Page 14 of Outlaw Heartstrings
My older brother nods. “Just keep an eye on the time.”
“Yes,Dad.”
I crutch across the street, with Lincoln at my side. When we make it to the coffee shop, he holds the door open, and we step inside.
I stare around the place. Everything is foreign. Obviously. This whole place didn’t even exist the last time I was in town. But damn, it sure makes my head spin. It’s just hard to wrap my mind around all these changes.
One question echoes in my head.Where did the damn church go?
Lincoln’s phone starts buzzing and a grin flashes across his grumpy face.
“Cam?” I ask. My brother can be a temperamental bastard most of the time.
But there’s one person on this planet always guaranteed to put a smile on Lincoln’s face—his seven-year-old son, Cameron.
He nods. “Gotta take this.” He waves his phone in the air between us. “Grab me a coffee?”
“Got it. Tell kiddo I miss him already.” Cameron’s a rockstar. I love that little boy, and I’m his favorite uncle. I don’t care what Rocco and Oliver say.
I watch as Lincoln wanders off to answer his call, leaving me on my own.
After a brief wait in line, I step up to the counter. The barista’s eyes go wide when they land on me. Shit—she recognizes me. But I pretend to be oblivious.
I try to place my order but she excitedly changes the subject. “You’re that famous football player on the wall!” She points past my shoulder.
My eyes swing in the direction she’s pointing in. On the far wall, there’s a large framed photo of me, all decked out in my hockey gear. Then there’s a set of hockey sticks hanging above it. Judging by the looks of them, I would bet good money that they’re my old sticks from high school.
I give the barista a thin smile. “Hockey,” I correct her, keeping my voice low and even. I’m not trying to cause a scene.
“Ohmygodohmygod,” she squeals, immediately freaking out.“I remember you. You used to read stories to us at youth group when I was little!”
My ears perk up, my mood shifting instantly. I sense an opportunity, a link to my past. “Do you know what happened to the old church?” I ask, after giving my coffee order and putting a ten dollar bill on the counter.
The barista shrugs. “It closed down a while back.”
I’m hoping she’ll give additional details. But the girl is too busy rambling excitedly about how freaking cool it is to see ‘a famous person’ in real life.
“Hey, it’s no biggie,” I say, desperately trying to calm her down.
I want to ask if she has any more information about the church.About Alba. But now, she’s jumping up and down behind the counter. It wouldn’t be so bad, but her excitement is starting to draw attention from others around the shop, as heads are turning in our direction.
“I’m kind of trying to keep a low profile, if you don’tmind,” I say gently, trying to rein her in and get her to focus on the situation at hand. “Do you know why the church closed? Do you know what happened?”
When I slide an additional twenty dollar bill across the counter in her direction, that finally calms her the fuck down.
She eyeballs the money with glee.“Oh! Right. The church.” She pockets the tip and cocks a hip, ready to give me the gossip. “Well, the church fell behind on all their bills and then the board of directors started an internal investigation and they discovered that the pastor’s wife was stealing the donation money so she confessed that she and the hockey coach had planned the whole scheme together and then it came out that the two of them had been having an affair all along then the hockey coach drained his family’s bank accounts and tried to get away but the police caught him and tossed his ass in jail and then the bank seized the church building and sold it off at auction so they could get their money and by the time the court case was over, the pastor’s wife spent a few months in prison and the hockey coach got put on house arrest.”
The woman is breathless by the time she’s done uttering the longest run-on sentence in modern human history.
“Or something like that.”
I blink, trying to process what I’m hearing. “What…?”
She shrugs. “That’s just what I heard. It was a whole big scandal around town. ”
I’d always had my suspicions that something shady was going on at that church. Still, I never expected the rabbit hole to run this deep. I’m struggling to put the pieces together in my mind—but shit—this farfetched story has more twists and turns than those crazy story times I scroll past on my TikTok feed all the time.
Before I can verbalize a coherent response to all this information I just learned, someone taps me on the shoulder and asks me for a picture. I look around, finding that nearly every person in the coffee shop is now approaching the counter where I’m standing.
