Chapter Twenty-Three
THE SUPPER CLUB GUESTS cleared out, but Ana stayed behind the counter, cleaning the machine and returning the bar to the state in which she’d found it. In truth, she was avoiding the discussion that she knew was going to follow as soon as her friends got her alone.
But Rachel and Melody went back to the kitchen to clean up and wash dishes and get the bakery ready to open the next morning, so Ana came out to the table where Bryan was sorting the comment cards into six different piles.
“How are they?” Ana asked. “Judging from everyone’s reactions, I’m guessing overall positive?”
“For the most part.” Bryan looked up and smiled at her, and a little part of her annoyance melted. She slid into the seat across from him and pulled a stack of cards toward her. These were obviously the high-scoring ones of the drip batch, because almost all the circled numbers were fives.
“Six out of twelve said it was excellent. That has to make you feel good.”
“Yeah, but six out of twelve didn’t.” He pushed the other two piles toward her.
She picked up the first card. This person’s impression was lukewarm, but the last response clinched it: their favorite drink was an iced blended mocha. She flipped through the rest and saw a similar trend: Frappuccino, white chocolate mocha, dirty chai.
“This is totally fine,” she said. “That’s why I added the control question. The people who were iffy about it are the people who really don’t drink coffee so much as they drink sweet caffeinated drinks. If you serve them a cup of black coffee instead of a mocha, they’re not going to love it. Their taste buds are calibrated for the sugar.”
“I noticed that too,” Bryan said. “Similar trend with the cortado. It’s not a drink that non–coffee drinkers are going to be familiar with.”
“All this tells us is that you know your target market.” She reached across the table and squeezed his wrist. “This is encouraging, Bryan. We’re on the right track.”
His mouth tipped up at the corner. “Thanks to your foresight.”
Ana shrugged. “It’s my job. Trust me, I threw this together at the last minute. I hate to miss an opportunity to gather data.”
A clatter in the kitchen made them jerk their heads toward the swinging door, startled. Bryan folded his hands in front of him. “So, what do you want to do?”
“About what?”
“About them. Alex already knows. He saw me watching you and figured it out. He’s a mind reader.”
Ana sighed. “I know. I didn’t really think we’d be able to keep it quiet, but I was hoping . . . Anyway, I’ll tell them tonight. They’re not going to let me out of here without an interrogation.”
Bryan nodded thoughtfully. “Well, since we aren’t sneaking around anymore, how about having dinner with me next weekend?”
Ana blinked. “I can’t.”
He chewed his lip for a second, obviously turning something over in his mind. “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me, Ana?”
Ana’s jaw slackened. “No! Why would you ask me that?”
“You don’t want our friends to know and now you won’t go out on a date in public . . .”
“That’s not the reason!” The words spilled out of her in a rush. “I literally can’t. I’m going to California for my dad’s birthday next weekend. I’m leaving on Friday and I won’t be back until Sunday night.”
He laughed, relief threaded through the sound. “Oh. I thought . . .”
“No! Not it at all. I’d love to go to dinner. Wednesday maybe?”
“Good. Wednesday it is. I’ll close down early.” He rose from the table and gathered his cards. “I’m going to let you get to it and look over these at home. See you back at the roastery sometime this week?”
She nodded and got to her feet too. He gathered her to him and kissed her softly, tenderly. And despite the fact they were in public, that her friends could walk in at any moment, she wrapped her arms around his middle and kissed him back.
“See you soon, Ana.”
“See you.” She stood there, watching him walk out of the café, her heart feeling unexpectedly fluttery. Yes, they’d spent a few sweet hours kissing in secret, like forbidden first love, but this was the first time he’d kissed her in public. The first time he’d acted like her boyfriend.
“So . . .”
Ana spun and saw Rachel and Melody standing in the doorway, grins plastered on their faces. “Guys —”
“Is there something you’d like to tell us, Ana?”
Her face flamed with heat and she plopped back in her chair. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
Melody got there first, sliding into the seat across from her. “It is a huge deal. You and Bryan! Seriously, this has been so long in coming —”
“Mel,” Rachel said quietly, and Melody probably realized that she wasn’t helping matters. She shut her mouth and leaned back in her seat, but she was still grinning widely at Ana.
Rachel joined them, a tiny smile playing on her own lips. “When did all this happen?”
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” Melody burst out. “I can’t believe . . .”
Rachel silenced her with another look. “Is it serious?”
Ana shook her head. “No. I mean, not yet. I don’t know.”
Rachel thought for a long moment. “I know Bryan seems to be pretty tough and flippant, but he’s actually kind of a sensitive guy.”
“Are you really telling me not to break his heart right now?” Ana asked. “The guy who has had a string of women and barely avoids getting slugged in bars by ex-girlfriends’ brothers?”
“Oh, I haven’t heard this story,” Melody said. “Do tell.”
Rachel ignored her. “He doesn’t look at them like he looks at you. Like he always has. I’d venture to say he’s been waiting for you to turn his way since he met you, but you haven’t shown any interest. Just . . . be careful.”
“I’m always careful,” Ana said automatically.
“With him.” Now Rachel let herself smile. “I care about both of you. He’s like a brother to Alex, and you are practically my sister. I want both of you to be happy.”
Ana shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Why did the weight of this relationship —if you could even call it that —fall on her shoulders? “I expected you guys to have my back.”
“We do,” Melody said. “Always. It’s just different when we’re all friends.”
“And that’s exactly why I didn’t want anyone to know.” Ana shoved back her chair and began to collect her things. “We like each other. He kissed me. That’s all this is, guys. Don’t make it into something it’s not.” She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. “I’ve got to go.”
“Ana, we’re sorry,” Rachel called after her. “We didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Who’s upset?” Ana threw back. “Just . . . let us figure this out on our own, okay? If there is a relationship, it’s between me and him, not me and him and the rest of you.”
She didn’t wait to hear their response, just let herself out the café’s front door and crossed the street to where her SUV was parked. The cool air hit her face, dissipating some of the angry heat gathered there. She hauled herself into the car and slammed the door, then just sat there in the dark, breathing in and out. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to yell or cry, and she couldn’t figure out why either of those were options in the first place. She knew her friends meant well, so she had no reason to be angry . . . and the crying part was so out of character for her that she’d almost forgotten what it felt like.
And then she knew why the tears felt like an option. The look on Bryan’s face when he’d thought she was turning him down for dinner, coupled with Rachel’s warning, made her feel like a terrible person. She hadn’t meant to be abrupt, and she really didn’t want him to feel bad. She just wasn’t sure how to handle the situation.
She hadn’t had a real, legitimate relationship since she was eighteen, and that had ended in a total disaster that she was still living down.
Ana pulled out her phone, then composed and deleted messages to Bryan until she settled on
The bubbles started dancing, indicating his reply.
She pulled up the movie app on her phone and flipped through the late-night options, but everything was either too violent or too steamy.
Almost immediately, his response:
She laughed out loud at the reply. He was clever; she’d give him that. He might not know it, but she was making a statement —not to him, not to her friends, but to herself.
* * *
Ana’s stomach jumbled with nerves while she waited for Bryan to show up at her place. Which was silly, because women had guys over to their place all the time without anything happening. But those women weren’t her. As far as she knew, she’d never actually had a man in her apartment . . . well, ever.
Wow. That was kind of sad.
It was also understandable. She worked so much that she was rarely home, and when she dated a new guy, most of them never made it past the first date, much less the one-month, definitely-not-a-murderer threshold. But this was Bryan. She’d known him for two years. They were a part of each other’s solar system, not planets but satellites that circled around other bodies and managed to intersect once in a while. Which was maybe the nerdiest reference she could have possibly come up with.
She had herself thoroughly worked up by the time the knock came at her door, and she opened it with a nervous jitter in her middle.
“Hey.” He bent down to lightly kiss her hello, but that was it. He moved past her when she held the door open and lifted a paper bag. “I didn’t know what you had in mind, but in my opinion, you can’t do movie night without popcorn and candy.”
The nervousness vanished. It was so sweet and normal and silly that she couldn’t remember what seemed so daring about this invitation. “Of course you can’t. Microwave?”
He pretended to look shocked. “Never microwave.” He dug in the bag and pulled out a glass jar of popcorn. “This is fair trade, organic, grown on a fifth-generation family farm. And, I suspect, picked kernel by kernel by angels, considering what they charge for it. We can only make this the old-fashioned way.”
“I’ve got pots in the kitchen.” She gestured toward the space just to the left of the entryway. “You might be the first person besides me to ever use it.”
Bryan sobered as he looked around. “Wow. This is amazing, Ana. I had no idea.”
“Yeah, you really can’t tell from the outside. But it has a great view too.” She swept a hand toward the windows, to where downtown was spread out before them in a sparkling carpet of lights.
“Why didn’t you host when Rachel needed a place for the supper club? This is every bit as nice as Alex’s place.”
A niggling bubble of guilt surfaced. She’d considered it, of course, but the idea of having a lot of people in her private space, strangers traipsing through her sanctuary, had been enough to give her a panic attack. “With my job, I don’t like anyone knowing where I live. I’m repairing the reputations of people who sometimes don’t deserve to have them repaired. And there are those who are pretty unhappy about it.”
Bryan looked at her closely, real concern etching his face. “Have you ever been threatened?”
“Not with anything more than nasty letters and phone calls to my office, fortunately. Occupational hazard.”
She went to one of the cabinets and pulled down a large stainless-steel pot, set it on the commercial-style range, then searched in another cabinet for a big jar of coconut oil. “I’m assuming we need butter too?”
“You assumed right. Got a measuring cup and spoon?”
She found one for him, and Bryan scooped coconut oil into the heating pan, then dropped a couple of kernels into it and shut the lid. “Test kernels. When they pop, we know the oil is hot enough.”
“Interesting.” She cocked a hip against the counter. “Do you know how to cook anything else?”
“Nope. Pretty much popcorn and coffee are the extent of my culinary skills. Though I do make a fantastic turkey sandwich, if that counts.”
“Kind of.” She smiled as she watched him measure the kernels. What was it that drew her to him? He was the exact opposite of anyone she’d thought she might want. He was good-looking, yes, in a boy-next-door-meets-surfer sort of way. He had a body carved from rock —she could have figured that much from having her arms around him, even without having surreptitiously checked out his magazine spreads and videos online. That would probably be enough for some women, but good-looking, well-built guys were a dime a dozen, whether in Los Angeles or Denver.
The first kernels popped and he lifted the lid to dump in the rest, then shook the pan, she assumed to coat them with oil. He looked completely at home in her expensive kitchen in his T-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops, his attention focused on what was going on inside the pot.
No artifice. No trying to impress. Just being exactly who he was and hoping that it was enough for her. He hadn’t even tried to gloss over his past behavior to make himself look better, just explained how he was different now, how he wanted to leave that past behind. She worked in a business where everyone tried to be something that they weren’t, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to craft an image. By contrast, the public and the private Bryan were exactly the same.
She might be able to trust a man like that. She might even be able to love him.
“Do you have a big bowl?” Bryan asked, oblivious to the thoughts skittering around in her head.
“Yeah, right here.” She absently opened yet another cabinet to reveal a big ceramic bowl. He took it down and set it aside while he tossed the hot popcorn with a few pats of soft butter, then poured it all into the bowl. “Here we are. Did you have any idea what you wanted to watch?”
He was taking her completely at her word, that he was there for movie-watching only. It was so sweet that she had a hard time repressing her smile.
He cocked his head at her. “What?”
Heat warmed her cheeks. “I really like you. You’re a good guy.”
Slowly, a smile spread across his lips, transforming his features. “I’m getting pretty fond of you myself.” He took her hand and pulled her closer, then bent to kiss her. The only parts of them touching were hands and lips, but she felt the warmth through her entire body. Happiness.
How long had it been since she’d actually felt happy? Excited? Content? She took pride in her work, she thrived on the stress and the pressure, but it was a hard-edged satisfaction. Right now, she just wanted to wrap herself in this cozy feeling and never leave it.
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of being able to fall in love with a guy like him. Maybe she was already there.
“Movie,” he whispered, kissing the tip of her nose. “If you don’t pick one, I’m going to choose some ridiculous foreign film just to show off.”
“I forgot, you speak Spanish,” Ana said. “Do you speak anything else?”
“A little French from school, a little more Portuguese, but Spanish more than anything. I was conversant before I spent all that time in Colombia, but I think I can call myself fluent now.”
“I’m impressed.”
“You’re bilingual too. You speak Filipino, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Taglish mostly.” At his quizzical look, she said, “Tagalog plus English. I could speak it straight if I had to, but no one really does. It’s all a mix of Tagalog and English and Spanish in my family.”
“What are they like?” he asked curiously as they moved to her living room sofa and plopped together on the end of the sectional.
“They are . . . a lot.”
“Meaning . . .”
“Loud, enthusiastic. They’ll tell you exactly what they think, no holds barred.”
“So basically exactly like you?”
Ana smacked him on the shoulder. “Thanks.” She shook her hand. “I need to stop doing that. That hurt.”
He laughed and pulled her to him, then took the remote from her hand. “Since you haven’t picked anything, I’m going to choose.”
“Nope, my house, my remote. I get to choose.” She stole it back from him, then paused. “I know what I want to watch, but you’re not going to like it.”
“I’m not that picky.”
“You promise you won’t be mad?”
He frowned. “Why would I be mad because you picked a bad movie?”
Ana didn’t say anything, just surfed through the documentary section until she found what she was looking for. She knew it was in here, because she’d seen the Netflix listing when she googled Bryan. She swallowed hard and clicked it, tensed for Bryan’s reaction.
The main title came up: On the Edge, with a still image of a climber clinging to the edge of a granite slab.
Bryan stiffened beside her, the tension radiating through his body. “Ana . . .”
“Please?” she said quietly. “I know you said you’ve given it up, but it’s a big part of you still. I want to understand. With you here to explain it to me.”
He looked down at her, the conflict evident in his face. “That’s really how you want to spend our evening?”
“Yes.” She shot him a mischievous look. “Climbers are sexy.”
He chuckled. “Okay, then. When you put it that way . . .”
She settled back against him and twined her fingers together between her knees, squeezing hard. The documentary followed five climbers, including Bryan, through various parts of their season. Ana found herself glued to the screen, fascinated by the technical details and interviews, cringing at the heights and the falls. Gradually, Bryan relaxed next to her, seemingly caught up in watching it until it came to his segment. The tension instantly radiated through him.
The female interviewer asked, “What would you do if you couldn’t climb anymore?”
A younger Bryan laughed at the question, then looked into the distance as he considered. “I don’t know. I really can’t envision a life for myself that doesn’t involve climbing.”
Bryan reached for the remote and clicked the TV off, sitting there stiffly in silence.
“Bryan?”
He licked his lips but didn’t respond, almost like he was listening to something beyond himself.
“Do you miss it?”
He twisted to look at her, whatever spell he’d been under broken. “Yeah. I miss it. Every day.”
“Then why don’t you still do it?” Ana asked softly. “I don’t believe that setting hand or foot on a rock is going to turn you back into the person you were. You need to have more faith in what God has done with you, how you’ve changed, than that.”
“It’s not just that,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It’s . . . everything in that part of my life, from this documentary on . . .”
“Please. Just tell me.”
He paused as if he were trying to think of where to start. “You should know the woman asking the questions in that video was Vivian, my ex-girlfriend.”
That was the last thing she’d expected Bryan to say. “The ex-girlfriend?”
“You’ve heard about that, I see,” he said wryly.
“No, not really. I just heard that the last time you disappeared, it was because of a woman. So I assumed.”
“That was her. We met on this shoot and really hit it off. She’s a climber too, by the way, or she was, before . . .” He gestured vaguely. “It doesn’t matter. Suffice it to say that I fell for her hard, like I’d never fallen for anyone. We were together for a couple of years. And then I asked her to marry me.”
“What happened?” Ana asked, even though she could already guess the answer.
“She said no.” He shrugged. “Said that she never knew I was that serious about her and she wasn’t ready to settle down. She was taking a job in California, and I was still based in Colorado. I would have moved for her, but she didn’t want me to.”
Ana took a moment for a slow inhale, considering her words. “I’m sorry. That must have been crushing.”
He glanced at her, a wry look in his eyes. Maybe a little bitter. “It was. And I tried to get over her, but I think you know how I managed that. I was just thinking maybe I’d moved on when she showed up in Colombia, looking for me.”
A stab of jealousy shot through her. His ex, his true love, had come back to him in Colombia? Was that why he’d stayed away?
He laughed harshly when she voiced those thoughts. “Not exactly. It turned out she just needed to get me out of her system. Before she got married. To my sponsor.”
Ana’s jaw dropped open. “You’re kidding me.”
“Nope. And when he found out that she’d come to see me, he figured that I’d been the one to lure her there or something. So he fired me. Canceled my sponsorship contract under some sort of buried exclusivity clause. He’d known I had a sponsorship from another gear manufacturer, but his approval wasn’t in writing. I didn’t have a legal leg to stand on.” He laughed. “Ironic that he fired me over an exclusivity clause. He should have had one with his fiancée.”
Ana stared at him, digesting that crusher. He’d barely gotten over the woman and she’d what, dangled herself in front of him? And then told him she was getting married?
“I’m . . . sorry. That’s inadequate, I know. It’s horrible. And just . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah, it was pretty awful. I got the job offer in Colombia, acted as a translator for a while, did some physical labor to keep my mind off it, and ended up buying a farm. Life’s weird.”
“Do you still love her?” She hated how insecure and needy her words came out.
He flicked his gaze to her, obviously surprised. “No. I would never have started this if I still had feelings for her.”
“You had feelings for her the whole time you were dating a lot of other women before,” she whispered.
“I wouldn’t call those relationships.” Regret tinged his soft tone. “What happened in Suesca . . . that pretty much killed any love I might have had left. She was using me, knowing how I felt about her, and that’s just not something I could ever forget.”
Ana must not have looked convinced, because he twisted on the sofa to face her fully. “Listen, I’m just going to lay it all on the table here, Ana. I’m crazy about you. I have been since I met you, but I could never get you to see I was more than a dumb climber.”
She flushed. “I never thought —”
“Yes, you did. And that’s okay. Because honestly, you wouldn’t have wanted to be with the man I was back then.”
She shifted around, the question she’d wanted to ask for a while rising to the surface. “What happened in Colombia, exactly? I mean, I understand about Vivian now, but . . . what changed?”
“My come-to-Jesus moment, you mean? Literally?”
She nodded.
He settled back against the cushion and let out a long breath. “It wasn’t one big dramatic thing. It was the process of stepping out of my life, I guess. Getting some distance. When I didn’t have all the distractions of the city —the clubs, the women, even my climbing —I realized that there wasn’t very much to me. God took the opportunity to show me how empty I truly was, how the things I was holding on to really didn’t matter in the grander scheme.” He gave a self-conscious shrug. “I know that probably sounds foreign to someone like you.”
Ana broke the eye contact, feeling suddenly horrible. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
She laughed helplessly and ran her fingers through her hair. “You seem to think I’m this paragon of Christian living, and I’m not. I can barely manage to crack my Bible, and I haven’t been to Mass in like a month, even though I let my mom still think I’m going . . .”
Bryan smiled, but it had a sympathetic cast. “Faith isn’t supposed to be a to-do list, Ana. Trust me, I had to come to grips with that myself.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Where’s this all coming from?”
For a split second, she wanted to tell him, let all the things come pouring out that no one knew, not even her friends. But fear took the upper hand and she shoved the words back.
“Nothing. Sorry. I’m just dreading this trip back home. Every time I go back, all I hear from my parents is about how I’ve thrown away my youth on this horrible job when I should be getting married and having their grandkids. Don’t get me wrong —I love my family; they just . . . don’t understand.”
Bryan stayed quiet for a long moment. “Then let me go with you.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I’ll come. I’m your boyfriend, after all. Or at least I want to be.” He smiled again, and her heart stuttered at the way he was looking at her. “That should get the relatives off your back for a while.”
“You don’t want to do that. For one thing, you won’t understand anything anyone is saying . . .”
“You already said they speak Taglish. I can figure it out from the English and Spanish.”
“And for another, we’re going to get asked about the wedding date at least two times before we leave, if not more. I don’t bring guys home.”
“Ever?”
“Never ever. Because like I said, they’re a lot.”
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her fingers. “You’re important to me, Ana. I would face any number of nosy relatives for you, and far more than that. What do you say?”
It was a terrible idea. Either he’d decide he’d made the worst decision taking up with her once he got put through the third degree from her aunties, or they’d break up and her family would perpetually ask her about the nice Colorado boy. Because despite what he seemed to think about himself, he could charm just about anyone.
“I think maybe you’re a glutton for punishment.”
He brushed his fingers against her cheek. “No, Ana. I’m just in love with you.”
She only had time to gasp before his lips were on hers. And at that point, there was really no decision to make.