Page 4 of Fall Into Me

“Is it working?”

“Like a charm.” I grinned at him brightly before sliding a still warm chocolate chip cookie into a bag. “Have a good day, Gus,” I said, handing it to him.

“See you tomorrow, Cali.” He harrumphed and dragged his feet the whole way out of the café.

Gus had been my first customer every morning of every day except Sundays for the last year and a half. He was also Santa Claus every year at the park in the middle of town since before I was born, and even in his retirement from community-based activities, he still looked the part.

In the plan that was my life…well, I hadn’t reallyplannedmy life. Not with extreme detail. Not beyond my single, nonnegotiable: that I lived a life where laughter was always around every corner. I wanted the creases around my eyes and mouth to proudly show the evidence of it to people who knew and loved me. To people who didn’t.

I guess if I unpacked it, that happiness was the coalition of a few things. Things that, if you’d asked me five years ago, were also baseline items.

Four walls and a roof over my head. Being able to wake up every day in Darling and its inherent warmth, its safety. This town was a bubble from the outside world, and almost everything good that had ever happened to me could be recounted and placed somewhere within the seven minutes and fourteen seconds it took to both enter and exit the town limits.

The last part of that baseline used to be someone to share it all with. Someone to depend on to help keep the clouds from impeding on the sunshine that was all thegoodthat life had to offer. All the laughter.

But plans change.

The bell above the door to the café sounded just as I rounded the corner of the small kitchen tucked away in the back, a tray of fresh cookies in hand.

“There she is.” My dad strode into the café with a grin splashed across his sun-kissed skin and rounded the counter. He dropped a kiss on the crown of my head before he grabbed two cookies right off the tray and his coffee off the top of the machine that I’d made at the same time as Gus’s.

Dallas Grey had been my second customer every day except Sundays for the last year and a half.

“Hey!” I reached for the cookie contraband a second too late. “I’ll tell Mom!” I gave him my most serious look, with a hand on my hip for emphasis.

“You know, you look just like her when you do that.”

“Compliments will get you nowhere!” I yelled as he reached for the door.

Two seconds later, the bell rang again, and he reappeared. I rolled my eyes to hide my smile with zero percent success. “I’m not going to tell her, but you should know the amount of sugar, butter, and chocolate in those is enough to make you blackout for maybe a second.”

“Then why do you make them?”

“Because they taste amazing.”

“Well, see, that’s why I take two. One to try, and—”

“One to be sure. Yeah, yeah.” I crossed my arms and scowled at his still-smiling face. The smile that I’d inherited. I was my father’s daughter, through and through. From the same hazel eyes to the wavy black hair. I was a copy and paste of him, whereas my sister, Abbey, was the spitting image of our mother.

“Don’t be a smartass, and remember we’ve moved dinner to tonight at six because your mom’s got to be at the hospital Thursday night. Don’t be late, or you’ll hear it from your mother.”

I saluted at him. “But smartass is my middle name, as you’ve told me many times. And I know, no lateness here.”

“Love you, kid. Best coffee in town.”

“Love you too. And you have to say that. We’re related.”

“Have I ever lied to you?”

“I’m still waiting for Walter to get back from his ‘summer camp,’ so yes.” Walter was my rabbit that I’d won at the Autumn Fair in town when I was eight.

He let out an exasperated sigh. “You never did let that go.”

“You still haven’t given me any other explanation.” I grabbed a cup from the top of the machine as Maggie, my constant third patron for the last year and a half, slid past my dad.

“Morning, Dallas.”

“Morning, Mags. How’s Delilah?” he asked, wiping his hand down the front of his shirt, eradicating the last evidence of his contraband cookie.

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