Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Cassie

Ringing up the woman’s kombucha made me think of Parker. But I’d been spending a lot of time thinking of Parker lately.

“Have the best morning ever, okay, Jessica?” I said. Jessica, the middle-aged lady with great taste in scarfs, just gave me a tired smile before she took her kombucha and left, leaving me with the last person in line—Sasha, who I still had about a million questions for after running into her at the lesbian bar.

“Hey, Sash,” I said. “Um… nice seeing you again. What can I get you?”

She gave me a secretive smile, a kind of knowing smirk. I wondered if Parker was right. Was she… actually hitting on me? There was no way.

It should have made my heart pound. Sasha was gorgeous. And I’d never had a girl, well… hit on me before. But instead, I just found myself wondering if I’d done something right to make her interested, and how I could do that with Parker too.

“Hey, Cassie,” she said, leaning against the counter. Her voice was deeper than usual, a little more clipped at the ends. How she normally talked, apparently. Seemed like the whole chipper-straight-girl thing was just a show for Insta. “Let’s make it a dark mocha today.”

“You got it. Large for you again?”

“Yep.” She shifted against the counter. “So, uh… you and Parker, huh?”

I looked up sharply, a pink flush creeping across my cheeks. “You know her?”

“She’s a regular there. Really regular. If a little irregular herself.” She gave me an odd smile. “I have to say, I wouldn’t have thought the two of you…”

“Oh—” I felt my face go thermonuclear. “Oh, wow. Uh… no, nothing like—we’re not a couple,” I said, words suddenly feeling strange and squishy and hard to put together. She raised a dark eyebrow.

“Ah… someone’s got a crush, though.”

I cleared my throat. “No, no. Just, uh… so… we’re kind of roommates.”

She stopped. “Wait.”

“Yeah. Took your advice. I found a roomie.”

“You and… Parker?” She squinted. “The scruffy girl who invented the deadpan snark?”

“I went over to her place yesterday evening and absolutely fell in love. With the place, I mean. It’s gorgeous. My followers will love it. We signed the contracts and I’m moving my stuff in tonight.”

She shook her head, watching me as I stepped over to the espresso bar and tugged the milk from the mini fridge below the counter. “I cannot believe she’s actually letting an Instagram influencer live in her apartment. Does she know you’re turning it into a photography studio for your Instagram page?”

“I’m not going to take over her whole space,” I laughed. “And I’m sure she knows. I’ve mentioned taking pictures for Instagram and stuff.”

“Cassie, there’s kind of a difference between taking pictures for Instagram and being an influencer.”

“It’s really just the same thing, I think.”

“Right…” She put her hands up as I started the milk steaming, tilting it to aerate the milk with a hiss and dropping it down to steam, and she looked around the café. Hummingbird was usually busy in the morning, but with Christmas Eve tomorrow, people were probably sleeping in.

The early morning air in here smelled sweet, the first flush of morning sunlight spilling in through the windows, a faint orange glow over the wood tables.

The morning was when sourdough croissants came out of the oven, baked fresh for every day, and words could not express how much I loved that smell. I was living for the day Instagram added a way to upload smells, so my followers could really fall in love with this place.

“Well,” she said, finally, once I finished steaming the milk and wiped down the steam wand, “I hope it goes well. But I don’t know how you could live with Parker.”

I pouted. “She’s really sweet. Just… unusual.”

She raised an eyebrow, watching me as I poured the milk into the coffee, pouring out a rosetta and handing it over. “You do have a crush on her, though, don’t you?”

I almost spilled the coffee all over the rough wood of the handoff plane. “Uh—no,” I said, feeling the heat in my face betray me. “It’s not like that. I just… uh… think she’s cool.”

She snorted. “Here I’d had you completely placed as the straightest of straight girls, and it turns out you’re rooming with your hopeless lesbian crush.”

“Oh my god. It’s just a little crush. She’s cute, that’s all. Here’s your drink.”

She shook her head, smiling to herself as she took the drink. “Dear, sweet precious Cassie. I feel like there’s a bond between us now that we know one another’s dirty little secrets.”

I looked away, chewing my cheek. “It’s not dirty.”

“I don’t see you posting about it any more than I post about it.”

I cleared my throat. “I just have a… personal brand, and it’s… you know.”

“Heterosexual.”

“Same as you.” I sighed, slumping back against the counter. “Look, I tried really hard to be straight, okay?”

“Well, I can see why you turned down every single one of those guys I introduced you to. I thought you just had high standards, but now I see you like Parker, so clearly standards are—”

“Don’t you dare insult her,” I said, snapping a cloth at her with a smile to myself. “I’m sure it’ll go away once I’ve been living with her, you know? I’ve just been starry-eyed over actually having a queer girl around me, so it’s only natural I’d have a crush on her. I’ll visit Strawberry some more, meet more gay girls, and I’m sure I’ll get used to the whole thing.”

“Makes sense. You should ask Parker for some guidance.”

“Huh?” My thoughts went off the rails. “What, lesbian guidance?”

“Sure,” she laughed. “Just ask her to take you to Strawberry. You’ll get some introductions, learn the etiquette, and Parker will probably like you better if you do.”

That last part was all she needed to say. Did I really have it that bad for Parker? At what point did a crush go away? I swallowed hard. “Yeah… maybe.”

“Well, guess I’ll see you around there, huh?” She tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “If you weren’t so clearly carrying the torch for Parker, I’d buy you a drink.”

I blinked. “I… what?”

She gave me a coy smirk. “I’m just saying. Don’t underestimate your value on the market out there. You’re a catch.”

“Uh…” My thoughts were fuzzy. Maybe Parker was right.

Okay, there was no maybe about it. She was being pretty clear. Parker would probably tell me she was still hitting on me, and inviting me to take her up on it anyway, say something like consider that torch dropped like it’s hot, you’re on, just name a time and date.

And I could have. My heart hammered at the thought. This was a girl—and no matter how you looked at it, an incredibly beautiful, fashionable, and charming one—flirting with me.

But… well, she wasn’t Parker.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, looking down, a flush in my cheeks. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Her shoulders dropped just a little. Looked like I’d been right on the mark. It was still a proposition. Should I have regretted passing up on it?

“I’ll introduce you to some people, I think,” she said, waving me off as she turned back for the door. “I know my way around the scene. I’ve sort of been around the block. Catch you there, Cassie.”

“Yeah… catch you,” I said, wincing to myself as she stepped out through the door. “Smooth, Cassie,” I mumbled.

I didn’t get time to ruminate on how bad I was with girls, though, because that was when the doorbell jingled, someone stomping inside. I turned with my brightest smile, and it fell like a bird soaring into a window when I saw Gary Founders coming inside, looking around the place and not even bothering to scrape the snow off his boots, tracking it across the floor.

I wondered if I could hide in the storeroom, pretend no one was in. But it was a little late for that, because Gary locked eyes with me and gave me an awful smile, and I froze up.

“Hi… welcome to Hummingbird,” I said, just an automatic reflex, not even hearing myself.

Gary didn’t respond, heading straight for me, and I was frozen—my limbs just refused to respond, and I couldn’t breathe right, either. He looked as awful as ever, with a patchy stubble and beady little eyes, the color of pea soup gone rancid. The expensive suit was the only thing about him that looked good, and even then, the shirt he wore under it was worn and trashy.

“Well,” he crooned, leaning over the espresso bar towards me, looking me over. “If it isn’t sweet little Cassie Peterson. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

I swallowed. I wish it had been longer. “It… has, yeah.”

I kicked myself. What was with that pitiful response?

He let out a bark of laughter. “What’s this charming little place now? I can’t believe a star celeb like you is working at a café. It makes me so happy to see people who don’t let fame get to their heads.”

Ugh, to think I’d been suckered in by that kind of talk once. How had I been that easy? I wanted to go back in time and kick my younger self in the shins, shake her by the collar, and also yell at her that she was gay, dammit.

“Just—a regular latte, extra-hot, right?” I started the drink, hiding my hands shaking behind the bar.

“Hey, give me a second,” Gary said, reaching out for me. Thankfully, the bar was wide, and I stooped for milk at the same time, so he fell short, just resting his hand on the espresso machine instead. “I’ve been following your page. You’ve been doing pretty well for yourself.”

I chewed my cheek, looking down at the floor. Inwardly, I shouted at myself, look him in the eye, tell him off squarely, but I found I wasn’t listening. “Thank you,” I said, and I wanted to kick myself for it.

“You know, I think we could actually organize something amazing together. My new company Morning Magic has been partnering with lots of hip, trendy cafés like this one, and we’ve been building our brand out with the latest in Port Andrea’s influential people. I think it’d be amazing if you signed up again.”

Everything he said stank like old garbage, but that last word, again, was the absolute worst. It made me gag. I don’t want to work with you again. You’re a creep and you took advantage of me. Things anyone more put together than me would say. “I’ll give it some thought,” I mumbled, still too useless to actually look directly at him.

“I’ll be back around,” he said, and bile rose in my throat. I made his drink—the regular drink I knew by heart, having listened to him place the damn order so many times while I was there trapped in his orbit. “I can’t wait to work with you again.”

I hadn’t said yes. I wouldn’t say yes. Why did he always just assume the answer was yes?

I didn’t even charge him. I didn’t want this to go a second longer than it had to. I didn’t even think of it. I just handed over his drink and I mumbled something about having a nice day, and he took it without hesitating, like it was normal to get his drink for free.

“I’ll see you again soon, Cassie,” he said, and the thing that left me shaking the most when he lidded up the drink and turned away was that he hadn’t even said thank you at all.

I pushed through the swing door into the backroom full of the smell of freshly-baked pastry, and I collapsed onto a stack of boxes, clutching at my knees and breathing hard. It was quiet all through the store, nobody here right now but me, and the silence just left my head ringing.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was never supposed to be in Port Andrea. Was he doing his little business thing here too?

I rubbed my forehead, swiping open my phone and navigating with shaky fingers, through to my gallery of motivational quotes. I just needed a thought to stick into my head, anything other than the endless looping panic.

You don’t need to run the race. You just need to take the next step forward.

I’d picked it at random from my gallery, but it was something, flowy cursive text on a background of running shoes hitting a trail. I squeezed my eyes shut and repeated the words like a mantra.

You just need to take the next step forward.

I wondered how many times I had to tell myself that.