Page 2 of Seduced By My Bully

“Sounds good to me,” I mumble, thinking about what she said. It’s been forever since I really thought about why I left Harper Falls to begin with. I still don’t like thinking about that night.

“What do you feel like listening to?” She asks, standing at the entrance to the back, holding her phone up to me.

Shrugging, I shake my head, not really caring what she puts on. Nodding, she slides her phone into her back pocket and heads to the back as Taylor Swift’s Folklore album begins.

Dani comes back out and hands me an apron and a name tag, written in colorful swirly letters. The colors remind me of a rainbow and makes me smile. For months it’s felt like I’ve been living under my own personal rain cloud, but a few minutes with Dani and it feels like the sun is starting to shine. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” She smiles.

Dani and I work together easily for the next hour, getting the shop ready to open at six. She mostly talks, and I listen. She tells me how nothing has changed in the time I’ve been gone, just a couple of new restaurants, but for the most part, Harper Falls is the same. Just like riding a bike, working at the shop comes back to me quickly, and for the first time since I’ve been home, I’m finally able to focus on something other than what happened. My head shuts off, and all I’m thinking about is getting the coffee made and making sure we have what we need when the morning rush hits.

After a couple of months sulking around my parents’ home, my Dad told me they needed to hire someone else at the shop since things were about to get busier with the back to school rush. He dropped several obvious hints that he’d like me to be the one to take the job. What was I supposed to do, tell him no? I couldn’t let them down, not after everything they had done for me. Plus, I didn’t have anything better to do since I haven’t taken on any editing jobs lately.

“Ready?” Dani asks at five fifty-eight as she walks to the front door where a line has started forming.

“Let’s do this,” I say, standing behind the register ready to take their orders.

Dani smiles and flips the sign so that it now reads ‘OPEN’ then twists the lock and opens the door for our customers to get their caffeine fix. Dani greets the people she knows, which seems like everyone, then walks behind the counter.

“Good morning, what can I get you?” I ask an older couple.

Smiling, they tell me their order, then they tell me how happy they are that I’m back in town. How happy my parents are. I have no idea who this couple is, but my parents must. This is how it goes for a while, and I almost suspect my parents set the morning up so people would make me feel welcome, but they wouldn’t go that far. Right? I even start to see people I went to school with, and shockingly, they are nicer than I remember.

The first hour is steady, but as seven o’clock rolls around and two more people come on shift, the place is packed. At seven-forty-five, as the rush is settling down, the bell above the door jingles, and I look up into warm brown eyes focused on me. No. It can’t be. What the hell is he doing walking into my parents’ shop? Then I notice the police uniform that molds perfectly to his muscular body and that he’s taller than I remember. He’s no longer a boy, but a man, a man filled out in all the right places with a beard covering his infuriating face. The man is gorgeous. He looked good all those years ago, and time has definitely been good to him. Am I a salty bitch for wishing he’d look like more of a dud than a prince?

Realizing that I’ve been staring entirely way too long, I look away, busying myself with a rag lying on the counter. The man was a complete asshole to me in school. I was the new girl in a small town, and he was the golden boy everyone adored. He made it his mission to turn everyone against me, and like a flock of sheep they listened. The man drove me crazy, and after four years of putting up with his shit, I couldn’t take it anymore. I left town a month before graduation.

“Monroe Drake. I heard rumors you were back in town.”

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