Jitter snorts again like he knows where my brain went.
Or possibly I need to let him out of the car so he can do his business and shake it all out one last time before we head inside to meet the new boss.
I’d been hoping to get in and start the coffee before Mr. Greyson Cartwright, the new owner of my family’s café, arrived for his first actual day in town and on the job, but even before five a.m., he’s beat me.
Not good.
For so many reasons.
After a week of regular communication from his personal assistant with instructions to keep the café running as usual for now, I had convinced myself that the new boss would forever be a distant presence. That I’d keep running the café the way I have since I got home from college. That I could pretend it was still in my family, and I could sign us up for a booth at the spring festival, for sponsoring the rodeo when it comes to town this summer, and for participating as a crew in the fun run this fall, and know that we wouldn’t be backing out because the new boss didn’t like it.
“Think positive, Sabrina,” I mutter to myself while I climb out of the car and into the cold morning, clutching my coffee tumbler as if it’s my lifeline. I let Jitter out of the back seat and walk with him to the edge of the parking lot, where he does his business like a good puppy while I finish caffeinating myself. Then I turn my back while he does the one thing I wasn’t fully prepared for when I decided I wanted a Saint Bernard.
He gives his massive, furry, still-not-fully-grown-even-at-a-hundred-pounds body a shake that makes his jowls flop and sends drool flying in all directions.
“Good boy,” I say. “Shake it all out. Good boy.”
We have an agreement.
He shakes it all out before we go into the café.
If he shakes it all out inside the café, he doesn’t get to come back.
“Best behavior today, okay, Jitter?” I tell him.
He’ll go to doggy daycare soon, but before the café opens, while I get everything prepped for opening, he hangs out in his doggy house in the kitchen with me.
This is normal.
I was told to do normal.
Jitter and I head for the building, and for a split second, I see my grandma sitting in a folding chair just to the left of the concrete pad. I can still picture her leaning back against the brown wood shingles, wiping her forehead with a white rag, recovering from the heat of the kitchen after pulling the last batch of her famous scones out of the oven and telling young Sabrina stories about the trouble her brother and Grandpa used to get up to back in their own youth.
Or offering advice on how to handle Theo, Emma’s brother, when he was picking on Emma and Laney and me.
Or explaining to me—patiently, and without judgment—that some things aren’t supposed to be said out loud, and I’d have to learn the difference between things that needed to be shared and things that needed to be kept quiet.
God, I miss her.
I wish I’d thought to ask her while she was still alive what I should’ve done when I found out ten years ago that Chandler was the one who’d damaged the statue of Ol’ Snaggletooth at City Hall.
Not Theo, who ultimately spent time in jail for that crime.
Would she have told me that if Theo wasn’t willing to tell his sister what really happened, then it was none of my business?
Or would she have told me that Theo was so hellbent on living up—or down—to his reputation at the time, even if it meant self-destruction, that I was the only person who could tell Emma the truth when she started dating Chandler again after college?
I know why I didn’t ask Grandma the questions.
I didn’t want to tell her that her golden grandson who was their pride and joy after leaving to attend college at Grandpa’s alma mater had actually done something pretty shitty.
Jitter whines and pushes against me, making me take a step back to steady my balance.
“Sorry, pup. Hard day.”
And it’s barely five in the morning.
I shake my head as we reach the door, where I have no idea what to expect inside.
Chandler’s parents might have bought out the rest of the family to take full ownership of Bean & Nugget while I was in high school, and they might’ve retired and signed the café over to Chandler when Grandma passed away a few years ago, but ever since I came home after college and demanded a job in the family business, I’ve been in charge here.
Not because I’m bossy and have to be in charge.
More because I just know how to get things done, and it was always easier for the rest of them to let me do the hard work that I loved and took on as a tribute to the café that built me.
I’m about to find out how much longer that will last.
“You ready for this?” I ask Jitter.
He leans against me again and pants up at me, and since he’s not a small dog, and I am a woman of shorter stature, his nose lifts almost to my boob.
Jitter’s ready.
I need to be too.
Can’t find out what’s behind door number one of my future if I don’t face it, so I balance everything to shove my key in the lock, twist the knob, let Jitter in first, and follow him with a forced-cheery, “Hello? Anyone here?”
My pulse is racing. Dread makes my shoulders feel like they weigh ten thousand pounds each. The lights are on when they shouldn’t be, which means I am definitely not alone here. The kitchen smells like coffee beans and croissants and bacon though, just like it should. The stainless steel sink is gleaming, the prep table is clear, the racks are ready, and the floor is mopped, exactly the way I find the kitchen every morning.
Nothing new on the old metal desk where Grandpa used to do the schedule by hand. Nothing new on the bulletin board over the desk where my and all of my cousins’ artwork used to be hung beside the employment policies posters and weekly schedule and slips of paper where former crews would request time off.
The powdered cheese from Chandler’s ridiculous we should sell flavored popcorn in the afternoons era still sitting on top of the large white fridge that should be replaced with a built-in, but hasn’t been because Chandler was a cheap-ass.
The only thing different is the black leather jacket hanging from the coat rack above Jitter’s doggy house in a little stone nook in the kitchen.
And that’s enough to turn the coffee in my stomach into a rock.
A tall person with short-cropped, straight blond hair, coffee-brown eyes, a slender face, overly freckled white skin, an eyebrow ring, and a black blazer over a black turtleneck over black jeans immediately swings into the doorway from the counter area as I head toward the front of the café. “Sabrina Sullivan. I’d recognize your hair anywhere.”
I smile a smile that I have to work past nerves to reach as I cross the kitchen to offer a handshake. “You must be Zen.”
“Excellent guess. The boss—oh, puppy.”
Zen’s email signature line lists they/them pronouns, a marketing degree from UC Berkeley with a graduation date of almost two years ago, and also the last name Cartwright.
Just like the new boss, whom they referred to as Mr. Cartwright in every email.
Father? Brother? Lover?
I don’t know.
And I’m torn between wanting to know everything and knowing that the less I know, the better.
I am off gossip.
But I am all in with doing everything in my power to be Zen’s new favorite person.
Fighting won’t get me what I want.
Especially fighting before I have a chance to get off on the right foot with the new boss.
“This is Jitter,” I say. “He’ll go to doggy daycare soon, but it’s not open yet.”
Zen shoves their hands in their pockets like they have to or else they’ll drop to their knees and fling themself at my dog, who’s straining on his leash and wagging his tail like he’s spotted his next best friend.
And I draw a full, relieved breath.
Zen loves my dog, even if they don’t want me to know they love my dog.
I like them.