

“So you’re the mystery first tenants next door,” Sabrina says to Zen. “I probably shouldn’t be surprised, should I?”

Zen looks at her. Then at me. Then back to her. “Oh, this is gonna be fun.”

“Has anyone told you yet that the walls are paper-thin?”

“Ew. Thanks for the warning. Glad you worked him out of your system in Hawaii.”

“Zen,” I snap.

The dog whines again and shoves his face closer to my chin. His head is bigger than mine. His jowls are flopping on my chest and leaving drool on my coat. And his breath smells like the best doggy breath in the world, and yes, I fucking miss my dog so much I’d live in doggy breath.

I push his head away.

“Jitter,” Sabrina says. “Who’s a good boy who wants a steak dinner?”

I was wrong.

Jitter wasn’t whining before.

This is a whine. A sad, mournful, I love steak dinners but I can’t move kind of deep, thick, long whine.

“Aww, he knows you’re a dog person.” Zen holds a hand out to me. “Can you move? Or do we need to call for help?”

“I can move.”

“You’re acting like you’re eighty-six instead of thirty-something.”

“That young?” Sabrina says to them. “And how old are you?”

“Do not answer that.” I pull myself up to my full height.

The dog presses against my legs and almost takes me down again, but Sabrina grabs my arm and steadies me.

Lightning streaks up my arm and hits a bulls-eye in my chest, and I’m back in Hawaii, strolling down a dark sidewalk toward my hotel, with her grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the way of a bicyclist hurtling down the path like I didn’t have over a foot and at least eighty pounds on her.

One more good deed? I’d asked her.

She’d licked her finger and made a tally mark in the air, and I’d gone hard as a diamond.

Having her touch me again?

Nearly the same reaction.

Fucking hell.

I still like her. I understand why she ghosted me. I respect what she’s doing here.

This woman has the power to hurt me, and she’s already demonstrated she will without hesitation under the right circumstances.

I jerk back, keeping my balance out of sheer determination to not mortify myself again.

“You’re gonna want boots with better tread,” she tells me as if we’re normal acquaintances and not two people who slept together under questionable circumstances. “We get plowed last in our little circle, and since we face north on top of that, we tend to be the iciest around here.”

Do not think about plowing her. Do not think about plowing her. Think about ice. Icy, cold, nasty ice.

“Find a new rental,” I tell Zen.

“I got your suitcase, mister!” The little girl who was sitting on Sabrina’s step dashes over the icy parking area like it’s nothing, dragging my suitcase behind her. The other one is lying on its side next to the dog.

“That was super nice of you, Aspen,” Sabrina says.

“I know,” the girl replies.

Zen snickers.

Sabrina smiles at her. “We should get you home. You ready?”

“Can Jitter come?”

“That’s my plan. Go get him a treat and call for him.”

The young girl dashes off to Sabrina’s porch.

“And I should get you inside,” Zen says to me. “Can you walk? Does it hurt?”

“I’m fine.” I’ll be bruised, but I’m fine.

My ego’s more at stake here.

I bend and grab Zen’s backpack while Sabrina and her dog hover.

“Thank you,” I say crisply. “You can go.”

She doesn’t break eye contact. “If I’d known who you were in Hawaii, I would’ve told you who I was. I just want you to know that. The café isn’t a game to me. It’s my life.”

God, she’s pretty.

How the hell does she have the right to be that pretty? And why the fuck can’t I quit noticing?

“And I’m sorry I lied when I said I was coming back,” she adds. “I don’t know what your relationship is with Chandler, but mine’s pretty shitty. I just didn’t know how shitty until that day. Family and friends are everything to me, and I’d just lost two of mine. I was in a bad place. I won’t—I won’t lie to you again.”

“But you’ll gossip?”

“Bean & Nugget is my life. It’s my home. Name your price and I’ll buy it back.”

“Not for sale.”

She swallows as she stares up at me. “Please don’t ruin it,” she whispers.

I don’t have a fast answer.

She hovers, waiting, just long enough for me to know she knows I’m not that quick on my feet.

The worst part, though?

The worst part is when she blinks rapidly like she’s on the verge of tears.

It makes me want to wrap my arms around her and hold her tight and protect her from the bad things in the world, the same way I wanted to when we were in Hawaii.

Except I’m the bad. I’m the bad in her life right now.

“I can help you with anything else you want here,” she says. “But please don’t ruin my home.”

She turns away, reiterating her offer of a steak dinner to Jitter with her voice almost normal, and I stand there.

Just stand there.

I should go inside.

Shower in scalding hot water.

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