It almost kills her. Every time.
Parker reassures her with her competence though. And it helps that Broughton Street where the bakery isn’t too far from Arden’s home with her husband Flash.
Arden leans down and places a kiss on Dahlia’s forehead. Coming around from behind the counter, I lean over and do the same. The little girl smiles up at us, tufts of white-blond hair sticking up on her head. Arden’s tamed one of them enough to be pulled into a big turquoise bow, and it matches the adorable romper Dahlia wears. She grabs hold of one of her bare feet, gripping it tightly with her tiny fist.
“Love you, baby girl,” Arden says. “See you soon.”
“See you later, ladies. Have a great day!” Parker waves at us as she pushes the stroller out the door.
“That baby sure is a cutie pie,” muses Mrs. Perkins. She slides off her stool. “Well, I gotta run, too. It’s Frida, and it’s my week to host Yahtzee for the girls. I got a lot to do today to get ready.”
I wave a hand at her. “You go on, girl.”
She winks at me. “This old bird’s still got some get up and go. First stop? Liquor store.”
Arden snorts, and I almost drop the mug I’ve gathered up to clear away. We both laugh as Mrs. Perkins heads out of the coffeeshop.
After refilling a few customers’ coffees from the tables around the shop, Arden settles in front of me with a coffee of her own. “You’re coming out tomorrow night, right? My parents will be here this afternoon, so they’re going to watch Dahlia so Flash and I can have a night out.”
I pin her with a skeptical stare. “You haven’t had a night out with Flash since Dahlia was born. Don’t you want it to be just the two of you?”
Arden gives an emphatic shake of her head. “We’ll have a private dinner together. Then you and Axel will meet us for drinks and dancing. Don’t mess with the plan, Brantley. We’ve already perfected the plan!”
A weary sigh escapes me. “This plan is perfect according to who? Why does it always have to be just me and Axel? That makes it feel like a double date.”
And Axel and I are definitely not a couple.
I’ve held off for a year from becoming romantic with Flash’s very attractive, very single younger brother Axel. To me, he’s like a delicious piece of forbidden fruit. He’s made it known that he could be persuaded to be more than just friends, but I know damn well what a bad idea that would be. Axel is Flash’s brother, and Arden is my best friend. If he and I were to date and it go south, it would be the most awkward situation known to man. I’d have to be around him all the time, and it would be worse than it already is.
I’m just not going there.
No matter how deliciously handsome he is.
“Can’t we invite more people to make it more of an outing than a double date?” I encourage Arden.
She frowns. “Like who?”
Thinking, I ring up a customer who’s ordered a vanilla latte. “Like we could ask Parker if she’d like to come. She seems like she’d be a good time.”
Arden nods. She heads toward the back of the shop, where her art studio is housed. She’ll most likely disappear back there for a couple of hours, making pottery to sell in the shop and display in our many niches and crannies around the space. “I’ll ask Flash if there’s anyone at the office he wants to invite.”
I turn away to begin making the latte, but not before I throw her a satisfied smile. “In that case, count me in for tomorrow night. I’ll be the one wearing something sexy.”
Arden giggles. “I’ll be the one acting like a brand new mom who hasn’t seen the light of day in months. Oh, wait...”
Laughing, I watch her disappear into her workshop.
When I close the coffee shop at seven, I’m able to walk from the shop to my house on Birch Street. I always enjoy the ten-minute walk, with the exception of ninety-degree summer days. Then, I drive. But tonight, autumn is just setting on the city of Savannah, and for us that means nights fragrant with sweet, crisp air and the old-fashioned lamp lights glowing along the brick sidewalks. Spanish moss drips overhead, weeping its grief over the summer’s end.
I live in a small cottage, set back from the street along a narrow, barely used lane. There’s just one other home at the end of it, and it belongs to a man I consider to be kind of a hermit. I almost never see him. My cottage pulls a smile to my lips every time I walk up to it, because it’s every dream I had when Arden and I moved to Savannah. She and Trenton purchased a giant house in a suburban neighborhood, living their own dream. But this is where I wanted to be: close to the shop, in the heart of the city I dreamed about so much growing up.
As a teenager, I read a book set in Savannah. And even though I’d never visited the city myself, never having traveled outside of Palm Beach County, Florida, I knew it was a place I wanted to visit. Full of history and old beauty and magic. It was still by the water, which is in my blood, and Arden readily agreed to attend college in the city with me when we graduated from high school.
I rented an apartment in the historic district after we graduated, and I bought my cottage a few years later. I pause in the lane beside my little mailbox, gazing at my house. It’s small and white, with two windows framing either side of the cheerful blue front door. Flower boxes rest under both windows, full of sunny yellow daffodils and spilling creeping jenny. The deep front porch has been painted gray, and two white rockers sit, waiting for someone to fill them. It’s the perfect place to sit and sip sweet tea on a hot day or wrap in an afghan and drink cider on a chilly one.
After grabbing the mail, I let myself into the front door and lean against it, sighing deeply.
It isn’t a home. A home needs a family. And that’s something I’ve given up hope of ever having.
But it’s pretty damn close.
2
Axel
I knock back another sip of Maker’s Mark, letting the bourbon slide down my throat. It burns all the way down, but I like that. The burn feels good; it reminds me that I’m alive.
I’ve had trouble with that lately. Finding a reason.
It’s not like I’m depressed, or suicidal. I don’t feel either of those demons breathing down my neck. I just feel…aimless. Like I’m drifting in my life, and I don’t know how to anchor.
I’m a fixer. Always have been.
“The fuck are you thinking so hard about?” My brother, Flash, reaches me from somewhere far away and burrows into my thoughts, pulling me out.
“How the hell do you do that?” I snap, irritation swirling.
Because, damn. Flash shouldn’t be able to tell that I’m thinking. He should assume that I’m just sitting in this booth, sipping my bourbon. Because he’s blind. He can’t read my expression or see that I’m caught up in my own head.
He reaches out, catching me in the back of my closely-shaved head. “I know you. I’m your brother. Why are you brooding? It doesn’t suit you.”
He’s right. He’s the broody one. I’m the jovial brother, the one with all the quips and the comebacks. Our mother used to call me her little whip, because I was so quick on the uptake.