Sarina Bowen's Blog, page 15
July 12, 2021
Things I loved in June!
I finished a bunch of projects in June. Also, my kid graduated from High School. So I guess that’s a project completed, too? Sort of?
It was also a good month in reading, and in snacking. Although now that I have two teenage boys home all the time I seem to spend most of my free time buying groceries.
Here’s what I gobbled up. Books, spicy cheese curls and my favorite ereader for tired hands. Seriously—what is in Barbara’s Jalapeño Cheese Puffs? They are magic.
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July 9, 2021
First Chapter: Studfinder
“You,” I hiss, glaring at the most annoying man I’ve ever met, and I’ve met plenty of annoying men. Of course, not all of them were hunky, smirky, sexy silver foxes, but that was neither here nor there. I am standing here, and he is sitting there. “You are in my spot.”
This is the third time this week he’s encroached on my couch in the Busy Bean Café, and three strikes mean you’re out, handsome.
Taking a moment, the offender blinks before narrowing his bluest-of-blue eyes and glares back at me. For a second, I wonder if I have something on my face. Maybe chocolate in the corner crease of my lips or lettuce in my teeth from lunch.
What the frick is he staring at?
Then he blinks again and slowly leans forward. His arm porn-worthy forearms rest on his wide-spread thighs as he glances up at me. Since I think he’s about to stand from the place where he’s perched, I speak.
“Thank you.” My mother taught me manners, even if I sometimes lack the use of them. Especially on this occasion, where a hunky, smirky, sexy silver fox who is the most annoying man I’ve ever met is sitting in my spot on the plush peach couch in my favorite coffee shop.
He stops moving at my gratitude and turns his head slowly left to right. Then he swivels at the waist right to left, exaggerating his motions as if he’s searching for something over his shoulders. Did he forget something? Did he drop his phone? His hand moves to his side and smooths over the velvety cushion, stroking it like the soft texture is a pleasure fabric or a preferred pet. My mouth waters for some reason because his movements might match that of him caressing a woman, taking his time to sculpt along her thighs. Maybe glide over her backside. Stroke the inside of her legs and . . .
“Just what are you doing?” He’s taking too long to move it.
“I’m looking for a sign that says this seat is taken.” Turning that edgy face upward, beaming those blue headlights at me, he crooks the corner of his mouth in the smirkiest of smirks. “But as I don’t see one, nor do I see your name on this couch, I think I’ll stay.”
He falls back against the couch as if he’s dropping onto a mattress, tossing himself down into the fluffiest of pillows to catch his hard body in a cushion of heaven. His arms stretch wide to encompass the length of the couch back. He even sighs. A long, lush, deep groan of pleasure emits from him while his eyes close for a second. Then he inhales. When his lids flip open, he spears me in place. That does not stop my mouth.
“Look, handsome, this is my spot. Everyone knows it’s my spot. Think Norm in Cheers, where everybody knows his name. This is where I sit.” I shouldn’t have called him handsome. He probably already knows he is. In fact, I’m certain he knows he’s good-looking. I don’t know how he even faces himself in the mirror every morning. He’s that good-looking.
“I’m curious if everyone is always glad you came . . .” His eyes narrow at me, and I ignore the emphasis he’s put on a certain term. I will not fall for these kinds of wordplay games, nor will I falter under the curl of his sassy mouth. Even the crinkle of his nose as he annunciated that word was hot.
“Of course, they’re always glad I’m here, occupying my spot.” My voice hardens as my fists clench at my sides. I’ve had a day, and I just want to sit in my happy place and sip some coffee. Is the Busy Bean the most convenient spot for me to haunt? No, it is not, but I’ve been to worse places—been there, done that—and I will not be going back. I live halfway between Colebury and Montpelier, where my law office is located, and coming here is out of my way most days. But today is one of those days when I need my spot and a good cup of dark roast, and I do not need this hunky, smirky, sexy silver fox glaring back at me or his fine backside taking up residency on my couch.
Get a grip, Rita.
Technically, I don’t own the couch or the right to claim this space as mine. The Busy Bean Café is owned and operated by Audrey Shipley and Zara Rossi, both excellent businesswomen. They’ve taken this quaint location on the old gin mill property and made it into something special. With brick-red walls and chalkboard painted beams overhead, the creaking wooden floors and eclectic mixture of furniture begs a person to come in and linger, which is what I do—often. Not to mention, the coffee is divine. The dark roast is a special blend introduced to the place a while back, and the addition of delicious cupcakes on the menu from Oh, For Heaven’s Cakes makes this place more than just a coffeehouse. It’s heaven in Vermont.
It’s my heaven, and the devil himself is sitting here.
Jake Drummond is his name, actually, but that’s semantics to me. He’s quickly becoming a huge thorn in my side.
“What are you even doing here?” I snap although I might know the answer. The local Catholic church hosts an AA meeting soon, and perhaps he’ll be attending it. Internally, I bitterly laugh at the thought. This man does not take Alcoholics Anonymous seriously.
Jake peers around the room, exaggerating his observation once again before lifting a coffee mug. “I’m enjoying the local brew.”
My eyes narrow at him, and I try to ignore the sharp edge to his cheeks. Plus, the layer of scruff that is a mix of gray and black blended to perfection against the cliff of his jaw. His short-cropped hairstyle matches that stubbly facial mixture. Despite his face looking young, the crinkles near his eyes and the tightness to his mouth give away the fact he’s easily over forty like me.
In comparison, the wrinkles on my neck and the graying strands of hair weaving their way through my mousy brown mop make me look older than I am some days. While the indents near my eyes are often called laugh lines, I’m well aware their presence is from stress and glaring at people, like this man, who knows he’s handsome, full of charm, and giving off a vibe that makes me want to tackle him to said couch and have my way with him.
A shaky hand comes to my forehead. What I really need is to get laid, but it’s been so long I don’t know what that is anymore. Why do we even call it getting laid? I can do it standing up. I can do it on a bus. I can do it against a door. I can do it on the floor. I can . . . stop rhyming in my head like a sexually deprived Dr. Seuss fan.
His sapphire eyes stare at me, and silence lingers as if he asked me something, and I’ve taken too long to answer.
“Did you say something?”
“Nope.” He pops the p-sound and lowers his lips for the brim of his coffee mug, taking his time to sip at the heavenly dark roast. As I’m easily distracted by the scruff surrounding his mouth, I notice the rich red color of his lips and wonder if they taste as candy sweet as they look.
Probably more like a red-hot cinnamon drop.
“Fine,” I grumble, turning away from the plush peach couch I long to sit on and step back to the counter.
“Roddy, give me a dark roast to go and one of those Dark Horse Mochaccino cupcakes.” I glance back at Jake, who is watching me. Turning back to Roddy, I add, “Better make it a double on the cupcakes. I need something sweet to rid the bad taste in my mouth.”
I glare back at Jake, squeezing my entire face like a child sticking out her tongue at my nemesis. I don’t know what it is about Jake, but something about him raises the hackles on my neck and dampens my underwear at the same time.
As Roderick pours my coffee and sets my cupcakes in a bag, my foot taps impatiently. I’m a bundle of nerves and need to get out of here if I can’t sit here to relax.
“Two Dark Horse Mochaccino cupcakes and a dark roast for the plush peach couch defender.” Roderick winks at me, before eyeing the man hogging my spot.
“Next time I come in here, he better not be taking up space in my place.”
Roderick laughs. “Now, Rita, as much as we love you, you know we can’t reserve you a spot, nor will we kick patrons out if they sit there first.”
Jake can hear Roderick from his seat, and he lifts his mug to salute Roddy’s words.
“Well, we’ll just see about that,” I snap, preparing for battle over a set of cushions in a coffeehouse.
“I look forward to the challenge,” Jake mocks from his seat on said couch, and then he has the audacity to wink at me. He winks. Quickly, I turn my back on the hunky, smirky, sexy silver fox and strut across the wooden planks to exit the Busy Bean. Only as I use my backside to push the door open, I glance back at Jake Drummond once more and find him watching me with those cinnamon hot lips quirked up on one side, and I realize he’s going to be difficult to ignore as he recently started to work with me.
Get it at: Amazon | Apple | Kobo | Nook | Googleor add it to your Goodreads TBRCheck out more from the World of True NorthJuly 6, 2021
July 2, 2021
First Chapter: Wildflower by Mae Wood
Juliana"To us," I said, hoisting my pint glass in the air and looking at the three women who were now my business partners. We didn't look like an upstart brewery. No, we looked like we were filming the first ten minutes of a house flipping show with our old clothes and work boots with safety goggles hanging around our necks and our dust masks at the ready. But we didn't look near as cute as anyone on TV.
"Hear, hear," said Tabitha, her long black braids carefully tucked away beneath a bright blue headwrap tied into a rosette.
"To adventure and success," I continued.
"And a 'Fuck you!' to those who think they know best," shouted Kristin.
A big, goofy smile spread across my face at her razor-sharp addition to my toast. "A fuck you to those who think they know best"—yeah, that summed up what we were doing perfectly.
"Now I'll drink to that!" said Whitney, her trademark devilish grin on full display. "Cheers!"
We clinked glasses and drank deeply, a bit giddy that our plan, after years of emails and group texts and late night and early morning calls, was finally becoming real. Business of beer training from our women-in-beer industry group, the Brewster League, had brought us together. And the first outline of what today was becoming Runaway Pond Brewing was a result of that workshop. Tabitha and I had crossed paths professionally for decades at beer fests and conferences and Brewster League events. Whitney and I fled the same brewery to open Runaway Pond. Kristin had been a consultant, helping people set up and run taprooms across the Midwest. We weren't tight, but we were a team.
After two decades brewing beer, I was out on my own. Well, out on my own with these three women at my side and the Brewster League cheering us along the way. We were opening Vermont's first women-owned brewery, Runaway Pond Brewing. And frankly, it would be one of the few women-owned breweries in the country. If anyone was up for this challenge, we were. Together, we were bringing over a half century of brewing experience to the table. Whitney and Kristin were the young guns, Tab and I had experience on our side, and together we had all the ingredients to make this a go. Now it was time to grind it out. We could do this. We would do this. We will do this.
Another sip from my beer and I looked around the old diner we'd bought. The reality of the challenge sank in. We were on our own with no annoying beer bros to boss us around. That freedom came with a lot of pressure—no safety nets and no paychecks until we turned a profit, and I was the one who'd convinced them that we should open a brewery near my hometown in rural Vermont.
I took another sip of what we hoped would be our signature brown ale and closed my eyes, focusing on the malt and hops and the magic of it all. It was damn good. I rolled my shoulders back and exhaled.
Yeah, I could do this.
We were doing this.
We would do this.
We will do this.
"Ready?" I asked.
"Let's get to it," said Tabitha, our ballsy CEO. "Kristin, what's fair game?"
The diner's glass door flew open and my childhood best friend blew in. "Oh, good. I didn't miss the demo. Where's my sledgehammer?"
"Hold up, Mercy. There's a plan," said Kristin. Suddenly the girl who was always in search of a party was dead serious. While the beer was going to be my baby, our tasting room was fully in her zone. "First. We're not trashing it. We want the quaint, old roadside diner vibe. Second—"
"We gotcha," said Whitney as she tucked the pieces of her bob that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ears. "Just tell us what we can hit." She set down her half-empty glass on the battered speckled green and white Formica top, then patted the counter. "Is this going?"
"As much as I'd like to…" said Kristin, with a shrug. "Yeah, it's a goner. We're repurposing what we can. But that, in all of its nineteen forties loveliness, is a goner."
And it was lovely. I'd eaten so many lunches perched at that counter, but this wasn't the time to get misty about what was. What would be stood before us and now we had to go get it.
"There's blue tape on what needs to go," said Kristin. "Nothing's structural. The contractor marked things we can hit. Let's get to it."
"Blue tape?" said Tab with a scoff. "I've got something better." Of all of us, Tabitha had the most at risk. We'd all placed our savings and credit on the line, but Tabitha left her hard-won position as chief operations officer for a highly respected Oregon brewery for this adventure in Nowheresville, Vermont, bringing her two kids with her. It wasn't like any of us were exactly young, but the rest of us didn't have lives that were so hard to uproot. Tab flipped open her ever-present tablet pad and pulled out a stack of papers. "Here," she said, passing them around.
I looked at the sheet she'd handed me. It was the web bio of "Drew-be-doo," my nemesis at Hawthorn Hill Brewery. Stupid nicknames were one of the many reasons I hadn't yet missed that bros' club and I didn't think I ever would.
"What's this for?" asked Whitney, holding up a printed logo for the first brewery she'd worked at, the one where she'd been called a bitch so often that she'd begun to think of herself that way. And Whitney wasn't bitchy. She simply didn't have any problem telling you when you were wrong. She called balls and strikes and bullshit. After so long living by myself, her straight shooter approach made sharing a rental house with her easier because we didn't have to tiptoe around each other.
"Let's hang them up and knock 'em down," said Tab.
"Um," said Kristin, "it seems a bit violent."
"Sure about that, Beer Bunny?" asked Tabitha, holding up a photo of Kristin in a fuzzy pink Easter bunny costume.
We'd all been asked to work the taps as a pretty face at beer fests over our careers, but Kristin had it worse than most before she got into the consulting side of the business. She was a petite blonde with curves that drew beer bros' attention, whether she was in a T-shirt or coveralls. Put her in a dirndl and she'd look just like she was modeling for an Oktoberfest poster.
"Ha! I loved that, actually," she said. "I really wish you'd seen Denny's face when I showed up as an Easter bunny rather than a Playboy one. I cannot believe he thought I'd agreed to a sexy bunny costume. The dude makes great beer, but he's stupid."
"He's a misogynist," said Tab in the same matter-of-fact tone that she used to discuss revenue and expenses. She taped the picture of Bunny Kristin to the thin wall separating the kitchen from the dining area. "Have at it." She quickly taped up a dozen other pages with things like You drink beer? and Girlie Beer and Beer Bitch and diversity hire and Just a pretty face and Is that too heavy for you? printed on them. And we went to town in a rage room of our own creation, girl power anthems blasting and more beer being poured.
"I like your new friends. I like them a lot," Mercy said to me. "But Kristin's a little much." A sledgehammer resting on her shoulder and work goggles over her face, we watched her take a swing at a sign reading Nasty Woman like she was in the batter's box at Fenway. With a crack, the sledgehammer broke through the paneling before a hollow thump rang out.
"Damn, that feels good. But how do I…" Kristin said, her voice rising in concern as she began a wiggle dance with the hammer's handle, trying to get it out of the wall. The wiggle turned into some violent wrenching, and I had to admit that she was a little much. No one was telling Kristin no. Especially not a wall made of paneling. Finally she got the sledgehammer out and attacked the wall again. This time the crack ended with a metallic thump. "I, um, I think there's something in here?"
Whitney walked over with a crowbar. "Something's in there?"
"Whoa, like electrical?" said Tab. "Maybe we've had enough fun. Let's let the contractor—"
"Nah, we're good. The power's cut off," said Whitney, jabbing the crowbar into the opening and ripping the paneling down with a creak.
"Is that a safe?" asked Kristin, bending down to get a good look at what was in the wall.
"There's a handle. Is it a toolbox?" I said, peering over her shoulder. I reached over her to yank it out of the tight space. The handle on the top wasn't metal but leather, stiff with age and coated with decades of dirt and dust. Out came a black lunch box, beaten and banged up, with hints of white through the dirt on its domed lid.
"It's a lunch box," relayed Kristin to the others.
I wiped my palm across the lid, removing a layer of grime and unveiling a name in thick white paint. "C. Riggs?" My heart skipped a beat at seeing Riggs's name. It couldn't be? But I didn't doubt it was. Vermont was small, the Northeast Kingdom was tiny, and Gaskin was microscopic. There was one Riggs family that I knew of, and even if there was another, there was only one Riggs to me. Riggs Lyon, the guy who had been driving in the accident that changed the course of my brother's life, and my lifelong crush.
"Hey, Mercy," I said, passing the lunch box to her. "C. Riggs? Is that—"
"Riggs's grandfather Charles, I'd bet. He was an electrician, I think. Something in construction anyway, if I'm not wrong," she said. I looked at my friend in wonder. I knew she had three kids now but with that level of Gaskin, Vermont knowledge, she sounded like her own mother.
"I wonder what's inside," said Whitney.
"Like a time capsule?" said Kristin, tucking her blond hair behind her ears. "Hey, that would make a good beer name. Time Capsule IPA or something." She pulled out her phone and tapped away on it, lost to the big plans that were no doubt swirling in her head. "No, not an IPA, something old-school. Like old European. A gose maybe," she muttered, mainly to herself, before wandering away.
"Let's open it," said Whitney.
"No, let's wait," said Mercy, setting it on the diner's counter that I hadn't had the heart to wallop with a sledgehammer yet. "We know what family it belongs to. Let me call Riggs."
"No!" I said, glancing down at my dirty jeans, dusty flannel shirt, and patting the mess of a bun and bandana I'd tied my hair up with.
"Oh, really," said Mercy. "Still?"
I looked at the ceiling, exhaling deeply. "Yeah."
"Still what?" asked Tab.
"Juliana's had a thing for Riggs since high school." I scowled at Mercy for telling that secret, warning her not to share all of my secrets with my business partners.
"Oh, like your prom date and the back seat of his car?" said Tab, the tease in her voice unmistakable.
"Ha!" said Mercy. "She wishes. She mooned over him. He rode our bus."
"Fine," I said, owning it. "Yeah, I did wish. Riggs and the prom and some field with a blanket. If you want details of my teenage fantasies, I can keep going."
"Yes!" said Whitney at the same time Tab shouted, "No!"
"Okay, should I text him?" asked Mercy.
This time Whitney and Tab were on the same page: "Yes!" "Absolutely."
"Is this another small Vermont thing where Mercy has the entire town saved as contacts?" asked Kristin.
"Not quite," said Mercy. "My husband and Riggs were friends in high school."
"How did that—" began Tab.
"I think 'It's Vermont' is going to answer a lot of your questions," I said. "Anyway, Riggs was super smart. He went to college in Boston and he's stayed down there. Big stuff in the big city. Last time I saw him was at Mercy and Silas's wedding and that was—"
"That was twenty-one years ago this summer," said Mercy, saving me before I shared that particular Riggs-related embarrassment. I breathed out. She hadn't even given me a knowing look. Mercy was such a good friend.
"Wow. Twenty-one, is that right?" I said as she tapped away on her phone.
"Something like that. And before you ask questions or comment on how my marriage will be old enough to legally buy your beer," she said, looking at my business partners, "yes, I was a child bride."
Tabitha and Whitney's eyes widened in surprise.
"That was a joke," said Mercy. "We didn't start dating until I was in college and we got married right after I graduated. Anyway, Riggs texted that he'll stop by."
I snapped my head toward Mercy in confusion. "From Boston?"
"He's back home." The solidarity I'd felt with her a few seconds ago was shaken. True to my ask, she'd never brought him up since her wedding and I certainly had never asked.
A thousand questions rose in me at once, like why she hadn't given me the heads-up before I ran into him in town and I acted all goofy. Like why he was back. Like when he'd be gone and I'd be able to breathe again. Like whether my brother knew. But I could only give voice to one: "What?" I sputtered.
"Aww, yeah," said Whitney. "It's on."
"It's not on," I snapped. "He's married. He's in Boston. A hotshot real estate guy—"
"Nope, nope, and nope," said Mercy. "You need to keep up with your hometown gossip, Juli."
"You're out of the loop on Vermont gossip?" said Whitney, raising her hands to her cheeks in mock horror.
"Brewery gossip is enough to keep anyone busy, let me assure you," I said.
"No lie detected," said Tab.
"So," said Whitney, "to sum this up for me, we're in the middle of nowhere Vermont—"
"All of Vermont is kind of the middle of nowhere, to be honest," said Mercy.
"Okay, yes, the middle of nowhere Vermont. You're home," continued Whitney. "He's home. You're single. He's single. Sexytimes in a field. Boom."
"It's complicated," I said, dismissing her with a toss of my hand.
"It's not complicated," she continued. "Starry night. Field. Blanket. Insert Tab A into—"
"Yeah, I'm going with Juliana on this one. It's complicated," said Mercy. "As cute as it is that Vermont is small and it feels like everyone knows everyone, it gets not-cute superfast."
"Whoa, that sounds dark," said Whitney. "I wasn't going for dark. I was going for—"
"Does his family own a Christmas tree farm? An apple orchard? Something else charmingly small-towny and he'll win you a bear at the county fair?" said Kristin, who'd rejoined us to look at the lunch box. "Because I love those movies."
"He doesn't own a Christmas tree farm," I said. I wanted the entire conversation to end so that I could figure out how to ask Mercy a million questions while coming across like I didn't care at all about the man who had been the boy I'd had a crush on a million years ago. No, not a million years ago. Twenty-five? Nope. More like thirty. Damn. That was a long time, and a lot of life had happened to both of us in the meantime. "I've got beer to brew. I've gotta go check on Growler."
What I was checking, I didn't exactly know, but as I unzipped my white dust suit, I knew I was done with being teased about Riggs, and checking on my dog or beer was always a great excuse to get away from conversations I didn't want to have.
I'd let Mercy fill in everyone on the nonexistence of me-and-Riggs in any context other than my own damn head. I dusted my hands off on my jeans and walked out the door and around to the barn we'd had built in the back of the property for brewing and canning. It was pretty much completed and so much further along than the tasting room, and that was intentional. If we didn't have beer to sell, there wasn't a point in a tasting room.
Most of the equipment had been installed in the brewing building that, due to Kristin's vision, looked like a classic red New England barn. It was our brew barn. Next week our first big shipment of grains would arrive and I'd get down to business. The canning line was the only big thing missing. With Growler let out from the office and moseying along at my heels, I paced around, looking at the big space, staring at the tall silver fermentation tanks and bright tanks and the stouter boil kettles and imagining what I would create. I took to the stairs and scaffolding that I'd know so well that I'd be able to scale them in my sleep to start the work ahead of me. But this time was different. This time, it was all mine. Well, not all mine, but a solid quarter of it was. And I was going to be calling the shots. I wasn't the quiet, shy girl I'd been when I was growing up.
Hell, if I'd met Riggs when I was twenty and not when I was fourteen, he wouldn't have known what hit him. And that was what made me blush the most—thinking about how I'd stared at the back of his head for the forty-three minutes from when he got on the bus until we arrived at school, and the twenty-six minutes from when we got on the bus in the afternoon until my stop. I'd stared at him and dreamed of the things I'd wished I'd been bold enough to do to get his attention.
One time I'd gotten up my nerve to drop a pencil as I walked past him in the aisle. He hadn't even noticed. He was curled over a book with the headphones to his Walkman on. I hadn't planned for that. In my plan, he was going to bend over, pick up my pencil, hand it to me, letting our fingers brush in a soft-focus slo-mo, and say something utterly heart-melting, like, "Here you go, Juliana."
To hear him say my name. To find out that he even knew my name?
Yeah, that was the stuff fourteen-year-old me dreamed about. I didn't know what to make of the seventeen-year-old Riggs.
But forty-three-year-old Juliana? She knew differently about men. I couldn't help but wonder if he'd know who I was.
It'd been a long time since Mercy and Silas's wedding, and I'd about died at the time when Mercy made sure I was paired with him to walk back up the aisle after the vows. He was nice, pleasant, but clearly not invested in any conversation with me. He'd mainly talked about himself, which I'd encouraged, having learned along the way that men liked to talk about themselves, and letting them talk about themselves somehow translated into thinking that I was cool and they'd want to hang out with me again, so they could talk about themselves again.
I'd nodded along in our brief conversations, during the rehearsal and the wedding, not having a clue what he was talking about. But it didn't work. My encouraging smiles and open-ended questions didn't draw him to me. So at the reception, I drank and flirted harder, repositioning my boobs in my dress so that even more cleavage was showing, and thinking it was finally my chance—probably my last chance ever—to get him to notice me.
My bravado was fueled by booze, or maybe my insecurity was suppressed by it. Either way, it wasn't a good scene.
Plus, he'd brought his girlfriend. The woman he'd marry, and now, apparently, wasn't married to anymore. She had been a stunner. Polished and thin and in finance too. She'd mentioned New York and London and Paris and Bermuda and all those places that this Vermont woodchuck had only really dreamed of.
After Mercy and Silas had left the reception, my buzz faded some, and the swimmies set in as I headed for a crash landing. I was puking in the flower bed along Mercy's parents' front porch when Riggs walked by, handed me a handkerchief—a real crisp white handkerchief, not an old bandana—and said he'd find someone to come help me.
With the fancy job, and the fancy girl, and the fancy handkerchief, he'd become a flatlander. A city person. Someone who'd definitely pushed away all of his backcountry Vermont roots.
But my crush on him didn't really die after the wedding. It just changed. It was the idea of him I'd held on to. The idea that a quiet, smart guy who was great at basketball would see me, would like me, would find me special.
And Riggs was just that to me now. An idea.
The Riggs Lyon who'd be stopping by to get his granddad's lunch box? Well, I didn't know him. And odds were that he wasn't nearly as cute at forty-six as he'd been when I'd last seen him at twenty-five. Probably balding and with a beer belly and a brashness that came with earning more money in a year than I'd see in my lifetime. With that image of him fixed, I set it aside, and I went to work cleaning my new tanks.
Dirty equipment led to bad beer. I wasn't making any bad beer here. This was a new start. A fresh start. I'd decided to be intentional about what I was bringing to Runaway Pond, and it was only the best I had to offer—my time, my talents, my passion. An old crush wasn't on that list, and like any debris that could mess up a brew, it needed to be cleaned out so I could have that fresh start.
An hour or so later, my phone rang, pulling me out of my work. I set down my scrubbing brush, looked at the screen, and when I saw Mercy's name, I silenced the call. I knew what was up, Riggs was here and it was time to meet him and finally put this ridiculous crush behind me. Vermont was definitely too small to let a high school crush linger. "Bed, Growler," I said, leading her back to my small office.
* * *
I stomped the mud off my boots at the diner's front door. Yes, it was a construction zone, but old habits die hard. If there wasn't snow, early March in New England meant mud. And lots of it.
As I stomped, I tried to peer through the plate glass windows, but with the slanting afternoon sun I only saw myself reflected back and there wasn't much to look at. Just another middle-aged woman in jeans, I thought. And that was fine by me. I never wanted to win a sash at a beauty pageant, but I wanted to win every damn medal for my beers.
I pushed through the door and scanned the open space, my eyes landing on Riggs. His back was to me, but he was the only guy in the room. Plus, based upon my years of staring at the back of his head, I knew it was him.
His hair wasn't dark like it'd been the last time I saw him. Silver was woven in amid the waves. That surprised me for some reason. I figured I knew so much about him, but I'd been wrong about something so basic. The close-cropped hair I'd imagined touching in my teens was now softer, shaggy, and mussed. Not neatly combed like it had been at the wedding. The same broad shoulders and towering height that had made him my brother's rival on the basketball court were now covered with a worn brown barn coat and not the navy pinstripe suit he'd worn to Mercy's farm wedding.
"Hey," said Mercy, catching my eye over Riggs's shoulder. "Riggs, you remember Juliana."
I almost laughed because I wasn't sure he would. If I amounted to anything worth remembering to him, I was an asterisk, a footnote of Caleb's little sister and Mercy's sidekick, a woman who drank too much at a wedding.
He turned toward me and, damn, the years—the decades—had been a friend to him. He wasn't a cute boy anymore. He was a hot man. He'd always been on the thin side, but he'd filled out. He looked stronger than I remembered him. His green eyes were bright and his jawline scruffy with more silver than brown. He wasn't the boy I'd dreamed of or the young man I'd thrown myself at.
He was something else and, whatever it was, it set my heart to pounding, my breath to catching, and my face to heating.
"Hey, Juliana. Thanks for finding this," he said, holding out the old lunch box. "It was my grandpop's."
"Glad it found its way to you," I said with a nod. I bit my tongue so I didn't say more. I felt everyone's eyes on me and I didn't want to stammer. I looked away from him and at my friends. Mercy was smiling like she'd eaten a canary. Kristin gave me two thumbs up. Whitney did a little wiggle dance that failed so hard at being sexy that I nearly laughed. And Tabitha, my straitlaced, cut-to-the-chase friend, nodded her approval.
"Jeezum Crow," I muttered under my breath. I'd hoped that my little escape to the brew barn would have given them time to get the Riggs crush thing out of their system.
But I should have known better. Apparently no one gets Riggs Lyon out of their system.
"What?" asked Riggs, his eyes on mine.
"Uh, nothing," I said, trying to fight the heat I felt crawling up my cheeks with his focused attention on me.
He'd said like two sentences and I was fourteen again. I never wanted to be fourteen again. I'd take forty-three over the agony of being a teenager any day.
"Can you open it?" asked Whitney.
Riggs turned around toward my friends and I exhaled in relief. This whole crush-on-Riggs-is-in-the-past thing was working out just swimmingly, it seemed. I'd outgrown acne in the past decades, but not the crush on him. Would I ever? God, I hoped he'd go back to wherever he lived soon. Vermont was too small for this.
"Oh, cool," said Kristin.
"What is it?" I asked, stepping over to the group. Riggs turned toward me and my stupid heart kicked up a few beats again.
"Here," he said, handing me an old beer can. "You found it. And no way it's good anymore."
As I took it from him, our fingers brushed and I felt heat flare in my chest again. I managed to keep my curse to myself as I said thanks.
"Seems like a sign," said Whitney, with a wink at me. "A definite sign."
"Okay, so 'Time Capsule' is definitely going to be a name we're using," said Kristin.
"Mercy said you're starting a brewery?" His eyes were on mine, gentle and interested. No trace of the judgment that came from a lot of guys at the idea of women running a brewery.
"Yup," I said, measuring my words so they were steady. "For the locals and the leaf peepers. Bring some of the beer tourists out this way. Selling it here, and then cans and kegs to restaurants and the like."
Tabitha stepped in to give the rest of our elevator pitch. "The Northeast Kingdom's beer market isn't as crowded as the rest of the state. It's a bit away from Giltmaker and from Liar's Den, both of which are can't-miss destinations. But you can't get from Giltmaker to Liar's Den without passing right in front of our door."
"Smart," he said with a nod.
"Yup," I said, feeling my feet under me. "The diner has that small-town charm folks want and is right on the roadway. Plus, the acreage behind was a perfect site for brewing."
"Don't most breweries do brewing and tasting in the same building?" he asked.
"Yup," I said, challenging him because I'd gone toe to toe with anyone who disagreed with me on this point. "But would you like strangers walking through your office, pawing through your work, trying to log on to your computer, photographing every damn thing? I mean, I'd rather have a G-D FBI raid than the day-to-day grind of trying to figure out what stuff's been messed with by someone who has no business messing with it."
The kindness in his eyes went out and something cool and distant took its place. A growly harrumph was his reply. He thanked us all again for the lunch box and then briskly walked out of the diner, the door slamming behind him.
Well, I thought, that did it for my crush. Handsome I could take, but asshole was a deal killer. I'd had way too many assholes in my life to even dream about wanting one more.
"Why did you say that to him?" Mercy's tone was sharp, and I turned toward her in confusion.
"Why did I say what to him?" Mercy was always Team Juliana, so this was weird, and I began to track back through the conversation, trying to figure out where I'd gone wrong. "He asked about why the brewing space was separate, and I asked him if he'd like strangers in his office. That was it." I held my hands out, palms up, pleading my case.
"That was it?" She was skeptical. Of course, she should be. I wasn't known for saying the right thing at the right time.
"Yeah. That was it. You know I don't like folks in my workspace, taking my shit and snooping around and fucking around with my brews. I told him I'd rather have an FBI raid."
"That. That's what you said." Mercy blinked at me in disbelief, pausing for me to catch up with her.
"Oh, shit," I said, suddenly remembering what had happened to him and putting together why Riggs was probably back home.
Get it at: Amazon | Apple | Kobo | Nook | Google | Audioor add it to your Goodreads TBRCheck out more from the World of True NorthJune 27, 2021
You could win a new Kobo eReader!
June 25, 2021
First Chapter: Homecoming by Rebecca Norinne
Popping up from a crouch along the north wall of what was going to be the formal dining room once my crew finished rehabbing this centuries-old estate into a luxury bed and breakfast, I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my forearm. A small shaving of wood that had been stuck to my sleeve fell into my eye and melted against my cornea.
“Fuck.” I flung my hand out toward where my best friend was standing back to admire his handiwork.
“Hand me that water, would you?”
“Ah, shit.” Mikey passed me the half-filled bottle I’d been drinking from a few minutes before, the plastic crinkling loudly as I tipped it back to pour water into my eye.
Once I managed to flush the shaving out, I dropped my face forward and let the water trickle down my cheeks to fall in a small puddle at my feet. I almost lifted my arm to wipe my face with my sleeve again, but stopped when I realized that was how I’d wound up with an eyeball full of sawdust in the first place.
“Here,” he said, handing me several napkins leftover from lunch.
“Thanks.” I finished toweling off my face and blinked my eyes a few times to test my vision. Satisfied I’d gotten the debris out, I aimed the wadded up paper ball at a trashcan about fifteen feet away. I let it fly, but instead of going in as intended, it bounced off the rim and fell to the floor.
“Your aim still sucks,” he chuckled.
“It’s a good thing I’m a builder instead of a basketball player, then.”
“Yeah,” he snorted, as he began gathering up his tools for the day. “Good thing that basketball career didn’t pan out.”
I smirked as we locked up and headed toward my truck. Mikey and I had known each other since we were kids; he’d been there when I’d been cut from the freshman basketball team for not being able to shoot. We both knew I was never destined for athletic greatness.
We climbed up into my truck and he turned the radio on, futzing with the dial until he found a song he liked. When Foo Fighters’ “Best of You” filled the cab, he fastened his seatbelt and settled in for the drive back to Colebury.
“Want to grab a drink?” he asked. “Speakeasy just updated its beer list.”
It was barely six o’clock on a Friday night, but I was already wrecked, having put in seven twelve-hour days in a row. I should be jumping at the chance for a night out with my best friend, but right now all I wanted was a hot shower, a cold beer, and then to fall face first into bed.
“Nah, man. I’m gonna pass.”
He lifted his shoulder in an indifferent shrug. “No worries. Drop me off though, would you?”
“Sure thing,” I said, pointing my truck toward the old mill where Speakeasy was located. “You’ll find a ride home?”
He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Oh, I’ll find a ride all right.”
“You’re such a pig,” I said, pulling into the parking lot.
“I’m a man with needs.” He unfastened his seatbelt and hopped out of the cab. “See you Monday.” He closed the door and strolled toward the entrance with a cocky swagger.
I let my foot off the brake, checking for traffic as I eased back onto the road and pointed my Chevy home.
Ten minutes later, I turned off the highway and drove carefully down a bumpy lane lined with birch, poplar, and maple trees. It was too late to appreciate the view, but earlier they’d have been shimmering in the setting sun. Say what you would about the tropics, in my mind there was nothing prettier than autumn in New England, and Vermont was as good as it got.
The carriage house I was renting came into view, my landlady’s large, rambling farmhouse a couple hundred feet beyond. When I’d first moved from Boston to Vermont, there hadn’t been a whole lot of decent housing options available, so I’d counted myself lucky to have found this place so quickly.
There’d been two other couples interested in it, but when Gloria Mitchell learned that I renovated historic properties for a living, she offered it to me on the spot if I would be willing to help her out around the place. Typically, that meant replacing a burned-out lightbulb that was too high for her to reach, or hauling inside a piece of furniture she’d found laying on the side of the road, but more and more frequently, it also meant joining her for dinner while she talked my ear off about the daughter who’d moved to California years ago and rarely came to visit.
The sound of gravel crunching under my tires quieted as I shifted into park. Climbing down out of the cab, I set my chin in the palm of my hand and twisted my head to the side, hearing the satisfying pop, pop, pop of my neck cracking away some of the week’s tension. When I turned my head back in the other direction, I spied Gloria waving me over.
As I crossed the yard, I noticed that one of the window’s decorative shutters was askew. I made a mental note to re-hang it before it broke away completely, necessitating a bigger, costlier repair. For the first time, I also noticed an old Volvo station wagon parked next to Gloria’s bright turquoise Mini Cooper.
Gloria gestured me closer, her body practically vibrating with excitement. I wasn’t entirely sure how old she was; I guessed anywhere between sixty and eighty. The woman had more energy than anyone I’d ever known. “Rosalie’s here,” she whispered, clasping her weathered hands together in front of her chest. “She showed up today out of the blue.”
“What?”
Technically speaking, I had no reason to dislike her daughter, but listening to Gloria talk about how she had stayed away so long had definitely colored my impression of the woman. And the photos Gloria frequently shoved under my nose depicting a well-dressed ice princess who seemed incapable of a genuine smile hadn’t helped to improve my outlook much, either.
But this wasn’t about me, I reminded myself. I genuinely liked Gloria, and seeing her so happy was really fucking nice. “That’s fantastic,” I said, putting as much enthusiasm as I could muster behind my words.
But despite my best efforts, Gloria saw right through me. “I know you don’t think much of Rosalie, what with all the complaining I’ve done these past few months, but that’s just been the ramblings of an old, lonely woman who misses her only child. If you’d have met her before she married that man, you’d understand.”
I doubted that was true, but it wouldn’t do either of us any good for me to say so. There was just something about her that rubbed me the wrong way. Like the fact that she reminds you of your cheating ex-fiancée? my subconscious chimed in.
Okay, so there was that. It wasn’t Rosalie’s fault that her golden hair was the exact same shade as someone I never wanted to see again, but my subconscious didn’t particularly care, apparently.
“How long is she staying?” I asked, my question not entirely altruistic.
I had a lifetime’s worth of experience with women like her to know an old, drafty farmhouse wouldn’t be her first choice for where to live. Women like her typically didn’t like to get their hands dirty. Their manicures were too important. During her visit, I expected nonstop complaints about the house not being up to her standards, and endless phone calls to come fix things that were perfectly fine given this place was a hundred and fifty years old.
Like a bad movie, my mind flashed back to a scene from my past: my ex, Margaux, standing in the middle of the dining room of the antique colonial I used to own. The house had been built in the early seventeen hundreds, and the space had once been the original keeping room. The ceiling was low, the floors were sloped, and the walls were dark. She’d hated it, and had no problem telling me so. In hindsight, her reaction to the house I loved should have sent me running in the opposite direction, but I’d been too blinded by her beauty and charm to pay it any mind.
“Oh! Nothing like that.” The sound of Gloria’s voice pulled me back to the here and now. “What I meant is Rosalie’s moved back. For good. You remember me telling you about the fire at her gallery? Well, it was all the impetus she needed to finally leave that arrogant, no-good, piece of shit man she married.” She bounced on her toes and lifted her fists in victory. “I’ll tell you what for nothing—”
Her tirade was cut short when the screen door opened and a small-boned woman wrapped in an oversized flannel and looking nothing like the photos I’d seen stepped out onto the porch. “Mom,” she sighed, her voice weary. “We talked about this.”
In that moment, my world turned on its axis. Up was down, dark was light, and I was in big fucking trouble.
Get it at: Amazon | Apple | Kobo | Nook | Googleor add it to your Goodreads TBRCheck out more from the World of True NorthJune 19, 2021
Summertime reading: a few recommendations!
Hi reader!
I hope you’re having a lovely June. One of my summer goals is to read more, so I just ordered a PILE of books. Can’t wait to share the winners! Meanwhile, here’s what I enjoyed last month!
Love,
Sarina
This is what I enjoyed reading in May:
Fake By Scott, Kylie Hot, broody Hollywood actor vs. a waitress who's supposed to play his girlfriend. Super fun!
Tough Guy: A Gay Sports Romance (Game Changers Book 3) By Reid, Rachel M/M and excellent as always from this author, who continues to impress!
Five Years Gone: A Standalone Contemporary Romance By Force, Marie Super angsty love triangle and I gobbled it up in a day!
Every Time I Fall (Orchid Valley) By Ryan, Lexi Curvy heroine and her long-time crush! So lovely.
Cakewalk (The Busy Bean) By Hastings, Claire, Press, Heart Eyes Grumpy versus sunshine. He's her landlord. And the heroine is a cake decorator!
Amazon | Apple | Kobo | Nook | Google
Friendzoned (The Busy Bean) By Blaufeld, Rachel, Press, Heart Eyes She used to be a rich girl, and he was the poor kid. Now their situations are reversed...
June 18, 2021
First Chapter: Heartwood by J.H. Croix
Chapter OneI rolled my car to a stop and cut the engine. Quiet settled around me inside my compact car. I looked ahead. The Speakeasy Taproom was emblazoned in whimsical script on a sign on the renovated old mill building. The river was visible behind the building with the water glittering under the afternoon sunshine. A warm feeling spun around my heart.
I had really wanted this job. My nerves were shaky, but I was getting used to that feeling. I took a deep breath and grabbed my purse before climbing out of the car. I lifted my chin and smoothed my hand over my hair as I walked quickly through the side entrance. The executive chef, who would be my boss, had told me to find her in the staff break room.
I loved food, and I loved to cook. It’s just I felt a little out of my element because this place was new and had opened with a splash. It was already known as an up and coming gastropub and brewery in Vermont with word traveling fast along the winding roads of the rural state.
It’s okay, you’re okay. That was the best little mantra I’d been able to come up with so far. It wasn’t glamorous, or even remotely creative, but it would have to do. I paused and looked around, not certain where to find the break room. My interview had taken place in the morning when the restaurant was closed, so we’d met out front.
“Oh, there you are,” a voice called. Turning, I saw Phoebe walking through a wide entrance that led to the kitchen.
“Oh, hi,” I said, lifting my hand in a little wave.
“Your timing is perfect,” she said when she stopped beside me.
“Didn’t you say two o’clock?” I asked, reflexively glancing down at my watch.
She smiled, laughing softly. “I did. I’ve been so busy I lost track of time. Come with me, let me show you what’s back here,” she said, gesturing for me to follow her.
We passed by what must’ve been a storage room that contained an assortment of restaurant supplies. Phoebe paused and spun her arm in an arc. “We have two offices here, cold and dry storage, the walk-in freezer, and the brewing room.” Pointing past the door where I’d entered, she added, “That’s the staff break room. You can leave your things in there. Hang on, I want you to meet the general manager and have him show you around.” She knocked on a closed door. “Hey Ty!” she called. “Got a few minutes?”
One of my brain cells fired off of memory. I’d once known a Ty, back in college, back when I had my shit together. It felt like forever ago. It was hard to imagine feeling like I’d ever have it together again.
Nervous though I was, I knew once I settled in and got to know the people I was working with, I would be fine. After my unexpected, ahem, arrest and subsequent night at the hospital, I’d lucked into a job as a chef at a restaurant in Burlington when the regular chef went on maternity leave. A friend had hooked me up. I’d loved it and felt like I’d found my stride.
Before that, my life had been a giant ball of stress. While dealing with a full-time course load in law school, I’d been an intern in a law program, basically doing free legal work on the side, at a high-powered law firm that pushed my stress through the stratosphere.
“Now,” Phoebe said, when she looked back at me as we waited for the mysterious Ty to appear.
“Did I hear you're from Burlington? What's that like?"
I nodded. “Yup. That’s where I grew up. Vermont born and bred. It’s a nice little city and fun for a day trip if you need a change of pace.”
“Good to know. I’d never set foot in Vermont before I came here.” Her lips quirked in a grin.
“Hey, Phoebe, what do you need?” The door beside us opened along with that question.
A prickle raced up my spine. I knew that voice. Like intimately knew.
Turning, my eyes landed on Tyler Connor. I swallowed and tried to take a breath as my hormones sat up and took a good long look. Oblivious to my state, my new boss smiled at Ty. “Come on out. I want you to meet Isabella, and I was hoping you could show her around.”
Ty’s eyes met mine, one brow hitching up in recognition. My belly did a little flip followed by a shimmy. He stepped into the hallway, stopping beside us. “Hey there.” He dipped his chin in acknowledgment.
His eyes bounced from mine to Phoebe’s. She began, “This is—”
Ty interjected, “You can pass on the introduction. We know each other. You must be the new chef.”
“You know each other?” Phoebe’s eyes shifted curiously between us.
While my hormones ignored my orders to chill out and started cheering at getting up close with Ty, I nodded. “Yes,” I replied, my voice sounding squeaky. “We were in college together.”
“Yeah, we were friends,” Ty said smoothly.
I didn’t know if “friends" encompassed the seriously smoking hot nights we shared, but it worked. All fiery fun, and no strings attached. I knew Ty very well, intimately speaking, that is. I didn’t need Phoebe knowing all that though.
Phoebe nodded. “Isabella will be our new chef, mostly working the afternoon and evening shifts. I was hoping you could make sure to introduce her to the waitstaff and bar staff. I need to deal with some issues with ordering.”
Ty nodded along politely. She looked toward me. “Give me a half an hour, and we can meet to go over the menus. Will that work? Ty will give you a tour of the place in the meantime. Sound good?”
“Of course,” I squeaked. Because squeaking was apparently my new way of speaking. Phoebe smiled between us and hurried off, leaving me alone with my former college hookup.
The five years since I’d seen Ty had been good to him. Ty was seriously easy on the eyes with a tall, rangy build. He was wearing faded black jeans, the fabric molding to his muscled thighs like a caress. He wore a navy blue T-shirt that didn’t do much of anything but show off his muscled shoulders and chest. He hooked his thumb in a pocket, and his smoky gray eyes met mine. The air felt lit with a charge, memories falling like hot cinders into the loaded space.
His dark hair was a little shaggy, curling on the ends at his neck. One side of his mouth kicked up in that easy grin I recalled. “Didn’t expect to see you here,” he commented.
I felt my cheeks heat and tried to keep my expression nonchalant. Ty knew nothing of what had passed for me in the last few years. I didn’t need to worry about that. I managed something like a shrug and a smile. “I guess I could say the same for you. How are you?” I asked, honestly curious.
Ty had been a hockey star in college until he badly injured his knee. I recalled the chatter that he might go on to the pros fading after that injury. It didn’t change how hot he was, or how appealing he’d been to me then, and apparently now.
“Doing pretty good these days,” he said easily. “Do you go by Isabella now?”
I shrugged. “You can still call me Belle. I only met Phoebe at my interview, so we haven’t yet reached the nickname stage.”
Those smoky grays held mine for a few beats, darkening slightly, just enough to give a sharp little kick in the flanks of my pulse. Because we were definitely in the nickname stage, or we had been, once upon a time.
A grin flashed on his face again. “All right, Belle. Let me take you on that tour. We’ll start out front.”
He led me out to the bar and restaurant area, while I tried to order my pulse to stand down. The old mill had been lovingly renovated, retaining the mill’s bones while giving it a modern flare. The restaurant area had tall ceilings and massive windows that looked out over the river behind it. The rough-hewn beams were visible, as were the supporting posts, which were strung with decorative lights. The space had an open feel with shafts of sunlight falling through the tall leaded glass windows and giving the entire space a warm glow from the late afternoon sunshine. The main bar was in the center of the space with counters encircling it, while there was another small bar in the front.
Ty gestured toward a man at the bar, stocking the liquor shelf to one side. “This is Matteo. He’s a bar manager,” he said, gesturing between us. “This is Belle. She’s a new chef. She’ll be here for the afternoon and evening shift today. We’re supposed to be nice.”
Matteo chuckled, a grin stretching across his face. “Hey there, Belle.” Tall with dark hair and eyes, he gave off a warm, easy going vibe. As I shook his hand, he added, “My daughter is going to love knowing I work with a Belle.”
“Really?”
His grin deepened. “She loves Belle from Beauty and the Beast.”
Just as Ty chuckled in response, another customer approached the bar. “Good to meet you. Welcome to Speakeasy,” Matteo said with a nod as he spun away.
“This is the restaurant,” Ty said, sweeping his arm in a quick arc as he glanced to me.
He lifted an opening on the counter at the bar, and I slipped through in front of him. My hand brushed against his, and the glancing touch sent a sizzle up my arm. Jesus. That old chemistry was definitely still burning hot between us.
Ty, polite as ever, introduced me to the waitstaff as they passed by the bar and explained that they had staggered shifts at the bar and restaurant. “Aside from whoever’s on duty for management, the waitstaff shifts vary more. It’s a restaurant and bar though, so the schedule’s rarely set in stone. We all pitch in and cover if needed.” He sidestepped to get out of the way of Matteo reaching for a pair of glasses. Catching my eye, he nudged his chin toward an empty barstool. “Speakeasy has a ghost.”
My eyes followed his, and I stared at the empty and innocent looking barstool. My lips twitched when I looked back at him. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “Hamish used to own this building. Sometimes customers complain that stool is cold. We think he likes to sit there.”
I grinned. “I love that. I’ll make sure to be nice if I sense he’s nearby.”
Ty chuckled before turning away to reply to something Matteo asked.
After that, he took me upstairs where there was an events room. When I noticed the small stage at one end of the open space, I glanced up. “Do you still DJ sometimes?”
He flashed a grin. “When I have time, but that’s not often.”
I followed him back downstairs and into the staff area. He pointed to the office where he’d appeared. “This is a shared office, and you might see any of the owners in here. There are four owners, by the way.”
“Four?”
Ty grinned, and my belly did a little swoop. He really needed to stop grinning. Better yet, I needed to get my hormones to behave. “You got it. You know Giltmaker Brewery, right?”
I nodded. “I knew they were involved here. They make Goldenpour.”
“Ah, you get an A, but then you always were a straight-A student,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes, keeping silent on that topic. Ty was one-hundred percent correct. I’d never gotten anything other than an A in my life. Until I dropped out of law school after making a glorious and rather spectacular mess.
“Anyway,” he continued, “Lyle Giltmaker’s part owner, along with Alec Rossi who owns The Gin Mill next door. Alec’s uncle, Otto Rossi, is also an investor. Then, there’s Griffin Shipley of Shipley Ciders. If you’re familiar with the area, the Shipley family’s pretty well-known. They’ve got a big ol’ apple orchard in Tuxbury.”
“I’ve seen their ciders in local stores,” I commented.
“That’s the one. Anyway, you’ll see Alec and Lyle the most. Griffin comes by a lot too, but he’s always in a hurry. Otto stops by now and then.”
Just then, Phoebe appeared in the hallway. “There you are. Did Ty give you the tour?”
Ty’s brows hitched up. “Of course I did. You asked me to.”
Phoebe smiled. “So I did, but it’s not like I’m your boss.”
Ty shrugged easily. “She’s all yours.”
Glancing up at him, I felt my lips tug into a smile. Because Ty was the kind of guy who elicited smiles the way honey drew bees. He had a warm, friendly vibe. And then some, when it came to the chemistry that sparked between us. “It sounds like I’ll see you around.”
“It’ll be hard not to,” Phoebe offered. “Thanks again.” She cast a quick smile at Ty before waving me into the break room.
“Thanks, Ty.”
“Any time.” He smiled again, and my belly did another wild swoop.
Phoebe’s back was to me as I took a deep breath and hoped my cheeks weren’t too flushed.
Get it at: Amazon | Apple | Kobo | Nook | Google | Audioor add it to your Goodreads TBRCheck out more from the World of True NorthFirst Chapter: Heartwood
Chapter OneI rolled my car to a stop and cut the engine. Quiet settled around me inside my compact car. I looked ahead. The Speakeasy Taproom was emblazoned in whimsical script on a sign on the renovated old mill building. The river was visible behind the building with the water glittering under the afternoon sunshine. A warm feeling spun around my heart.
I had really wanted this job. My nerves were shaky, but I was getting used to that feeling. I took a deep breath and grabbed my purse before climbing out of the car. I lifted my chin and smoothed my hand over my hair as I walked quickly through the side entrance. The executive chef, who would be my boss, had told me to find her in the staff break room.
I loved food, and I loved to cook. It’s just I felt a little out of my element because this place was new and had opened with a splash. It was already known as an up and coming gastropub and brewery in Vermont with word traveling fast along the winding roads of the rural state.
It’s okay, you’re okay. That was the best little mantra I’d been able to come up with so far. It wasn’t glamorous, or even remotely creative, but it would have to do. I paused and looked around, not certain where to find the break room. My interview had taken place in the morning when the restaurant was closed, so we’d met out front.
“Oh, there you are,” a voice called. Turning, I saw Phoebe walking through a wide entrance that led to the kitchen.
“Oh, hi,” I said, lifting my hand in a little wave.
“Your timing is perfect,” she said when she stopped beside me.
“Didn’t you say two o’clock?” I asked, reflexively glancing down at my watch.
She smiled, laughing softly. “I did. I’ve been so busy I lost track of time. Come with me, let me show you what’s back here,” she said, gesturing for me to follow her.
We passed by what must’ve been a storage room that contained an assortment of restaurant supplies. Phoebe paused and spun her arm in an arc. “We have two offices here, cold and dry storage, the walk-in freezer, and the brewing room.” Pointing past the door where I’d entered, she added, “That’s the staff break room. You can leave your things in there. Hang on, I want you to meet the general manager and have him show you around.” She knocked on a closed door. “Hey Ty!” she called. “Got a few minutes?”
One of my brain cells fired off of memory. I’d once known a Ty, back in college, back when I had my shit together. It felt like forever ago. It was hard to imagine feeling like I’d ever have it together again.
Nervous though I was, I knew once I settled in and got to know the people I was working with, I would be fine. After my unexpected, ahem, arrest and subsequent night at the hospital, I’d lucked into a job as a chef at a restaurant in Burlington when the regular chef went on maternity leave. A friend had hooked me up. I’d loved it and felt like I’d found my stride.
Before that, my life had been a giant ball of stress. While dealing with a full-time course load in law school, I’d been an intern in a law program, basically doing free legal work on the side, at a high-powered law firm that pushed my stress through the stratosphere.
“Now,” Phoebe said, when she looked back at me as we waited for the mysterious Ty to appear.
“Did I hear you're from Burlington? What's that like?"
I nodded. “Yup. That’s where I grew up. Vermont born and bred. It’s a nice little city and fun for a day trip if you need a change of pace.”
“Good to know. I’d never set foot in Vermont before I came here.” Her lips quirked in a grin.
“Hey, Phoebe, what do you need?” The door beside us opened along with that question.
A prickle raced up my spine. I knew that voice. Like intimately knew.
Turning, my eyes landed on Tyler Connor. I swallowed and tried to take a breath as my hormones sat up and took a good long look. Oblivious to my state, my new boss smiled at Ty. “Come on out. I want you to meet Isabella, and I was hoping you could show her around.”
Ty’s eyes met mine, one brow hitching up in recognition. My belly did a little flip followed by a shimmy. He stepped into the hallway, stopping beside us. “Hey there.” He dipped his chin in acknowledgment.
His eyes bounced from mine to Phoebe’s. She began, “This is—”
Ty interjected, “You can pass on the introduction. We know each other. You must be the new chef.”
“You know each other?” Phoebe’s eyes shifted curiously between us.
While my hormones ignored my orders to chill out and started cheering at getting up close with Ty, I nodded. “Yes,” I replied, my voice sounding squeaky. “We were in college together.”
“Yeah, we were friends,” Ty said smoothly.
I didn’t know if “friends" encompassed the seriously smoking hot nights we shared, but it worked. All fiery fun, and no strings attached. I knew Ty very well, intimately speaking, that is. I didn’t need Phoebe knowing all that though.
Phoebe nodded. “Isabella will be our new chef, mostly working the afternoon and evening shifts. I was hoping you could make sure to introduce her to the waitstaff and bar staff. I need to deal with some issues with ordering.”
Ty nodded along politely. She looked toward me. “Give me a half an hour, and we can meet to go over the menus. Will that work? Ty will give you a tour of the place in the meantime. Sound good?”
“Of course,” I squeaked. Because squeaking was apparently my new way of speaking. Phoebe smiled between us and hurried off, leaving me alone with my former college hookup.
The five years since I’d seen Ty had been good to him. Ty was seriously easy on the eyes with a tall, rangy build. He was wearing faded black jeans, the fabric molding to his muscled thighs like a caress. He wore a navy blue T-shirt that didn’t do much of anything but show off his muscled shoulders and chest. He hooked his thumb in a pocket, and his smoky gray eyes met mine. The air felt lit with a charge, memories falling like hot cinders into the loaded space.
His dark hair was a little shaggy, curling on the ends at his neck. One side of his mouth kicked up in that easy grin I recalled. “Didn’t expect to see you here,” he commented.
I felt my cheeks heat and tried to keep my expression nonchalant. Ty knew nothing of what had passed for me in the last few years. I didn’t need to worry about that. I managed something like a shrug and a smile. “I guess I could say the same for you. How are you?” I asked, honestly curious.
Ty had been a hockey star in college until he badly injured his knee. I recalled the chatter that he might go on to the pros fading after that injury. It didn’t change how hot he was, or how appealing he’d been to me then, and apparently now.
“Doing pretty good these days,” he said easily. “Do you go by Isabella now?”
I shrugged. “You can still call me Belle. I only met Phoebe at my interview, so we haven’t yet reached the nickname stage.”
Those smoky grays held mine for a few beats, darkening slightly, just enough to give a sharp little kick in the flanks of my pulse. Because we were definitely in the nickname stage, or we had been, once upon a time.
A grin flashed on his face again. “All right, Belle. Let me take you on that tour. We’ll start out front.”
He led me out to the bar and restaurant area, while I tried to order my pulse to stand down. The old mill had been lovingly renovated, retaining the mill’s bones while giving it a modern flare. The restaurant area had tall ceilings and massive windows that looked out over the river behind it. The rough-hewn beams were visible, as were the supporting posts, which were strung with decorative lights. The space had an open feel with shafts of sunlight falling through the tall leaded glass windows and giving the entire space a warm glow from the late afternoon sunshine. The main bar was in the center of the space with counters encircling it, while there was another small bar in the front.
Ty gestured toward a man at the bar, stocking the liquor shelf to one side. “This is Matteo. He’s a bar manager,” he said, gesturing between us. “This is Belle. She’s a new chef. She’ll be here for the afternoon and evening shift today. We’re supposed to be nice.”
Matteo chuckled, a grin stretching across his face. “Hey there, Belle.” Tall with dark hair and eyes, he gave off a warm, easy going vibe. As I shook his hand, he added, “My daughter is going to love knowing I work with a Belle.”
“Really?”
His grin deepened. “She loves Belle from Beauty and the Beast.”
Just as Ty chuckled in response, another customer approached the bar. “Good to meet you. Welcome to Speakeasy,” Matteo said with a nod as he spun away.
“This is the restaurant,” Ty said, sweeping his arm in a quick arc as he glanced to me.
He lifted an opening on the counter at the bar, and I slipped through in front of him. My hand brushed against his, and the glancing touch sent a sizzle up my arm. Jesus. That old chemistry was definitely still burning hot between us.
Ty, polite as ever, introduced me to the waitstaff as they passed by the bar and explained that they had staggered shifts at the bar and restaurant. “Aside from whoever’s on duty for management, the waitstaff shifts vary more. It’s a restaurant and bar though, so the schedule’s rarely set in stone. We all pitch in and cover if needed.” He sidestepped to get out of the way of Matteo reaching for a pair of glasses. Catching my eye, he nudged his chin toward an empty barstool. “Speakeasy has a ghost.”
My eyes followed his, and I stared at the empty and innocent looking barstool. My lips twitched when I looked back at him. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “Hamish used to own this building. Sometimes customers complain that stool is cold. We think he likes to sit there.”
I grinned. “I love that. I’ll make sure to be nice if I sense he’s nearby.”
Ty chuckled before turning away to reply to something Matteo asked.
After that, he took me upstairs where there was an events room. When I noticed the small stage at one end of the open space, I glanced up. “Do you still DJ sometimes?”
He flashed a grin. “When I have time, but that’s not often.”
I followed him back downstairs and into the staff area. He pointed to the office where he’d appeared. “This is a shared office, and you might see any of the owners in here. There are four owners, by the way.”
“Four?”
Ty grinned, and my belly did a little swoop. He really needed to stop grinning. Better yet, I needed to get my hormones to behave. “You got it. You know Giltmaker Brewery, right?”
I nodded. “I knew they were involved here. They make Goldenpour.”
“Ah, you get an A, but then you always were a straight-A student,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes, keeping silent on that topic. Ty was one-hundred percent correct. I’d never gotten anything other than an A in my life. Until I dropped out of law school after making a glorious and rather spectacular mess.
“Anyway,” he continued, “Lyle Giltmaker’s part owner, along with Alec Rossi who owns The Gin Mill next door. Alec’s uncle, Otto Rossi, is also an investor. Then, there’s Griffin Shipley of Shipley Ciders. If you’re familiar with the area, the Shipley family’s pretty well-known. They’ve got a big ol’ apple orchard in Tuxbury.”
“I’ve seen their ciders in local stores,” I commented.
“That’s the one. Anyway, you’ll see Alec and Lyle the most. Griffin comes by a lot too, but he’s always in a hurry. Otto stops by now and then.”
Just then, Phoebe appeared in the hallway. “There you are. Did Ty give you the tour?”
Ty’s brows hitched up. “Of course I did. You asked me to.”
Phoebe smiled. “So I did, but it’s not like I’m your boss.”
Ty shrugged easily. “She’s all yours.”
Glancing up at him, I felt my lips tug into a smile. Because Ty was the kind of guy who elicited smiles the way honey drew bees. He had a warm, friendly vibe. And then some, when it came to the chemistry that sparked between us. “It sounds like I’ll see you around.”
“It’ll be hard not to,” Phoebe offered. “Thanks again.” She cast a quick smile at Ty before waving me into the break room.
“Thanks, Ty.”
“Any time.” He smiled again, and my belly did another wild swoop.
Phoebe’s back was to me as I took a deep breath and hoped my cheeks weren’t too flushed.
Get it at: Amazon | Apple | Kobo | Nook | Google | Audioor add it to your Goodreads TBRCheck out more from the World of True NorthJune 11, 2021
First Chapter: Touchstone by Karen Stivali
Chapter OnePhoebePlease don’t let him propose.
I’d been wanting to try the new steakhouse on Fifth Avenue since it opened a year ago, but as I rushed down the final blocks, already late, all I felt was dread. Saturday night reservations were impossible to come by, almost exclusively reserved for wealthy regulars or tourists who knew to book in advance. That meant Drew had pulled some strings to get us a table. And, as The New York Times had pointed out in its most recent list of top-ten romantic restaurants in the city, it was the newest hot spot for proposals.
Please don’t let that be what Drew is thinking.
My stomach flipped as I waited for the light to change, and I checked my phone. Shit. I was officially really late—and I was never late. Ever. Drew was probably pissed. Pissed enough to not propose? Let’s hope.
I bounced on my toes, no easy feat in heels, but the nervous energy had to work its way out somehow. The conversation with Drew replayed in my mind. “Hey, I’m getting back into town earlier than I expected so let’s meet for dinner. I got us a table at Ember.”
The way he’d brought it up hadn’t sounded romantic. But then, nothing Drew said ever sounded romantic. That was part of why I liked him. Neither of us needed or wanted all the mushy stuff, the hearts and flowers, the moonlight strolls. We’d both wanted the same thing from the time we met five years ago: to open up a hot new restaurant in Manhattan. We’d worked together all this time to make that happen, and our dream was finally months from coming true.
But I didn’t want to marry him. I didn’t want to marry anyone.
I let the throng of pedestrians propel me across the street, careful not to get my heel caught in the metal grate as I hopped over it and onto the curb. There it was—the sign with the distinctive logo that Drew and I had taken inspiration from when we’d designed the one for our own restaurant. Surely this would just be a nice night out, celebrating the fact that our launch was so close to happening.
My palms were sweating, and I wiped them on my dress, glad that it was black and wouldn’t show any damp streaks, then grabbed the shiny brass door handle. The interior looked just as it did in the magazine spreads—dark wood polished to a high shine, giving it that old-school steakhouse feel, but with sleek tables and chairs to kick it into the twenty-first century. The host nodded when I gave my name and quickly ushered me to our table, which was small and elegant, with two votives in heavy square glass holders and a single calla lily in a matching rectangular vase. It was also quite possibly dead center in the middle of the restaurant. The overhead lighting seemed to shine a spotlight directly on us. Like we were the main act on some tiny stage.
“You okay?” Drew asked as the host held out my chair, and I slid into it.
“I’m sorry I’m late. I didn’t realize how long it would take to get here.”
It was an odd thing to say, and I knew it. He’d managed to get here on time coming from JFK, but I couldn’t make it from our apartment ten blocks away?
“I ordered for us. Hope you don’t mind.”
I did mind. My whole life had revolved around menu planning for the past year, and I loved studying menus and choosing my meals. Before I could answer, the waiter arrived with a platter of oysters nestled in crushed ice with a flight of sauces. I suddenly didn’t mind quite as much. I loved oysters. But a nagging voice in my brain reminded me that people tended to order them for sexy times, and sexy times followed proposals, and...my stomach flipped again.
A different waiter arrived with two Negronis—gin, sweet vermouth, Campari, and an orange twist. Drew couldn’t cook to save his life, but he did know how to order. He raised an oyster shell, as did I, and we clinked them together—a habit we’d started before we’d even begun dating—and I rolled the briny mouthful on my tongue before swallowing. The sip of Negroni, bitter yet sweet, cut through the buttery finish for a moment of perfection.
My nerves settled. A little. Maybe I was just stressed and fatigued from my nonstop schedule. Maybe this was just a nice dinner out. We worked our way through the oysters, pausing only to critique the various sauces, and I let the cocktail smooth out more of my frayed edges. A pleasant buzz enveloped me as I nibbled one of the flatbreads from the bread basket. “That was delicious.”
Drew ran nervous fingers through his short, dark hair. “Glad you liked it.”
“What’s our main course?”
“I preordered the Tomahawk steak.”
“Mmmm.” Their signature dish had been getting rave reviews, and he knew I’d been dying to try it.
The waiter cleared the platter and dutifully scraped our table to clear any stray crumbs.
As he left, I noticed Drew staring at me, and the buzz from moments earlier evaporated. My heart thudded. No.
“Phoebe.” He reached for my hand.
Oh, dear god, no.
“I was going to tell you this on the phone.”
Wait, what? No one proposes on the phone, do they? That’s good. Right? So why does he look worried?
“There’s someone else.”
His fingers gripped mine, but I could barely feel them. “What?”
“It’s been going on for a while now. We met when you were down south...”
I’d done a month-long trek through the Carolinas, Georgia, and New Orleans, scouting up-and-coming chefs and local specialty items. In January. It was now June.
“I’m sorry, what’s been going on for six months?”
“Her name is Samantha. Her father owns the Shivari group of hotels.”
“Wait, the guy who invested?”
The guilt on his face made me squirm. He nodded. “He sent Samantha to negotiate, and one thing led to another. I’m sorry, Phoebs. I am. But I’m in love.”
Oddly enough, relief swept over me. I mean, sure, this was unexpected, but one thing Drew and I weren’t was madly in love, and I honestly didn’t begrudge him happiness. This was for the best. He could get the happily-ever-after he wanted. We’d always been better as business partners than—
“We’re getting married. And...” He rubbed his thumb across my knuckles in a way that made me brace myself. “She’s taking over your part of the restaurant.”
My buzz disappeared completely, along with any warm, fuzzy feelings I’d been having about him finding true love. Rage replaced them, bubbling up from deep inside me and threatening to spill out all over the pristine table. “Excuse me?”
“It just makes sense. She’s not comfortable with us working together, given our history, and her father—”
So much adrenaline pumped through me I was hearing colors. The sound of Drew’s voice mixed red and orange in a way that swirled through me like fire. “I’ve spent years working on this fucking business. You can’t just cut me out.”
Drew couldn’t meet my gaze. “Actually, we can. You and I never had a formal contract. His lawyers—”
His lawyers. Fucking hell. His uber-wealthy future father-in-law’s high-powered lawyers had already taken care of this. They’d taken care of screwing me out of the restaurant I’d breathed and slept and sweated over, screwing me out of my debut as a Manhattan executive chef, screwing me out of the menu I’d spent over a year honing. My mind raced. Oh my god. Our apartment is in Drew’s name. He’d lived there before we got together. How could I have been so stupid as to let this happen?
I tugged my hand out of his grasp and clasped my fingers together under the table. Stay calm. Don’t make a scene. My mother makes scenes, and I will not be like my mother...
And that was when it hit me. That was why we were at a very public place, at a very public table. So there was no chance of me making a scene.
“Why tell me all this here?” I wanted to hear him admit it.
“Well, I was going to suggest the NoMad, but I wasn’t sure you’d appreciate the pun.”
“Fuck you.” I muttered the words, even though they’d been screaming in my brain on a loop for the last several minutes.
“What?”
I closed my eyes, hearing the blood rushing past my ears. Lightheaded.
Fuck you fuck you fuck you.
“Come on, Phoebs, talk to me. You know this is what’s best for both of us. I’m sorry it had to be like this, but I really believe—”
Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou.
“—we’ll both be happier in the long run. Please say something.”
Before I could stop them, the words rolled from my brain onto my tongue and out of my mouth. “Fuck you!”
My voice was louder than I intended, and I wanted to try to tone it down, but I was no longer in control. I’d floated somewhere outside my body, watching myself and only catching snippets of what I spewed at him.
“Five years...fucking asshole...all this time...the business...while I’m traveling, you’re...you thief! You disgust me...this was our project, not just yours...”
People were staring at us. I could feel their eyes like tiny beams of heat.
I hated scenes. Hated them. In an instant I’d become a kid again, watching my mother shriek at her latest boyfriend and throw his clothes out the window as the neighbors enjoyed the show. The familiar heat of humiliation crawled up my neck and flooded my cheeks. I gripped the table hard enough that my nails dented the unfinished wood of the underside. Taking a deep breath seemed impossible, as if I were underwater, or under an elephant, but I forced a slow inhale. Grace. I could exit this with some amount of grace and dignity if I just focused.
“Fine, Drew. You win. I’ll have my things out of the apartment by tomorrow afternoon. I’m sure you can find somewhere else to stay for the night.”
There. A modest request. The proper amount of strength and control. I pushed my chair back and slowly rose, suddenly knowing what the bomb squad must feel like, because I was acutely aware I could explode with the slightest wrong movement.
Drew’s eyes were full of pity—the very last thing I wanted to see—and for a split second I thought maybe we could negotiate some sort of truce where we could still be business partners. He cleared his throat. “I’ll need your set of keys to the restaurant. Now.”
I’d thought I was as upset as I could get. I was wrong. My hands shook uncontrollably, but I managed to take all three keys off my keychain and slam them down on the table hard enough to turn heads again.
Our waiter arrived with a flourish, seemingly unaware that the couple at Table 12 was at DEFCON 1. “Your Tomahawk steak.”
He held out the gigantic platter with the dinosaur-bone-sized steak. It smelled heavenly. “Would you like me to carve—”
I didn’t let him finish. “That won’t be necessary, Robert. The steak is coming with me.”
He clearly didn’t understand what I meant until I fisted the steak’s cleanly frenched bone and hoisted the enormous slab of meat so fast he nearly fumbled the serving dish.
What do you do when you’re full of Negroni, oysters, and rage, and you’re holding two hundred dollars’ worth of perfectly cooked meat? You square your shoulders and walk out.
* * *
The rest of the night passed in a blur, and before I knew it, sun was streaming through the windows and I was surrounded by boxes.
I should be sad.
That would be the normal reaction to your boyfriend of five years dumping you for another woman. I should’ve been heartbroken. In tears. Devastated.
But I wasn’t. I even knew why. Sure, Drew and I had been perfect on paper. And I knew the saying “good on paper bad in bed”—but that hadn’t been the issue either. I mean, we weren’t Fourth of July fireworks, but we’d sparked. It just hadn’t been love. We’d been...comfortable. Practical. Safe.
That was what killed me. I hadn’t just known that passion and excitement had to be sacrificed to get comfortable, practical, and safe, I’d counted on it. Trusted it. I’d consciously made that choice, because I’d seen what happened when passion and “love” blew up in your face. My mother was the poster child for those disasters, and I’d been the first witness to every explosion.
I wanted no part of that. To me, practical and safe sounded wonderful. So wonderful they’d turned me stupid. Because when I’d gone into business with my safe and practical boyfriend, I’d trusted him. It never occurred to me he’d screw me out of the deal. That’s why I hadn’t bothered to get anything in writing.
Yet there I was. No boyfriend. No job. Enough self-loathing-fueled adrenaline that I’d packed up my half of the apartment in one all-nighter. And no coffee because the coffee maker was mine, and I had no idea which box I’d shoved it into in a fit of bubble-wrapped rage.
But the rage had dissipated somewhere between shredding my new business cards and separating my books from his. All I was left with was hurt. Drew might not have been the love of my life—if such a thing even existed—but he had been my best friend. “Had been” being the operative words in that sentence.
I scanned the room to see if I’d forgotten anything and felt tears welling. No. No no no. Crying never helped anything.
Fuck it. I needed to get out of this apartment. Some air would do me good. Air, coffee, and a bacon, egg, and cheese on an everything bagel—the New York City cure to any shitty night.
Sometime around midnight, full of pricey steak and Drew’s best bottle of bourbon, I’d traded my dress in for my favorite concert T-shirt—Weezer, from the summer I’d interned in Boston—and a pair of pajama pants.
This morning I was in no mood to change, so I shoved my feet into black Converse low-tops, grabbed my phone from the charger and my tiny dress purse from the night before, and headed out.
My favorite deli was less than two blocks away and I gave no fucks if anyone saw me looking disheveled.
The line was out the door but moved quickly. I fidgeted with my phone but didn’t want to check it—a very odd feeling, as I normally lived on my phone. I’d turned it off the minute I got home last night, certain Drew would send messages. I hadn’t wanted to deal with them.
Once inside the deli, I made my way to the counter, and one of the griddle cooks caught my eye.
“The usual?” he asked.
“Yup.”
He gave me a smile that told me he’d summed up my mood by my outfit. I pulled out my ATM card and handed it to Jimmy, the grandfatherly owner. “On the house, doll. You had a rough night.”
Okay, I didn’t look my best, but this was fucking Manhattan. On any given day, you could see people walking down the street in anything from a ball gown to a thong. I glanced down to make sure I hadn’t left the house without pants. Nope. Jammies with black cats in sunglasses, just like I thought.
I stepped aside, waiting for my name to be called so I could get my food and go. A murmur seemed to be moving through the crowd. Everyone was on their phones, looking up at me and smirking.
Had I missed some major news story in my twelve hours offline?
I turned on my phone and watched as the screen lit up. I nearly dropped it when nonstop notifications made it sound like a pinball machine about to tilt. What the hell? How many messages had Drew left me?
As I watched the notices continue to load, my phone rang. My phone never rang. Nobody called anyone anymore. I was getting ready to reject the call, thinking it must be spam, when I saw the name. Audrey Shipley. That was funny. I’d been thinking of her when I’d put on my T-shirt—we’d gone to the concert together. That was the summer we’d become friends. Two culinary students on the loose in Boston. I hadn’t heard from her in weeks.
I clicked Answer. “Hey, how’s my favorite new mommy?”
“Oh my god, Phoebe. Thank god. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Except for the whole no job, no apartment, no life, and everyone-staring-at-me-for-no-reason thing, I was aces.
“Um…okay. Good. No, that’s great. You’ve got the right attitude. Just ignore this. It’ll all blow over and everyone will be on to the next drama in no time.”
The bell at the deli counter dinged. “Bacon, egg, and cheese and a coffee light and sweet for Phoebe.”
As I reached up to grab the white paper bag and cup, the guy leaning on the counter looked me right in the eye with a smirk. “Ay, meat girl, what? You didn’t have enough steak last night? You need more meat?”
“Excuse me?” I stepped back, and knocked into another customer who was already chuckling.
“I got some meat for you, if you need more.”
His buddy jumped in. “Your boyfriend’s a real gavone. You can do better, sweetheart.”
How do these assholes know about my steak and my boyfriend? I wasn’t quick to panic but my fight-or-flight mechanism had me on high alert. What the fuck was going on here?
“Phoebe.” Audrey’s voice brought me back to my senses. I clutched the phone to my ear and got out of the deli as quickly as possible, but more comments followed as I made my way down the street. And people were… Were they taking pictures of me? “Phoebe, where are you? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I’m just getting a fucking breakfast sandwich and everyone’s calling me meat girl.”
“Sweetie, have you been on social media?”
“No.”
“Oh, Phoebs. Go straight home.”
“What? Why?”
“Hey, it’s meat girl!”
What. The. Fuck. People were pulling out their phones and following me. I walked faster. “Audrey, this is freaking me out. What’s going on?”
“Sweetie, you’re a meme.”
I almost dropped the phone. “I’m what?”
“Last night at the restaurant some woman live-tweeted your entire conversation with Drew, complete with photos. The one of you walking out with that steak has gone viral.”
“Oh my god.” That explained everything, but it was the most nightmarish explanation I’d ever heard in my entire life.
“How far are you from your apartment?”
“Half a block.”
“Good. Just get inside.”
“Why are they calling me meat girl?”
“That’s one of the more popular captions.”
“Do I even want to know what the others are?”
“No.”
Oh my god.
* * *
I didn’t even remember getting up to my apartment. My hands shook so much it was surprising I’d managed to unlock the front door. They shook more as I scrolled Twitter. “Meat girl” was the tip of the iceberg. They’d found my name and my account.
Phoebe Antoinette Let Them Eat Meat!
I’ve got a bone to pick with you!
Grab your meat!
Fisting the bone!
Where’s the beef?
Oh, come on, now…
My notifications were dinging nonstop, and I made the mistake of checking them.
Now in addition to the horrifying images of me wielding a Tomahawk steak like a maniacal cavewoman there were pics of me in my ratty pajamas and glasses, with my hair in a messy top-knot and no makeup.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
The sound of a baby crying startled me, and then I remembered Audrey was still on my phone waiting for me to regain my power of speech.
“Aud?”
“I’m here. Two secs. Let me get the baby on my boob.”
I paced the length of the apartment. The apartment I said I’d be out of today. Shit. “I can’t believe this is happening. I told Drew I’d have my stuff cleared out by this afternoon. I don’t even want to set foot outside.”
“Tell him you need another few days.”
I scrolled through more photos, my stomach turning over with each new caption. “How the hell am I going to find a job? Who’s going to hire the crazy meme woman?”
“Well, actually…”
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