Page 15 of Cocoa Kisses
So do I want to talk about that? No.
Or about how I wished we’d had to do it one more time for Rome’s wish too?
All the no. NOPE to the NUH-UH.
I flip on the counter lights and preheat my two commercial ovens, then move on to the other machines I’ll need. The grinders. The espresso maker. The batch brew coffee maker. I start a cycle of old coffee running through them to make sure the cleaning agent from closing yesterday is out of the system. I’ll do that twice, just to be sure. No one needs to be woken up by the taste of soap in their java.
While it cycles, I pull the doughs that Jena, my night baker, has left rising for a loaf of honey wheat bread and another for sourdough. One of the hardest things to learn my first year was how to anticipate demand so that I’m not left with too many unsold baked goods at closing. We start with two fresh loaves each day, and only bake another one when the first is three-quarters gone. While they bake, I shape and twist the cinnamon rolls and deliver them to the oven so they’ll finish a few minutes after opening. Then I fill the bakery cabinets with the goods that can be served at room temperature and go to test the old coffee for any taste of cleaning agent.
These activities carry the weight of ritual, each one anchoring me to the new day, a routine I need more than ever this morning. I feel myself coming together, the buzzing feeling quieting in my mind, my jumpiness settling into fluid movements as I shape the bread loaves. By the time I’m mixing up my first batch of cranberry blondies, I am me again, and I give my first customer of each day, Dr. Boone, principal at the high school, the usual smile as she comes in for her coffee and flaxseed muffin before braving the youths of Creekville.
Celia comes in at 7:30 as business picks up and takes over barista duties so I can cook the breakfast orders. It’s a limited menu with a couple of omelet and egg choices that don’t change, but they’re popular, and I like cooking them myself, although Celia is fully capable of doing it too.
The morning follows its normal rhythm, the last wave of customers being the busy moms who swing through after elementary school drop-off to treat themselves to their morning coffee. The traffic tapers around 9:30 as usual, and we’ll have a couple of light hours before we get a lunch rush.
I’m as grounded as my fresh coffee beans now, and I’ve worked out what to do about kissing Levi—again. It’s not new ground. Like every other time since high school when I’ve felt a crush on him trying to form, I’ll ignore it. If Levi comes around today, it’ll be Taylor-and-Levi-as-usual.
Relief ripples through me when I reach this conclusion, which is how I know it’s the right one. It makes the rest of the morning far easier to deal with. Anytime my brain tries to replay any part of last night, I hum “Feliz Navidad” loudly, because while it’s wildly cheerful, it is zero percent romantic. It’s very hard to feel how much a kiss shook you when you’re humming that melody.
Not that the kiss shook me. Not like in an “Oh, Levi!” swoony way. Just in a “Well, that was awkward” kind of way.
This works well until the day delivers a plot twist: Levi himself. He arrives with Sara right after the lunch rush. My stomach flips, and I realize it has been getting none of my brain’s messages about how we feel about that kiss. And seeing Levi. Who, unfortunately, looks like he’s been created by an AI prompt that said “Make a man who is Taylor’s perfect physical type.”
I don’t like musclebound guys or dudes who look like they spend more time on their grooming routines than I do. I like smart guys. And funny ones. And Levi is both of those things, but now wrapped in the perfect package of being tall but not too tall, good-looking without being distractingly beautiful, and lanky without being twiggy. Today, he’s wearing gray jeans with a navy cardigan open over a white thermal shirt, all beneath a black fleece-lined hoodie.
It’s not fair. He’s practically been assembled from a kit of all my favorite things. Also totally unfair that he can pull off a cardigan. They are for grandpas. They lookrighton grandpas. The only semi-young guy I see wearing them is Henry Hill, but he’s a college professor of old things. And, yes, he’s kind of the same “type” as Levi, so I get why Paige Redmond snapped him up when they became neighbors last year, but honestly, I never could get past his cardigans. So why is it fine when Levi wears one? I’d bet anything it’s his dad’s, but here he is, making “kindly town doctor’s cardigan” look like a new trend.
“Hey, Taylor,” he says as Sara goes to put her stuff in my office. “You busy?”
“Yeah, sorry.” But my mind blanks, and I stand there.
He narrows his eyes. “Doing what?”
I glance around. “Blondie stuff.” I grab the tray of them out of the case. They’re already iced with a citrus-infused cream cheese frosting, andthatis already topped with drizzled white chocolate, but they need more. Right now. This very second. “Sorry about that.”
I disappear into the kitchen as Sara comes out, looking at me weird when I pass with the tray. “Gotta pep these up,” I say, letting the door swing shut between us.
I chop white chocolate then melt it in slow increments in the microwave, dip a fork into it, and drizzle it over the cookie bars. Is it too much? I frown at it. Yes. Yes, it is. But since the other option is going back out there, I drizzle more.
The door swings open, and Levi walks in. I’m working at the stainless steel prep table in the middle of our kitchen space, and he settles against the counter opposite me, leaning with his legs crossed at the ankles, like he’s here to model his stupid cardigan. “Hey. Need help?”
“It’s a one-woman job, but thanks.”
“Is it hard?” he asks.
“Not really.”
“Oh good, so you can talk at the same time.”
I freeze, which causes a large blob of white chocolate to fall on the blondie. It oozes there, deflated, like my hopes of avoiding an awkward conversation.
I set the fork back in the bowl with a sigh and look at Levi. “Okay. Shoot.”
Levi’s eyebrows go up, like he was expecting to have to work harder. “So, last night.”
“Game night?” I say, like I’m unsure what he’s talking about. He smiles, which is what I was going for.
“Yeah, game night. Your mom cheated hard at Codenames, yeah?”
