Page 1 of Take Me Home

Chapter

One

When Hazel zipped into the parking lot of the Living Room Café, the old clunker with its faded indie-rock bumper stickers and duct-taped license plate frame wasn’t there. Which meant, more importantly, the owner of the car wasn’t there. A Christmas miracle. With only two hours to finish and submit the final paper of her first semester of graduate school, the last thing Hazel needed standing—or sitting—in her way was Ash Campbell.

She’d hustled to the café directly from proctoring her advisor’s Intro to Psychology final, her last chore as Dr. Sheffield’s favorite errand girl. Hustled even though she knew that more than likely Ash had already swooped in and taken her study spot. He had an infuriatingly reliable 5:05 arrival time. But she’d hoped anyway. Sheneededthis.

And, damn it, by sheer willpower and a few questionable rolling stops (and apparently some favor from the cosmos because her clock now read 5:07), she’d beat him here. Finally, a small mercy. Hazel marched into the café, head held high, already pulling her laptop from her messenger bag and angling for the back corner.

Except—

She checked out the front window again. No, his car still wasn’t in the lot. And yet, there he sat across the café inherchair, monopolizing the only working outlet in the place. Ash’s eyes, dark as black coffee, lifted to hers just as a chilly December gust blew the door shut and knocked her forward. She dropped her laptop back into her bag.

“You’re here,” she accused.

“Rough day?” He gestured vaguely at her with his coffee mug before grinning into a sip.

Yeah, she was wearing an ugly plaid shirt from the back of her closet because she hadn’t done laundry in two weeks, her hair was falling from the hasty bun she’d jammed a pencil through when her hair tie broke, and she was practically vibrating from the three coffees she’d already downed this afternoon. So what?

“You missed a button,” he said.

She refused to give him the satisfaction of checking her shirt. “I have to finish a paper.”

Ash leaned back into the velvety green wingback chair, one ankle propped over the other leg in indulgent leisure. It was a comfortable chair, big enough to sit cross-legged while she worked. But fancy, too. A seat of power, as though every word Hazel wrote while sitting in it deserved to be leather-bound and embossed. If ever she needed that power, she needed it right now.

He looked pointedly at all the unoccupied seats between them, but she didn’t follow his gaze. None of the other tables had outlets. None of the other chairs had the green one’s magic. They’d had this argument a hundred times. With a huff, she crossed the threshold to the front counter.

“Isn’t the semester over?” Ash asked across the café.

“Not for two more hours.”

Hetsked. “Cutting it pretty close.”

“Shut up.”

He laughed as she yanked out a stool.

“I put your Swiss Miss abomination on the menu.” He nodded at the sign above the counter. In his aggressive, spiky handwriting, the newest addition read,Baby’s First Coffee.

One timeshe’d mixed a hot chocolate packet into her coffee.

“It’s basically a mocha,” she snapped.

“The tiny marshmallows really elevate things, too.”

“I don’t have time for this.”

The kitchen door swung open, and Cami emerged, her natural curls swept back with her usual sunshine-yellow head wrap. She gave Hazel a bright, “Hey, hon,” over a shallow crate of mugs before she began restocking the open shelves with them, the tattoos on her sculpted brown arms flexing.

At the Living Room, the default was afor herecup. Mostly thrift-store finds, the mugs were mismatched in size and style. All the tables and chairs were, too, salvaged and given their second (or third or fourth) home. With all its eclectic art, warm lamps, plants, and cozy nooks, it washomey. Not like any home Hazel had ever lived in, but still. It would have been a perfect student coffeehouse, except it was too far from campus to cross most undergrads’ radar. Plus, the one espresso machine was in constant disrepair, limiting the menu to drip coffee, teas, sandwiches, chips, and, if you came early enough, the muffin of the day. Several other places offered triple-shot lattes and a dozen types of baked goods until two a.m., like the surrounding bars.

She’d found the café back around midterms on the heels of a breakdown in her tiny apartment, the first cracks beginning to show from the unrelenting demands of her psychology PhD program. When she’d walked into the Living Room, its ambience had soothed her low-grade panic with the comforting smells of coffee, soil, and the old paperbacks crammed into shelves. The smooth, tactile velvet of that big chair. Cami had selected a mug for her that saidI Like Big Books and I Cannot Lieandremarked, “I’ve been needing someone for this one.” It buoyed her. Hazel had worked here, from that green chair, ever since.

Or tried to.

“Coffee?” Cami asked, pulling Hazel’s hard glare from the current occupant of the chair. Wordlessly, Cami connected the dots. “Yeah, sorry, hon. He got here ten minutes ago. Give me your cord.”

Ten minutes? She hadn’t stood a chance.

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