Page 27 of The Gingerbread Bakery
‘Of course. Love weddings. Any chance you don’t already have a date?’ he asked, suddenly feeling desperate not to end up alone around Annie again.
‘Sorry. Travis finally locked it down.’ She waggled her ring finger at him, the huge diamond sparkling in mockery of his situation.
‘Lucky guy.’
Crystal smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Mac. You’ll get her one day.’
He chose to assume that Crystal was speaking of a generic ‘her’ and not the specific ‘her’ the entire town knew he’d been after since he moved back here.
‘Thanks. Hey, you haven’t seen Estelle this morning, have you?’ He knew Crystal wouldn’t get the town talking.
‘No, but Dot was in earlier and mentioned that she was meeting up with Estelle today.’
‘She did? Any chance she said where?’
‘Something about the inn. I figured they were greeting family coming in for the wedding.’
‘Yes, amazing. Thank you!’
Crystal seemed understandably surprised about his enthusiastic reaction to Estelle’s plans for the day, but he didn’t have time to explain. Plus, Annie had sworn him to secrecy. He took his drinks, looking around to find Annie, when he bumped into a group of local high-school kids he’d had to take fake IDs from last weekend. They were still trying to get them back ‘to dispose of properly’. Luckily Mac wasn’t that big of an idiot.
‘Come on, Mac! Be cool.’ Hayden, the boldest of the group, tried to step in front of him.
‘I haven’t been cool in years. And you know I can’t give them back.’
‘In Quebec they can drink at eighteen.’
‘Then go to Quebec to drink.’
‘Mac…’
‘Next time, don’t try to use a fake ID at a pub filled with people who’ve known you since you wet your pants during the annual Christmas pageant.’
Hayden’s friends burst out laughing at that and Mac gave him a hard pat on the back.
‘That was way harsh, bro.’
‘Sorry,bro. At least I didn’t call your mother.’
Hayden blanched at that threat and relented on his mission to reclaim the ID, shoving his friends toward the counter.
Mac shook his head with a laugh. Some days he still couldn’t believe that he wasn’t the one begging for his fake ID back. At least he and his friends would go a few towns over to drink. This kid needed to learn some life lessons on how not to get caught. But that was probably not something he should say out loud.
He’d spent so long putting off becoming a real adult that, when he first came back to town to run his dad’s pub, he felt like he was faking it. It took him a year after he bought it to stop calling it his dad’s.
But he’d wanted to make it his own. He’d worked for years to ensure that he was the Sullivan people thought of now when they came in. He’d added trivia nights and karaoke. He’d updated the menu. He’d put a lot of love into that place. Had Annie noticed any of it?
While he’d been out on the road, he’d realized the places he liked best, the ones that were the most fun to work at, were places that had regulars. The pubs, restaurants, and cafés that had repeat customers, that created a sense of gathering, of community, those had been his favorites.
And now he got to do that here in his hometown.
Annie had asked him if he hated it, running the pub. He didn’t hate it all. He loved it. He wished she could see that, that she could see he belonged here as much as she did.
‘Friends of yours?’ Annie asked, sliding up next to him and taking her drink.
‘Ha. No. But I do have a lead.’
‘A lead?’ Annie’s face lit up and Mac wished he could make her look that happy by doing something other than simply asking the barista where an old lady had gone off to.
