Page 3 of His Hot Mess

I rolled my eyes. So much for our plans.

Last night I’d gone to dinner with the two of them and I might as well have been a piece of the furniture for all the attention they paid me.

But really, this wasn’t all bad. Clearly I needed to spend some time putting a bit more thought into my business plan.

“How about we rain check breakfast? I said.

“But I wanted to catch up with you! I can tell him I’ll meet up with him later?”

Her phone dinged again.

By the way her blushing intensified, I knew the text had to be at least 50% eggplants and peaches. From what Lucy had told me, things were just as hot between the two of them as they had been at the start.

I suddenly didn’t want to think a moment more about my sister’s fabulous romantic life.

“Really,” I said, already walking away from her down Main Street. “Catch up with you later.”

“If you’re sure!”

After leaving Lucy to make her morning hook-up plans, I headed in the direction of Aubrey’s Diner on my own.

Aubrey’s, I’d discovered in my first week of living in Barkley Falls, was the community hub of the town—an old 50s-style diner with an actual waitress-y-looking waitress—the owner, who of course was called Aubrey. Though it was her mother, also called Aubrey, who had founded the establishment. Aubrey had the best eggs in town. The best burgers too. If I didn’t watch it, I was going to spend the last of my New York waitressing money stuffing my face before I even made the call about Debbie’s Place.

I scanned the booths. It was a good thing me and Lucy had skipped our plans to dine together as they were all full.

The clientele at Aubrey was… everyone. Older folks eating pie, businesspeople looking over shared tablets. Young families on the tourist trail wrangling toddlers and crayons.

The only available seat was at the bar. I went up and snagged it before anyone else came in after me.

“Be with you in a minute, Sadie dear,” Aubrey said from behind the counter, giving me a wink.

“All good,” I said, dumping my vintage satchel on the counter.

While I’d been here several times since I got to town, I’d only formally met Aubrey at dinner last night. Aubrey loved Graydon and had taken a shine to Lucy too, going on and on about her red hair, which she and Lucy shared. But she hadn’t made me feel left out. Aubrey had brought me a cocktail before she even took anyone else’s order.

“Figured you’d need fortification to sit through these two lovebirds’ canoodling,” she’d said, making me laugh out loud.

Lucy had turned crimson, and even Graydon had run his hand through his hair, trying to hide his blushing.

I pulled my drawing back out of my pocket while I waited, smoothing the wrinkled paper out on the countertop.

For a moment, doubt began creeping at the edges of my excitement. What made me think I could pull this off? What made me think anything would be any different here than they would be in New York?

No distractions, that’s what.

This was my dream and I wasn’t going to give up on it just because it was scary.

I fished around in my bag on the counter for a pen. I knew there was one in here somewhere. I began pulling everything out: books, lip gloss, coins, crumpled napkins, and approximately one thousand bobby pins.

When I finally found one, I uncapped it and wrote across the top of the drawing: BUSINESS PLAN: MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

“I actually find starting with your goal is the best first step to a business plan,” a voice beside me said, startling me enough that I dropped the pen on the floor.

I turned to see who had spoken and my stomach swooped as I took in the man beside me.

The tall, ripped, ball-cap wearing man with the irritating smile on his irritatingly hot AF face.

Chris Slade, my future brother-in-law’s second-in-command at Grayscale Contracting, and quite possibly the most aggravating man I’d ever met.

---