Page 101 of The Snowball Effect

“You’re the barista,” Gram asserted, her tone imbued with understanding.

Those terror erupted in nervous butterflies. “Yeah, she’s a barista.” Emma tried to head off where she knew this was going.

But, unsurprisingly, her gram wouldn’t be dissuaded. Not when she looked like everything had finally come together for her as she stared at Regan, her smile growing.

“I’ll be honest with you, Regan. I was very confused by this whole… situation. By Emma not ever mentioning your relationship to me, before. Emma’s a good girl; she’s got a level head.”

“Thanks, Gram,” she interjected, hoping that she could derail anything coming next. “Why doesn’t Regan go get those drinks?”

Regan, this time, was the one who ignored her. She wore a small, understanding grin. “I know; Emma has been really private about our relationship.”

“Even so.” Her gram shook her head. “I realize, now, that it wasn’t out of the blue.” She turned to look at Emma, a look that was both excited and understanding reflecting in her gaze. “I wish you’dtold methat your little crush on the barista had becoming something more.”

Emma squeezed her eyes shut, feeling her face heat so quickly and strongly that she was sure smoke must have been exiting her ears. Those butterflies in her stomach morphed into something more akin to frogs.

Maybe, she hoped – stupidly and desperately – that Regan wouldn’t push it. Maybe Regan would do the least Regan thing in the world, and –

“Crush?” Regan echoed, sounding utterly mystified.

Emma tried to hold in a groan.

“That’s why you looked so familiar when you walked in earlier. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.” Her gram looked between Emma and Regan. “The summer before Emma started her TA job, she’d finally showed me around campus, her favorite spots. And we went into your coffee shop… Tipped On?”

“Topped Off,” Regan corrected, looking like she was a kid on Christmas morning.

Emma wanted to bury her face in her hands. Actually, she wanted to bury her entire body in the ground.

“Right, Topped Off. And she pointed you out.”

“She pointed me out,” Regan echoed, the amazement dripping from her tone.

“Like I said, it all makes more sense for me now,” Gram finished with an accepting nod.

Well, Emma was glad her grandmother was finding peace, and at the same time, she was simultaneously making Emma regret her life.

“Regan, why don’t you go get those drinks?” Emma suggested abruptly. “Why don’t I help you?”

Yes. She needed to separate Regan from her grandmother before this got even more out of hand. That was priority number one, and what she focused on as she put her hand on Regan’s lower back to make her start walking away.

She needed to use a little moreoomphthan she’d expected because Regan seemed to be glued to the spot.

“You had acrushon me?” Regan wasted no time in asking, staring up at Emma in wonder.

Emma’s heart fluttered as her stomach clenched and her legs felt a little weak, and she remembered vividly how she’d felt in freshman year when she’d gotten paired to work on her science project with Christy Logan, the prettiest girl at their school.

“No,” she quickly denied, vehemently shaking her head. She tossed a look over her shoulder at her grandmother, who had finally taken her seat at their table and was looking over her bingo card.

“You’re calling your grandmother a liar, then?”

“No!” She denied, again, pressing her palms to her cheeks and wishing they would return to a regular body temperature. “I – it wasn’t a realcrush,” she hissed, staring Regan down. “It was… I just…” How did she possibly explain this and get out of this situation without making a fool out of herself?! “I was going through a shitty time because Felicity had broken up with me, and I’d started going to Topped Off, and I thought you were cute. That’sall.”

Really, thatwasit. Basically.

Regan gasped, her mouth falling open with a smile of shocked delight. “You thought I was cute?!”

Emma squeezed her eyes closed, cursing her gram for the first time in her life. “Like that’s news.”

“It is to me! And I would like to know more. Everything, actually.”

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