“You two are so cute.” Devi turns to me. “Almost as cute as a petite redhead being caught in the arms of her devastatingly handsome and stupidly tall new boss in her café’s kitchen.”
“I’m off gossip,” I tell Devi. “If you want the scoop, you’ll have to go back to whoever told you that.”
Devi laughs.
Laney sighs.
Jitter rolls his eyes.
Okay, he doesn’t. He puts his head in Laney’s lap and gives her puppy dog eyes like he can’t stand it when anyone is less than happy, and her sigh says she’s less than happy, and he wants to know what he can do to make it better.
“Is this no-gossip thing because of the wedding?” Devi asks me.
“Yep,” Laney replies for me. “I’m against this plan, for the record. Especially since Bean & Nugget’s new owner—”
“Is planning to convert it into a kombucha brewery?” Devi finishes for her. “I heard he’s calling it a kombrewchery, which is a dumb word. So I agree. Sabrina needs to use all of everything she has to make sure Bean & Nugget stays Bean & Nugget.”
“Who told you?” I ask.
“Frannie. Her mailman’s niece’s boyfriend is one of the three local contractors that were asked for quotes.”
I almost groan.
“Is that wrong?” Devi asks.
“No, that’s correct.” I will not howl in frustration. I will not howl in frustration. “It’s just—” I cut myself off and shake my head. “I feel a little out of my league to do whatever I need to do to change his mind,” I finally say.
“You are never out of your league,” Devi says.
“I am now.”
Laney eyes me.
I give her a slight shrug and hope she interprets it as if he were the same guy he’d been in Hawaii, I’d have a chance.
There are moments when I feel like he’s the same, quietly watching me and taking me all in. And then the next minute, he’s closed off and guarded.
No heart-stopping, crinkly blue-eyed smiles. No pushing to know more about me. No insisting he’s a truly terrible person at heart while he pauses to pick up a piece of trash or tell someone he loves her shirt.
“You ever talk to Chandler?” I ask Devi.
Her brown eyes sparkle in amusement. “So you’re not totally off gossip.”
“I haven’t seen him since the wedding. I haven’t even heard anyone’s seen him since the wedding, and I’m frankly pretty happy about that. Just wondering if—when I should brace myself for a confrontation. Since the Bean & Nugget situation is his fault.”
“I’m on gossip,” Laney says to Devi. “You can tell me everything. Have you talked to him? I want to know how he set up this sale so quietly and how he knows this—ah!”
Jitter clamors to his feet under the table and bumps her leg.
“Jitter,” I say softly. “Down, boy.”
He ignores me and strains on his leash.
At the same time, I realize a slight hush has fallen over the restaurant.
And then there’s the tickle between my shoulder blades filling in the rest of the blanks before I spot the tall figure towering over everyone else.
Grey’s here.
He’s paused just inside the doorway, looking around at the clumps of people gathered between the tables like this is a private party.
“It’s the new café owner,” goes through the dining room in a lightning-fast whisper.
“Holy hotness,” Devi breathes as she turns to look.
“He is—wow,” Laney adds, twisting as much as she can with her leg still sticking out on a spare chair to get a better view herself.
“Personality,” I remind her.
She smirks. “Okay, Ms. Good Deeds.”
“Mr. Greyson,” Nani Parvati calls. “You come in. Come have dinner. Meet my grandson and granddaughter-in-law-to-be. Have dinner.”
“Nani, you said ‘have dinner’ twice,” Devi’s brother says.
“It’s the most important.”
Everyone laughs.
Everyone except Grey.
He’s in jeans and a button-down oxford under his thick wool coat, wearing gloves and his beanie and that beard that he’s growing out, and he’s more deer-in-the-headlights than I’ve seen him since I rescued him in Hawaii.
“Dammit,” I mutter while the locals descend on him.
“What’s he doing here?” Devi whispers. “You have food at Bean & Nugget.”
“He came from San Diego,” Laney whispers back. “He’s probably used to more options for dinner than soup, sandwiches, and pastries.”
“Or maybe someone invited him,” I say.
“Or he’s casing Nani’s joint to take it over next,” Devi says.
I don’t think owning an entire town is his style.
But I do think he’ll be as popular with the single crowd here in the Tooth as Jitter is nearly everywhere we go.
Locals are already converging on him. Probably asking the same questions they asked me, but they get to go right to the source.
A few people glance at me like they want to see if I’m reacting at all to Grey’s presence.
I pretend I don’t notice.
But I do get a little nervous when I realize Kayla Swoosy’s talking to him.
She’s a retired Olympic trampolinist. Yes, it’s a thing. Yes, she did it. But the more important part here?
“What’s that look?” Laney asks me. “Why are you making that face?”
“You know how I’m off gossip?” I whisper.
“I know how you keep saying that.”
“I…told my new boss…some details about people around town that aren’t entirely accurate when I…told him…that I was giving up gossip because I didn’t want to know certain things about certain people anymore.”
It’s not every day that I manage to surprise multiple people around me, but I have clearly done it now.
“You told him gossip about us?” Devi whispers.
“I changed details.”
“Names? Situations? What?” Laney asks.
“It depended on what came to me first. But I used code names instead of actual names. And I changed details about who did what. Sometimes better than others. Like, I implied I’m related to an Olympic curling champion whose parents are swingers. And that there was once a huge war in town between the ice cream shop owner and the local spa owner over the spa owner’s duck regularly pooping in the ice cream shop owner’s yard. That sort of thing.”
“Nani Parvati and Mr. Monroe had an argument over a taxidermy donkey, which is the closest thing I can even begin to think of to match that second one,” Devi says with a glance at Grey and Kayla. “And Kayla’s an Olympic medalist, but her mom is single. And you’re not related. Or have any relatives who would be—oh my god.” She slams her hands on the table, making both Laney’s plate of food and Jitter jump. But she lowers her voice and leans in as she whispers, “Are Chandler’s parents swingers?”
“No, but they have an open marriage,” I whisper back when I’m sure no one else is listening.
“Does Emma know?”
I jerk straight, scaring Jitter, who dives under the table, bumps his head, and almost makes Laney’s drink spill for shaking the surface.
“Is she talking to Chandler?” I demand.
“Abso-fucking-lutely fucking not,” Laney replies firmly while she straightens her meal back in front of her.
Devi and I both stare at her. Laney’s not one to drop multiple fuck-bombs in a single two-word sentence.
She goes a little pink in the cheeks. “Theo’s exact answer when I asked him the same question.”
“Because he doesn’t want her to, or because he knows for himself that she’s not?” Devi asks.
“Both,” Laney answers.
“She’s home?” Devi presses. “I didn’t think anyone had heard from her.”
“She was scheduled to get home this weekend,” is Laney’s cagey response. “Theo’s been demanding proof-of-life updates. He’s also spent some time at her house this week, clearing out all of Chandler’s stuff to take to Fiona Bell’s house.”
That takes a second to register, and when it does, I get my first real laugh in a week.
Fiona runs an online recycled art store with a specialty in jewelry made from reclaimed junk. She’s also Snaggletooth Creek’s most prominent Wiccan practitioner.
It’s a good combination.
She cleanses the auras of anything she recycles before she sells it. Everything on her site is guaranteed curse-free.
Ah, fuck.
I told Grey about Fiona and her war with her neighbor.