Page 13 of When I Come Back
Something in the way he’s been talking about Thea and all she’s done since I left gives me pause. I take in his sad but determined eyes.
“Are you in love with her?” I say, remembering his and Thea’s conversation from this morning.
“What thefuckare you talking about?” he says and looks at me like that might be the last thing he expected to come out of my mouth.
“You seem… protective of her. Invested in her happiness. You were never like this before. And I heard her saying you tried to kiss her.” I raise an eyebrow at him, and he rolls his eyes.
“Oh, fuck off. We went on two dates just to shut Mom and the rest of the town up. We were both miserable and now have a laugh about it every once in a while. As for my concern about her happiness—I amdeeplyinvested in making sure that girl smiles as much as humanly possible. She deserves everything good for what she’s done for this family, this town.”
With that, all the fight leaves me, and I down what’s left in my glass. Brooks follows suit and goes to settle the tab. As I wait for him, I realize why the taste of the bourbon is familiar. We just started carrying it at my restaurant, and the taste of it lingered on my tongue when I got the call that brought me out here.
The drive back is silent, but this silence is welcome. There’s so much I missed, so much I didn’t know about, and it’s making me think back on my time here.
The more I think about everything he told me, the more the guilt and regret gnaw at me.
Chapter Six
Carrington
Iwas surprised how easily Thea accepted my invitation to meet for coffee this morning. My talk with Brooks yesterday answered a lot of questions I’ve had since coming back, but it also sprouted a million more. Paired with the meeting at the lawyer’s office, I realize I missed so much in the time I stayed away. I guess a part of me foolishly expected for everything and everyone in Indigo Hill to be frozen in time. I’m hoping Thea can help fill in the remaining blanks.
I’m handing over a few bills to the young barista behind the counter to pay for my order when the bell above the door signals someone coming in. I turn and find Thea stepping inside, her blonde waves resting softly around her face. Her whiskey-colored eyes settle on me, and I see her mentally building up her walls brick by brick with every step she takes toward me.
She looks tired, bone tired. I guess yesterday’s news didn’t help her stress-induced insomnia. She always had trouble sleeping when dealing with big changes or challenges in herlife. The lack of sleep would then put more strain on whatever situation caused the problem, and it would be a vicious cycle until something gave out—unfortunately, it was usually her tired body. She’d crash hard and sleep for days.
Barely knowing how to deal with my own emotional state, I was never good at comforting her. My tactic of ignore-the-problem-and-distract-with-food-and-fun worked somewhat. Until it didn’t.
“Hey,” she says to me and then turns to the woman at the register. “Can I please have—”
“A small coffee in a medium cup, four pumps of classic, and light cream to the brim,” I recite.
She looks up at me, her brown eyes disbelieving. After a moment she says, “I add a sprinkle of chocolate powder on top now.” We stare at each other for a moment longer until the spell is broken by the barista sliding over our drinks. I drop a couple more bills and pick up both drinks, holding one out to her. Our fingers brush as she takes it with a quiet, “Thanks.”
We plant ourselves at a table in the back of the café next to a floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelf that’s bursting at the seams.
Grayce’s Café has a grand total of six tables, each of them surrounded by mismatched chairs that look like they were scavenged from flea markets and yard sales. It’s a tiny space located on the north side of the town’s main square, squished between Oopsie Daisy, the town’s sole florist, and an empty corner space that looks like it hasn’t had a tenant in years, based on the yellow-tinged paper covering the windows.
The café wasn’t here before I left, and everything looks fairly new. The walls are white-washed brick, and the pendant lights cast a soft glow over everything, creating an inviting atmosphere to get comfortable for a long stay devouring a coffee or tea along with one of their delicious looking pastries. It’s made all the more cozy by the numerous plants hanging from every surfaceand the many pieces of folksy artwork adorning the walls. It makes sense why Thea chose this place. It looks like it was made for her.
“How are you feeling after yesterday?” I start.
“It was… a lot. I really didn’t know what to expect when I got to the lawyer’s office, but it wasn’t… that.” She pauses to take a sip of her coffee and closes her eyes, savoring it. “What are we going to do?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I want to get to know the business. See what you built here,” I say tentatively. Our interactions have been far less than friendly up until now, and I’m trying to choose my words carefully. The hard set of her jaw tells me she came here gearing up for a fight. I can only imagine what she thinks I plan to do. The truth is, I have no fucking clue what I want to do about it. The contents of the will were even more unexpected for me. I still don’t understand why they left me something that clearly meant so much to not only them but both Brooks and Thea.
“You do?” She watches carefully, her gaze shifting back and forth between my eyes like she’ll find the truth there.
“I can’t make any decisions without knowing the full scope of things. Brooks told me a little about how it all came about, and I have to say, I’m impressed with what you’ve done. He told me how you helped my parents turn things around. That couldn’t have been easy.” I see my words are having an effect when she smiles softly, the ice in her eyes thawing a touch.
“He gives me entirely too much credit. We couldn’t have done half of it without him, and none of it without Ripley.” I clench my jaw at the mention of Ripley but stay quiet letting her continue. “The diner was on its last leg when… I came back. I could tell your parents were planning on closing it down, so I just put all the ideas you had for it into action and hoped for thebest. Thankfully, it worked, and things started changing. But I didn’t do it alone. Anyone who claims I did is lying”
“That,” I lean in and point in the general direction of RED just a block away with a shake of my head, “that was not my idea.” I immediately see hurt and maybe a little bit of fear flash across her face and quickly add, “I would never have thought of anything as incredible as that. Not only is it stunning, but from what I’ve seen, it’s also had a huge impact here.” Her presence seems to be doing something to me because I’m not entirely sure I’m talking about RED anymore. I clear my throat and sit back in the chair, putting some space between us.
“I first got the idea for RED shortly after I came back. Ripley came into the diner one day, and we reconnected instantly.” Her face and voice soften thinking about him, while a pit opens in my stomach, a feeling I try not to examine too closely. “He had just gotten back into town himself. Right after he graduated high school, he moved to Kentucky where he got a job at a small-batch distillery working for a family friend who overlooked his age. He spent a few years there learning everything he could.” She pauses to bring her coffee to her lips.
“His grandfather used to make moonshine. Ripley helped him with it when he was a kid, so the interest was always there. After his grandfather passed, I think he thought of it as a way to keep his memory alive, not realizing he’d be damn good at it. But anyway, we got drunk one night and started planning a hypothetical distillery. We laughed it off, but the idea just wouldn’t let go, so I did a ton of research on what we’d need to launch it and brought a business plan to your parents. I must have caught them on a good day because they were all for it. It took some time, but we found a bank willing to give them a business loan—it helped that the land the diner stood on was worth triple the actual business. The distillery building went upfirst, once that was operational, we razed the diner and built the restaurant.”
“Wow, that seems like… a lot of work. You’re amazing, Thea.” I’m so caught up in her recounting the last eight years, I don’t even realize what slipped out of my mouth. She immediately flinches.Shit. I’m trying to get her to open up and trust me so we can work through this together, but I feel like anytime I’m finally getting somewhere with her, I say something inappropriate, and she shuts down again.
