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I WALTZ INTO MY coffee shop in the clouds and he’s already there, wiping down the counter with a damp rag. Everything goes soft and out-of-focus fuzzy, black and white like an old film. A dark vignette fades out all the people in the room but one, who seems to glow at the edges. He looks up at me, flashing a radiant smile he never shares with anyone else.
Today, Jack isn’t a prince. He’s a barista. We’ve enjoyed a will-they-won’t-they dynamic for ages, but we’ve reached my favorite part of the love story: the sexual tension is at its peak and we’ve got nowhere to go but over the edge in a sensual, tour de force declaration of love. We know each other inside out by now. We trust each other and accept each other’s flaws. I know he’ll never hurt me, because in Maybell’s Coffee Shop AU, hurting me is impossible without my say-so.
“Maybell,” he says breathlessly, rushing over. “I can’t hold it in anymore. The past few months have been unspeakable torture, and if I don’t tell you how I really feel I will fall down dead right here and now.”
“Jack!” I exclaim. “Whatever is the matter?”
He takes my hands in his. “When I look at you, I can’t think straight. Aphrodite who? You are the goddess of beauty. Your mind is a splendor. It’s impressive how you can do any calculation inside your head, like if I asked what fourteen thousand two hundred and eighty-seven times twenty thousand five hundred and forty-one is, you’d know the answer like that.” He snaps his fingers.
“The answer is [redacted],” I reply humbly. “But I don’t like to think of myself as smart. I’m just your average girl.”
“There’s nothing average about you, Maybell,” he goes on, gaze yearning. He sweeps me off my feet, holding me princess-style in his arms. “You’re compassionate and genuine and popular, all eyes on you every time you walk into a room. And your eyes! Incomparable. They’re the prettiest blue, like the water in Sandals Resorts commercials. I hope I’m not gushing too much. But my heart can’t take it any longer—I have to know how you feel about me.”
“This is all so . . . unexpected.” I am positively faint. To think I’ve been so consumed with my busy, successful café—the most successful café in this entire vague area, in fact—that I’ve hardly noticed what’s been brewing between us, right under my nose. Or maybe I’ve been secretly pining. I haven’t finalized the trope just yet.
“I love you, Jack McBride,” I reply solemnly. “And I am ready to bear your children.”
Everyone claps. I notice my parents in one of the booths, proud as can be. They’re in matching white leather jackets that say world tour on the back in rhinestones, and my mother (who’s also my best friend) is beaming with happiness. She has everything she’s ever wanted; she has only ever wanted the same happiness for me.
Color bleeds back into the scene, and for the first time, I realize we’re standing in red rose petals that take the shape of a heart. Candlelight dazzles off every surface. Jack’s reached a level of hotness so severe that I have to shade my eyes, as his hair is dripping wet for some reason and he’s wearing a loose white cotton shirt with buttons that come progressively more undone every time I look away. He grins seductively. “Well, what are we waiting—”
BEEEEEEEEEEP. BEEEEEEEEEEP. BEEEEEEEEEP. BEEEEEEEEP.
The café disintegrates. I spring out of my bed in the real world so fast that my foot gets caught in the quilt and I bang my elbow on the nightstand. “What the hell!”
The obnoxious beeping noise is coming from right outside the cabin, stopping when I throw open the front door. A bunch of men have marred my view of the lovely Smoky Mountains with two monstrously large containers that are about forty yards long each, sides emblazoned with walland dumpster rental & waste services. It’s eight a.m. I’ve been lying in bed awake and daydreaming since a quarter past seven, so I’m still in my pajamas, barefoot in the rain-soaked yard.
Wesley Koehler, mirror image of the starry-eyed barista I’ve unfortunately been forced to abandon, trots out of the house with a busted cabinet on his shoulders. I watch him balance the cabinet with one arm so he can free the other, shake hands with the guys, and throw it into one of the trucks as easily as if it were a loaf of bread. Wood splinters apart on impact. A small mushroom cloud of dust billows into the atmosphere.
“Hey!”
The dumpster-rental guys wave at me and climb into their vehicles, which look like the front parts of semitrucks but without the trailers, and peel out.
Wesley doesn’t wave. He glances at me, then dismissively away, heading right back into the house. He emerges with one of the trash bags from the grand staircase, giving it a heartless toss. I hear glass breaking.
“Hey!” I roar again. “Now, wait just a minute!” I hurry into the cabin to forage for my shoes, discovering one in the living room and the other under my bed. No time for socks.
“Hold up!” I flag Wesley down, but he doesn’t stop to listen. Just keeps carrying stuff out of Violet’s house and throwing it in the dumpster. “Did you go through that first?” I inquire as he tosses another garbage bag.
He looks at me like I’ve unzipped my skin and shown him my skeleton. “Did I stick my hands in Violet’s garbage? No. Why would I?”
“You don’t know if that was trash!”
“Certainly smelled like it.”
“Violet’s dying wishes,” I press urgently, following him into the house. “Didn’t you read them? She wants us to inspect everything very, very carefully before throwing it out or donating or whatever. Extraordinarily carefully.”
“Violet,” he replies through gritted teeth, picking up a rust-eaten Weber grill, “liked to be difficult.” The grill becomes smithereens.
“Okay, but—”
He walks away. Nostrils flaring, I hurry to catch up again. “I think we should honor her wishes and make sure there isn’t anything valuable in these bags before we throw them out.”
He gestures to the dumpster. “Be my guest.”
When he comes and goes again, this time with an armful of clothes, I find my voice. The one I don’t usually use because no one ever listens to it, or if they do, they laugh at me.
“I want to look through that,” I declare firmly. “Can you stop for a minute? We need to discuss what we’re doing.” I can’t help tacking on a please. It’s why I’ll never get ahead in life: I undercut myself with too many pleases and submissive body language, my annoyingly timid Okay, I understand, forget I said anything, let me know how I can help that makes me mad at myself later.