Page 14 of Made for You

What the fuck am I doing? I don’t dance. I don’t even know how to dance and I definitely haven’t had enough beer to act like I can dance.

I stand on the dance floor, holding Violet in my arms, neither of us moving.

“Liam, do you know how to dance? I don’t remember you being the dancing type.” Her eyebrow could touch the ceiling if it got any higher.

I’m not.

“Of course.” I look around me and imitate the moves I see other guys making with their girls.

At the end of the song, I try to spin her like I saw some other guy do. Only I end up stomping on her feet instead and knocking both of us over.

She lands in my lap and is laughing so hard she has tears running down her cheeks.

“Oh, my God. You are the worst dancer of all time!”

I grumble and pull myself up off the floor before I reach down and pull her up.

“Sorry. Guess you’d rather be with someone like Roman.” I leave her on the dance floor and stalk back to the bar.

Roman is behind the bar when I return.

I ask him, “So I assume you and Violet can do this? Plan the party here?”

“Yeah, with you though. I’m not letting you out of it.” Violet comes back, with less of a smile on her face. “See man, definitely not letting you out of this. You’ve got to fix that.”

I scoff at him. What the hell does he know?

After Liam stormed out of the brewery last night, I stayed with Roman to talk about some of my ideas for the Valentine’s Day dance. I’m so excited for some of the things we came up with.

The contrast of the sense of community that I already have here compared to New York is refreshing. I’m brimming with ideas to bring everyone together for a night of celebrating love.

This morning I’m at the bakery helping Hunter with some of the clean up to get things moving faster with the repairs.

I get lost in thought while I sweep up some of the debris in the kitchen. Gran and I need to find somewhere to bake. She supplies the baked goods for the coffee shop andthe inn. That’s a big part of her business. If we can’t have a storefront, it would be great if we can find a place to prepare the pastries for at least these contracts to keep the money flowing a little bit.

Hunter sneaks up on me, scaring me when he says my name. I jump in the air and throw my broom in his direction.

“You scared me!”

“Kind of the point!” He gets out in between spurts of laughter.

He bends over to pick up the broom and hands it back to me while he drags over the industrial size trash can for all the debris I have in a pile.

“What has you so lost in thought you didn’t hear my boots clunking across the floor?”

“Ugh,” I groan. “Just trying to figure out where I can go to get all these pastries made for the inn and Emerald Roasters. Esther and Franklin offered for us to use their kitchen but honestly, it’s not that big and I’d never be able to get anything done in there. Gran already missed delivering the welcome boxes for this weekend at the inn.”

“Oh it’s not a huge deal. Mom made a couple batches of cookies for everyone. It’s not Margaret’s caliber of work, but still tasty.” He scoops the last pile I made into the trash can, “Oh! What about the kitchen at the inn? It’s huge since we used to cook and serve food for the guests way back in the day.”

I bet Liam would be thrilled with that. He didn’t even say goodbye to me last night. He’s always been a little socially awkward, but now he’s taking that lone wolf thing to a new extreme, more on the big bad wolf spectrum.

“Yeah, I bet Liam would justlovehaving me take over his space.” He grins at my epic eye roll.

“I know he’s a little grouchier than usual, but he’s under a lot of stress lately. Pops recently had surgery, and Mom’s arthritis is so bad that neither of them are really helpful with the inn. He’s running the whole show on his own. I bet if you showed up with some cranberry white chocolate chunk cookies in a little purple box, he’d be a little more amenable to your requests.” Hunter flashes a megawatt smile in my direction.

“Hmm. Not a bad idea. And I can make those at Gran’s!” I place the broom against the wall and run out to the front of the store before pausing at the door, “Oh, sorry! Do you mind? Is it okay if I leave?”

“I don’t sign your paycheck, girly pop.” I scrunch my face at his use of a new nickname. “Yeah, no. I heard it. That was weird.”

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