Page 23 of Colliding with the Coffee Shop Owner
"Both." She hops onto the counter, swinging her legs. "Ruth sent me to tell you that your boy genius asked some very specific questions about you the other night."
"Me?" My hands still. "What kind of questions?"
"How long you've been in Angel's Peak. Where you came from before. If you've always been in the coffee business." Darlene watches my reaction carefully. "Ruth didn't tell him anything specific, just that you showed up two years ago and opened the best damn coffee shop Angel's Peak has ever seen."
Relief and anxiety war in my chest. "Good."
"He seemed pretty interested for 'just a customer,'" Darlene adds, air quotes punctuating her words.
"Drop it, Darlene."
"Fine, fine." She slides off the counter. "But for what it's worth, Ruth thinks he seemed genuinely interested, not creepy-stalker interested. And Ruth's creep radar is never wrong."
After she leaves, I finish closing, my mind churning. Max asking questions about me isn't necessarily sinister, but it awakens the caution I've lived with for two years. Getting tooclose, letting anyone dig too deep, could unravel everything I've built here.
Yet as I walk home in the cool mountain evening, the shop safely locked behind me, I can't help replaying our interactions—the careful way he studies me when he thinks I'm not looking, the moments of genuine connection breaking through our respective guards.
I tell myself it's nothing. A temporary diversion in the quiet routine of my life. In three weeks, Max Lawson will return to his world of tech innovations and corporate success, and I’ll continue in mine, one of coffee and careful anonymity.
But as I unlock the door to my cottage, the emptiness inside feels more pronounced than usual, as if the space itself recognizes what I refuse to admit—that for the first time in two years, I've met someone who makes me question whether hiding is really living.
Chapter 9
The airinside Mountain Brew has shifted. It’s not the temperature or the cinnamon-rich scent wafting from the pastry case—it’s him.
Max Lawson.
Always there, always watching, always absorbing. He claimsmy boothwith quiet arrogance, and integrates himself into my routine as though he’s stitched into the fabric of Mountain Brew.
And yet, his presence still manages to unsettle me in ways I don’t fully understand—unraveling threads I plucked from the canvas the day I chose this life.
It’s impossible to ignore how different Mountain Brew feels since Max Lawson started showing up every day.
Not that he does anything obvious. He never raises his voice, demands attention, or acts entitled to the space he’s quietly claimed. No, Max’s presence wraps itself into the shop’s routine like it belongs there, likehebelongs.
Except it doesn’t feel natural.
Not really.
His presence hums under the surface, a steady, low current that makes ordinary moments—like twisting the steam wand or wiping down the counter—feel off balance.
Uneven.
Today, like every day this past week, he works in silence, his laptop casting a faint glow over his sharp features. The copper light fixtures above catch on the strong angles of his face, softening him just enough to make him seem like he belongs in the quiet chaos of my café.
He doesn’t demand attention, and yet, people still notice him. The moment someone walks through the door, their gaze flickers just slightly toward him, aware of the quiet presence in the corner booth that carries more gravity than it should.
Max Lawson radiates something I’ll never understand.
Confidence. Command. Control.
The kind of energy has always felt liketoo much to me, like too bright a light aimed directly at me that I need to shy away from. But with Max, it isn’t too much. It’s steady. Silent. And worst of all, it doesn’t repel me.
It draws me in.
That pull makes everything feel unsteady.
It’s not just the way his gaze lands on me when he thinks I won’t notice—sharply focused, like he’s studying my movements, calculating some answer I can’t see. It’s not even the deliberate way his attention shifts back to me every time I flit between the counter, the pour station, or the register.
