Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Cassie

“It’s beautiful,” I said, setting down the latte and grabbing my phone from my back pocket. “I did amazing.”

“We love someone who’s not afraid to toot her own horn,” Josiah said from behind me, wiping down the front counter now that the rush was done.

Hummingbird was the absolute cutest café, a tiny place jam-packed with sprawling greenery and hanging fern baskets. The long leaves and vines draped down over wood slat tables, cast in the bright glow of the winter sunlight through the windows at the front, where people in heavy coats and boots streamed along the walkway over Culver Square. The whole place smelled like new wood and light-roast coffee all the time, and someone—that’d be me—had just poured an amazing tulip latte art she was taking a picture of.

“Is that mine?” the customer said, leaning over the counter and looking at it, and I beamed at her.

“Yeah,” I said. “One second. I’m taking a picture of it.”

I set it squarely in the middle of the handoff plane and snapped a picture from directly above, and I stopped to check the picture first. After review, I shifted some things around and laid down one of the lavender sprigs from the bundle next to me, and I set a package of madeleines down too, and then I snapped the picture, checking to make sure it looked perfect in my favorite filter for coffee pics before I slid the coffee over to the customer.

“Here you go,” I said. “Thank you so much! I hope you have the most amazing day anyone’s ever had.”

She barely even listened to me, just snatching the cup and putting a lid on, and she left without so much as a thank-you. I winced when she snatched it, and I went resignedly back to cleaning down the espresso machine.

“Oh, rude,” Sasha said, stepping up to the front register, and I looked up across the counter at her, giving her a what-can-you-do shrug.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be wasting time taking pictures of everything. I’m just on edge lately. What can I get you, Sash?”

Sasha was a pretty girl who worked not far down Crystal Road from here, but that wasn’t how we’d met. She was another Port Andrea lifestyle girl on Instagram, up to her ears in fashion, and it showed with her striking look: pink hair with dark roots grown out, cherry-red lipstick, and dressed head-to-toe in Agape, one of the most urban-chic designers currently hot in Port Andrea. The oversized red sweater tucked into slim jeans look she had on was perfectly on-trend right now, and the rips in her jeans with red fishnets underneath just added a pop of personal flair.

We both had plenty of following, but she still worked in a café, just to keep her feet on the ground, she’d always said, and she’d convinced me to do the same. Working at Hummingbird kept me feeling human, and after a week of Instagram drama with the other girls, a weekend here was what I needed, so I owed her for putting in a good word with the owner here.

Unfortunately for me? She would not stop talking about boys. I’d never actually seen her with a boyfriend, but she was nonstop asking after me and trying to get me hooked up with someone. I’d been avoiding the fact that I was maybe gay—not really much of a maybe at this point—by just always being too busy to date boys, but when Sasha foisted them on me, I couldn’t really help the fact that I was just not attracted.

“Oh, I’m just here to snag a croissant.” She leaned against the counter, giving me a big smile. Hypothetically, we should have been best friends. We hung out at each other’s cafés all the time, we went around Port Andrea together. “What’s got you on edge, Cassie?”

I rung her up and spoke without looking up. “Apartment searching in Port Andrea is like pulling teeth and putting them back in, backwards.”

She winced. “You could try getting a roommate? I roomed with Kali for half a year and we got an amazing apartment, and we had so much fun.”

We should have been best friends. Everything just felt so… artificial. Was it because we spent so much time talking about boys, when I was increasingly sure I was… well, that I didn’t do all that kind of thing?

“I don’t know where to start. I’ve looked at all the roommate-finder websites and there’s nothing. Some creepy guys like looking for a really young girl willing to wear no pants around the house for no rent, and then one or two old women like you can live in my basement where I keep the litter boxes for my thirty-two cats.”

“You can just ask on your page! A million and one people would be so excited to have Cassie Peterson herself.”

I chewed my cheek, handing over her croissant and the receipt. “That’s some weird personal boundaries stuff…”

Sasha straightened when the doorbell jingled, and I put on my best smile as I turned to the door, and—my heart jumped into my throat when I saw Parker stepping inside, kicking the snow off her boots. The taller woman, the blonde butch lesbian I’d seen with Parker enough times to know her name was Athena, came walking in behind her talking as Parker just nodded like she was only half listening, and I caught myself staring.

Parker was a short girl, pale blonde hair in wild curls everywhere and big glasses, and her slight stature only seemed smaller with the way she wore a jacket maybe three sizes too big.

And for my part? I needed to get it together, because if Sasha saw me staring at Parker like this, mouth suddenly dry and forgetting how to breathe, she’d probably figure out I wasn’t nearly as straight as I pretended.

Parker was in here every week—her company handled maintenance, curation and distribution for espresso machines, and our custom design needed constant check-ins. Which just served as a weekly reminder that, no matter how hard I tried to be straight, it was useless.

And the cherry on top was that she was, I was positive, spoken for. Why else would she be bringing in a tall, attractive butch lesbian half the time?

“Well, thanks, Sash. I’ll give it another look.” I leaned past her and put on my biggest smile. “Hey, Parker. Hi, Athena. Welcome back to Hummingbird.”

Sasha gave me a quick wave and a promise to see me later as she slipped back towards the door, bagged croissant in hand, and left me to the useless fluttering feelings as Parker stepped up to the counter.

“Hey, Cass,” she said, her voice that small, almost deadpan thing that was cuter than it had any right being. I didn’t do Cass as a name normally, but Parker could have called me dingbat and I would have cherished the nickname. I may have had a crush. “You haven’t been bothering your customers by smiling too much again today, have you?”

I put on my tightest frown. “Oh, no,” I said. “I’ve been very dour, very miserable, all day long. Look at me pout.”

She only flashed a quick, tired smile at me, and for a second it felt like a rejection before I saw the little crease on her forehead she almost never had. Parker was one of the lowest-stress people I knew. I think that was why I liked her so much. I wondered if she and Athena had been fighting.

“I could not be more convinced,” she said. “Who’s on management today?”

“Josiah. He’s in the back, ready whenever you want to meet him. What do you want to drink today, Parker?” I said, and she waved me off.

“Nothing fancy. Let’s just do a lavender white mocha with whole milk steamed to one forty, medium with three shots of ristretto, and a gingerbread cookie.”

I faltered. “Uh, that’s… fancy, Parker. I’ll make it for you, but you know that’s fancy, right?”

She smiled, but it was more of a smile to herself. “Thanks, Cass. See you again after my meeting with Jo.”

“She always does that,” Athena said, once Parker disappeared into the back. I looked her over, wearing a pea coat over a button-down with a bowtie, but she was staring after Parker. Longingly waiting for her beautiful girlfriend to come back, I could only imagine.

“What, go into the back?”

Athena laughed, looking back at me. “That too, I guess. What I mean is order ridiculous things like it’s the most normal thing in the world, because I guess ridiculous things are always normal when your name is Parker Ferris.”

When your name was Parker Ferris, you were perfect. I shook it off. “She’s charming.”

Athena made a face. “You’d be the only one who thinks that.”

I laughed nervously, keeping the questions to myself of what on earth kind of relationship they had. “What can I get you? Josiah will get on my back if I make you a free drink, too, but I’ll give you the friends and family discount, since Parker practically works here.”

“That’s the one benefit of having her around, I guess,” Athena said, thrusting her hands into her pockets. “How about the dirty chai? You said your chai here was good, right? I’ll bring it back home and make Jen angry about it.”

Now I wondered if Athena had multiple girlfriends she got angry with. I felt bad for Parker being stuck in that. “You got it,” I said.

“How are you doing, Cassie? This place is so charming, I love it.”

“Isn’t it? It has the perfect aesthetic.” I laughed, tossing all my loose, blonde hair back over the ruffled shoulders of my blouse, because ruffled shoulders were so in right now. “I’m all right. I’ve been apartment searching…” I paused. “Hey, you look like you know this kind of thing. How do you find a roommate?”

She cocked her head. “That depends. Are you looking to fill a space, or get into someone else’s space?”

“My apartment lease ends soon, and I really want to move into someplace bigger, but I’d need to move into a place with someone…”

She broke out into a big grin. “Luck of the draw. Parker’s looking to fill an empty bedroom in her place right now.”

Ah, sweet mother in heaven. My heart turned into a flock of doves and flew away, leaving me for dead on the spot.

Parker? I’d die if I roomed with her. But I was lying if I said I didn’t want to.

“Is she really?” I said, a second later, a diplomatic response. Athena nodded.

“Yeah, thanks to yours truly. I just moved out of her second bedroom to go live with my girlfriend, and she’s been frantic about trying to fill it and she won’t tell me why. No surprise. I roomed with her for almost half a year and hardly learned anything about her.”

Oh. Roommates. Not girlfriends. And not roommates anymore. Either way, did that imply Parker was single?

She couldn’t have been. She was too cute to not have another girl snatch her up. Not to mention the fact that she was funny and charming and had that dry sense of humor but paid attention better than you’d think, and she’d remember every little thing you told her like you were just the most important thing to her. She was everywhere around Port Andrea. There was a zero percent chance she was single, and that was a relief, because otherwise I didn’t know how I’d room with her.

“You’re kidding,” I said. “That’s almost too convenient. What’s the catch?”

She made a face, looking after the back. “Well… for one, you’d be living with Parker.”

“I adore Parker. She’s so funny.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Well, she sure thinks she is. But if you want to really catch her interest, you should meet her at Strawberry Lounge.”

I blinked. “The… lesbian bar? On Queen’s Street?”

“The one and only,” Athena said, voice dry. “She’s been looking for a roommate there, because that’s where she met me. But I think it’s really just because she wants to get Kinsley’s number.”

I had never been so jealous of someone I hadn’t met before. I put on a smile. “Um… some kind of crush of hers?”

“The bartender who’s twice her age and married,” she sighed. “Apparently, it’s an open marriage, and Parker wants in.”

I’d only barely begun to accept that I liked girls—and harder to accept, that I didn’t like boys. Heading to a lesbian bar to stage a meeting with a girl I had a crush on to try moving in with her, while she was there trying to get the number from a married bartender twice her age? That was levels too high for my baby-gay self.

But it wasn’t like I wasn’t curious about all of that—about life as a lesbian, just going down to Strawberry Lounge to meet other girls who liked girls. Flirting with other women like it was normal, maybe even going home with one of them.

The problem was, I had an image to maintain. My Instagram lifestyle was where most of my income came from, and with the whole polished good-girl look I had going on… well, it was kind of heterosexual, and I wasn’t about to throw Bad Cassie into the mix by partying it up at the lounge with a bunch of lesbians, going home for the night with a girl I didn’t know.

But they didn’t need to know. And if what Athena was saying was true, then Parker knew how to keep a secret.

My heart thumped at the idea—exploring this side of me I’d been hiding from for so long. And doing it in secret, somewhere far away from the watchful eyes of my Instagram following?

It was way too dangerous to be sensible.

“Maybe,” I said. “We’ll see. I mean, kind of weird for a straight girl to go to the lesbian bar, right?”

Athena shrugged. “Sometimes a girl just wants to go to a bar and get a drink without guys hitting on her. Just don’t be surprised if girls hit on you instead.”

I wondered if Parker would. I suppressed a smile. “Well, if it might get me a bigger place with a roommate… is it a pretty place? I do lots of photography.”

“Oh, it’s gorgeous. It’s over on Amity Street.”

My followers would love Amity Street. I bit down a smile. “Yeah, maybe,” I said. “All right. I’ll bring this drink to Parker and be right back to make yours.”

God, what an awful idea. My current place was fine. I’d just renew the lease and stay there, and I’d work out over the next year how to get a bigger place.

I pushed open the swing door to the back, carrying the coffee and Parker’s gingerbread cookie.