“You’re fired.”
Zen is grinning broader than I’ve seen them grin in ages when talking about anyone other than me or my sister’s gastrointestinal issues. “Myrtle also said Sabrina saved her from going on a date with a guy who turned out to be some kind of scam artist in the obscure profession of toy train collecting. Something about passing off replicas as vintage. Viola reports Sabrina’s the reason the old mayor lost his reelection bid six years ago, and the new mayor’s the reason tourists keep coming to the train station and the old mine even in winter now. Oh, and the Valentine’s Day heart walk on Main Street next week was apparently Sabrina’s idea too, and if we back out of hosting the speed dating station, the general single population of the Tooth will be what runs us out of business and also makes sure that the kombucha bar fails. Sue Ellen thinks Sabrina knows things about her and is saving them for a rainy day, but I couldn’t get out of her what gossip she thinks Sabrina knows, so she’s probably either in debt or secretly has a crush on some crusty old dude.”
“You’re rehired, but on probation.”
“Uncle Grey, you know all the right things to say to make a person’s dreams come true. P. S., freaking ask Sabrina out already. She is so not on Team Cheese Turd. Plus she can make or break this place after you renovate it. Also, you’d be doing me a favor if you got laid again.” Zen throws the back door open, and we step inside to a disaster of a kitchen.
Disaster may be something of an overstatement. But there shouldn’t be dishes in the sink at five in the morning. The grill shouldn’t be on. I shouldn’t smell coffee this strongly. And the dining room light definitely shouldn’t be glowing, nor should voices be coming from there.
Zen doesn’t seem to connect the something’s wrong dots.
I look behind me.
Why are there six cars in my usually empty lot?
What the hell’s going on?
“Yes, yes, do the dishes,” they say perkily. “Look at me. Who am I? Oh, I’m so excited! I have piles and piles of dishes! I’m going to sing my heart out at the top of my lungs like I’m Cinderella to see if it’ll annoy my new boss so he quits looking at me like he wants to strip me out of my clothes!”
“You’re fired again.”
“You’ll have to do the dishes.”
Is it possible to have a permanent cramp in your eyelid?
All I wanted was to hear everything they could tell me about Sabrina, and then they did it, and now I don’t know which way is up and if they just insulted me or not.
“Who’s here this early?” I ask Zen, as if they’ll have any more of an idea than I do.
“My powers of deduction tell me someone who’s messy,” they reply.
“Your powers of deduction are so acute this time of day.”
They grin and head for the dining room.
I hang up my coat, which is beginning to smell exactly like the café, peek inside Jitter’s doghouse and come up disappointed that he’s not there, and then I follow my nibling.
“Zen!” an unfamiliar woman’s voice says. “You made it. Good. We were getting worried.”
“Morning, Iris,” Zen replies cheerfully.
“Come sit by me,” someone else says. “Look. I got the special Guatemalan coffee beans from my friend for you to try. Here. Have a cup.”
“You are a goddess.”
What on earth?
I stop in the doorway and survey the Bean & Nugget dining room, which is housing roughly a dozen people at five in the morning, all of them drinking coffee and enjoying pastries.
There’s Devi who owns the art gallery and her grandmother who runs House of Curry, which makes delicious food when you’re not wearing it. Shirlene, the health department inspector. Marley, our neighbor with the little girl who knocks on Sabrina’s door regularly looking for Jitter. Bitsy, who dropped by a mouth-watering casserole the other day that was just as good as her English Sunday dinner, which is a sentence I never expected to come out of my mouth, but is still true. A few other people look familiar, but I can’t immediately place their names or where I’ve seen them.
And then there’s a woman who’s so startlingly similar to Sabrina, but with a few more crow’s lines at her eyes, that it must be her mother.
Her mother.
That’ll make a guy nervous this early in the morning.
I take an extra breath, tell my dick to stay down, and let myself look at Sabrina too.
Naturally, she’s here.
Naturally, she’s gorgeous. Sipping coffee and laughing at something Devi said. Completely in her element. Her hair’s slightly damp, like she didn’t have time to dry it all the way after her shower, and now I’m remembering her request to see what I could do in the bathtub.
I shoot a glance at her mother again, and that helps get my cock back under control.
Then I notice Jitter. He’s sprawled on his back by the fire with his fur and fluff and jowls so askew that he looks more like furry, mis-assembled IKEA furniture than he does like a hundred-pound not-still-a-puppy, but not-yet-a-dog dog.
“Oh, Grey, good, you’re here.” Bitsy smiles and waves me into the room. “We need some male input on the speed dating event next weekend.”
“The…what?”
“Speed dating,” Sabrina’s mom supplies. “Bean & Nugget hosts it every Valentine’s Day.”
“Are you participating this year?” someone asks me.
Zen chokes on their coffee.
I almost choke on my own spit.
“You should,” someone else says. “You’ve been single for, what, two years now?”
Half the people in the room are shooting sly glances at Sabrina. The other half are watching me.
Including Sabrina.
The weight of her gaze is even heavier than the weight of her dog when he presses his waggling body against me, which I wouldn’t mind him doing right now for a distraction.
But Jitter’s snoozing like this is too early for him today.
“Uncle Grey is totes single,” Zen says.
I am.
But I’m not.
As in, I’m not too keen on getting back in the dating game.
Probably.
Unless it involves some kind of friends-with-benefits arrangement with the woman whose café I’ve sworn to destroy.
How, exactly, did I get myself into this again?
One of the older ladies claps. “Oh, good. I’ll tell my daughter you’ll be there.”
“I don’t—” I start.
“Back up just a second,” an even older lady says. “My granddaughter’s coming in from Denver for this. And she already knows him.”
“Are you sure it’s wise for Addison to be in Snaggletooth Creek right now?” Sabrina’s mother says. “I hear it wasn’t the most pleasant for her when she came up last week.”
A hush falls on half the group.
Three ladies share so it’s gonna be a throwdown glances.
Wish I didn’t know what that looked like.
Wish I wasn’t the reason it’s being tossed about.
“Can we all please remember that Chandler is the biggest problem in the Tooth?” Sabrina says. “Marley, have you talked to Gail Kingston yet about those custom tissue packs?”
“No, I talked to Laney instead when I dropped off dinner for her yesterday. She is so smart. She said we should use the printing space to say he’s not worth these tears. Dry them up and know you’re worthy.”
“What will the men get?” someone asks.
“Laney asked the same thing! I told her to surprise me.” She turns to me. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Grey. Laney’s a total professional, and she’s been one of Sabrina’s best friends for as long as I can remember. She won’t do anything that embarrasses Bean & Nugget.”
“But we have other questions for you,” someone else says. “Would it be okay if we brought in three extra tables? It’s such a popular event, we don’t want to have to turn anyone away.”
“So many singles, but they’re all so picky,” someone else mutters.
“They—” I start.
“The extra tables are fine,” Zen says.
“Oh, thank you, Zen. Here. Have you tried Iris’s lavender muffins?”
Lavender muffins.
I feel my eyes flare and I shoot a look at Sabrina.
She’s smiling, but shaking her eyes no at Zen.
Iris.