“Hey, Lai,” Cole greeted as the bell over the door jingled. She ran to him so quickly he didn’t even have time to open his arms for her. His right arm was behind him, shutting the door, and his left arm was crushed between their bodies. He laughed as he carefully pulled his left arm out and wrapped it around her shoulders. “What’s this about?” he whispered into her hair. She pulled away from him, but his arm stayed around her shoulders as he looked down at her face, full of so much emotion he didn’t know how to interpret it all. The laughter was gone in an instant. “Are you okay?”
She nodded and smiled. “I’m okay if you’re okay.”
Cole’s head tilted away from her as his elevated eyebrows caused his forehead to wrinkle a bit. “Yeah. I’m great.”
He’d spent the entire drive back from his house—his house . . . how weird—making sure he would present as great for Laila. He knew she’d be there waiting, chomping at the bit to learn whatever bits of information he and Doc had been able to unearth.
He looked toward where they all had been sitting when he left. Yep. Sure enough, Brynn and Seb had stayed too. He’d figured that would be the case, but he’d sort of been hoping he’d be proven wrong about that one. Fat chance. The type of friends who ended their honeymoon early to show up for a grandparent’s funeral weren’t the type of friends to wander off and wait for you to text them as soon as your life careened out of control.
“Hey, guys. You didn’t have to stick around. You must be wiped. Isn’t it the middle of the night Italy time? When was the last time you slept?”
He felt a perfect opportunity for borderline risqué honeymoon humor slipping away from him, but he’d spent the few minutes on the road back to Cassidy’s preparing himself for great. Normal. Peppy, even. Sophomoric humor or any discernible level of innuendo was currently out of reach.
Sebastian shrugged. “You know us. We are well acquainted with the life of crossing time zones and catching z’s standing up.”
“How’d that go?” Brynn asked. She’d nodded along with what Seb was saying, but Cole could tell she wasn’t really listening to a word of it. Her eyes were darting between him and Laila, trying to interpret the moods, he figured.
Cole squeezed Laila’s shoulders one more time and then released her. She sat back down at the table, probably expecting him to join her and begin regaling them with a tale of senior citizen folly and small-business ownership intrigue. He wasn’t sure how much folly was involved. His grandfather hadn’t made choices Cole agreed with or even understood, but there didn’t seem to be any indication he had done anything other than exactly what he’d intended to do. Maybe what he’d always intended to do. And as for intrigue . . . Well, he and Doc hadn’t had any trouble at all tracking down the documents they needed. It had all been stacked right there on a desk in an office his grandfather hadn’t stepped foot in in months. In a house he’d surely known he would never return to.
Maybe if Cole had allowed himself to be as clear minded, if he’d brushed away sentimentality and operated in the cold, callous manner his grandfather had clearly prized, he wouldn’t have left the office untouched when Bill moved into Spruce House. He could have discovered the neatly folded tablecloth that had been yanked out from underneath him without even causing the candlesticks to wobble or the pieces of silverware to clink against each other. He might have seen the light before he was left with nothing but resentment toward a dead man.
“It was fine,” he called over his shoulder as he turned and headed to the bar. He took his jacket off and threw it over a barstool as he approached. “Anyone need a refill? I don’t care how tough you are, Seb . . . your wife survives on espresso and Red Bull.”
Cole poured himself a cup of coffee but then thought better of it. This night was probably going to be restless enough as it was. He grabbed a can of ginger ale and carried it over to the table along with the mug of coffee, which he placed in front of Brynn.
“He’s not wrong,” she muttered to Sebastian before greedily gulping down the hot liquid.
“So?” Laila turned to Cole as he sat next to her and rested her fingers on his forearm as he popped the lid to his can. “It was all a mistake . . . right?”
He felt them all lean in, and the room grew silent apart from the second hand ticking on the clock above the door and the wind outside creating a faint howl. “Um . . . no, actually. Cassidy’s Bar & Grill is now owned by something called Weck Management Group, LLC, and there’s this other company called Alpine Ventures that serves as the manager of the LLC.”
Laila’s hands fell away like deadweight, and he raised the cold can to his lips and drank for as long as his breath would hold out.
“When?” Sebastian asked. “When did he sell it?”
“About seven months ago. Not long before the first stroke.” Doc had been very meticulous in verifying the timing, and it had definitely been before the strokes. Before medical power of attorney. Before Spruce House. They couldn’t even claim his grandfather hadn’t been in his right mind.
Of course Cole knew that up until the morning of his death, the man had been as mentally sharp as he’d ever been. It was bad enough that he might never know why his grandfather did it, but he’d even been robbed of the gift of questioning whether he’d meant to.
“I . . . I . . .” Laila stammered next to him, and he looked at her. All the color had drained from her face apart from her lips, which were beginning to grow very pink as she bit down on them. “I don’t understand. How could he . . . Why would he . . . He can’t . . .” She shook her head. “No. That can’t be right.”
Cole sighed. “Well, it is. Looks like control transfers on October 1.”
Brynn’s eyes flashed to her watch on her wrist and then back to Cole. “Two weeks? So . . . what? Are you saying you have to be out of here in two weeks?”
He guzzled the little bit of ginger ale left in the can and set it down on the table in front of him. “Yep.”
He was having a difficult time believing anything apart from the worst about his grandfather right now—basically everything most people who ever met Bill Kimball had believed all along—but he did have to believe he would have told him. If he hadn’t died. He would have at least communicated his two weeks’ notice personally, right? Wouldn’t he at least have given Cole an opportunity to get his personal effects out of the building that had been like a second home to him—sometimes more like a first home—for most of his adult life?
Had Alpine Ventures agreed to keep the employees on staff ? Maybe there was some such agreement. Surely his grandfather hadn’t been as careless with Laila’s well-being and the futures of everyone else who worked there part time as he had been with his grandson’s, had he?
Had he thought Cole would keep working there? Had he actually thought he would stay quiet and share his recipes and become a glorified—or maybe not glorified at all—line cook for the new owners?
Had he assumed that Cole would, because what other options did he have?
“Let’s buy it back.” Brynn catapulted from her chair. “This isn’t fair, Cole. Let’s buy it back. And I don’t want to hear any of your stubborn reasons why you can’t accept our money. Just in the time you were gone we came up with about ten different ways we could make this happen, and if you don’t like any of them, we’ll come up with ten more.”
Sebastian reached over and placed his hand on the calf of her leg, no doubt attempting to offer some calming, grounding presence. “She’s right. Let us help you. And before you say anything, you should know we think this needs to go farther than just Cassidy’s. Who is this Weck Management Group? And what’d you say the other one is? Alpine Ventures? What are they wanting to do with the place? This was one of the debates we had over and over in the beginning, when we were first considering bringing back Township Days. We want Adelaide Springs to grow, but not at the expense of what makes the area special.”
“Exactly!” Brynn exclaimed, the coffee apparently kicking in, if the restlessness of her twisting hands was any indication. “They don’t get to move in here and turn Cassidy’s into an Applebee’s. I won’t stand for it, Cole! I won’t!”
Cole laughed then. He couldn’t help it. There was nothing funny about any of it, apart from how absurdly activated his friends had become while he found himself checking out more and more by the second. But there was still something laugh-worthy about Brynn—a girl who had once publicly proclaimed that she hated everything about her hometown—plopping her clenched fists on her hips and standing up against beloved chain restaurants everywhere.
And then there was the friend who didn’t seem to be activated at all.
He tilted his head to look at Laila. “What? You’re not going to go stand in the picket line with Norma Rae over there?”
Her bottom lip was still between her teeth, but she unclamped it long enough to whisper, “I don’t know what to say.”
There was no one in the world he was more himself with than Laila. There was no one else who had seen him at his best and his worst and everything in between and never judged him for any of it. And of course the same could be said in reverse. But this time he’d made the decision to be great for her for exactly this reason. She needed to believe he was fine so that she would be fine. Apparently she wasn’t buying it, and if Laila wasn’t going to pretend along with him, he wasn’t sure how long he could muster up the energy.
Cole ran the palms of his hands roughly across his eyes and attempted to eradicate the way Laila’s heartbroken vulnerability made him feel. “Well, I suggest we start figuring it all out tomorrow.” He managed to plaster a congenial smile on his face by the time his hands left his eyes and he began rising from his seat. “Sudworths, go home. Get some rest.”
He began walking toward the door, and Sebastian was the first to willingly oblige the hint. “We’re supposed to fly out tomorrow, but if you need help getting packed up or figuring out a plan or—”
“Oh, definitely!” Brynn’s heels clopped along the wood floor as she hurried behind Sebastian. “We can stay.”
Nope. We’re still going for great. Just a few more minutes and then you can feel all the things these horrible, wonderful, evil people you love are making you feel.
“Seriously, I’m fine. If you have time for brunch or something before you go, that would be nice. Maybe I can use up all the good ingredients before the new owners take over.” Too soon. “Say ten o’clock?”
“We’ll be here.” Sebastian stuck his hand out and Cole shook it, and then Seb ushered Brynn out the door.
Cole didn’t close the door right away because he expected Laila to be right behind them. But there she was, still sitting at the table, not making any move to go.
“Now will you please talk to me?” she asked as soon as they were alone.
“What do you mean? I’ve been talking to you.”
“This is me, Cole.”
“Yes, Laila, I know. But I don’t know what you think I’m supposed to be saying that I’m not already—”
“If you need time to process, that’s fine. Anyone would understand that. If you’re not ready to talk, I get that.” She twisted in her chair and crossed her arms across the back. “But you’ve been pretending ever since you got back here, and that’s not something you ever do. That’s not something we ever do. Not with each other. Brynn and Seb are gone now. You can quit pretending.”
He took in a deep breath and exhaled, all through his nose. His jaw was a little too clenched right then for his mouth to participate in the breathing.
“You’re right.” He resisted the urge to slam the door and gently closed it instead. Because she was right. They had an entire lifetime of complete authenticity between them, and she deserved better than he was giving her right then. It was time to stop pretending. “But see, the thing is, I’m just trying to survive until you go. I need to be alone, and alone doesn’t mean you and me. I do need to be my own person sometimes. Separate from you. You get that, right? Can’t you just read the room like everyone else and go home now?”
Any other time, in any other circumstance, he would hate himself for being the reason her eyes turned instantly red and her bottom lip began trembling, but right then he knew he really was showing her as much kindness and love as he was capable of. He would owe her an apology, and he would willingly deliver it later. He’d make her all the chocolate-chip pancakes she could eat tomorrow morning, and soon he would turn to her for all the comfort he knew she would so willingly give. But right now, he needed to be alone. Because, at the end of the day, he was. Alone. Abandoned. Forgotten. And he wanted to wallow in the pain of that for just a little while before Laila attempted to convince him it wasn’t true.
“Sorry.” She mouthed the word, but the sound didn’t make it across the room. She cleared her throat and stood from her chair—her straight, confident posture reminding him what a jerk he was being, though he was certain that wasn’t her intent—and then walked toward him, lip still trembling but head held high. She grabbed her coat from the rack and avoided his eyes as she walked to the door.
He opened the door again, and unlike his best friend, he couldn’t keep his eyes from drifting to the floor. “I’m sorry, Lai.” He’d needed some time to feel the pain, and he’d inadvertently made it so much more accessible. But no matter how jerky he was allowing himself to be, he couldn’t let her unnecessary apology to him be their final spoken words to each other for the day. “I promise it’s not you.”
He knew he still owed her an actual heartfelt apology. And at least one entire can of whipped cream on those pancakes.