Page 10 of Puck Daddies
She props a hip against the pastry case and points to the framed photo of Aunt Bea by the register. “Your aunt would bail me out from beyond the grave.”
“She would,” I admit, smiling even as my stomach flips. “Hell, I would. But you don’t want a record.”
Aqua’s laugh is all bell and glitter. “Fine. I will not key his precious car.” She makes a face. “Tonight. I won’t do it tonight. Tomorrow is another day.”
The bell chimes, and the first regular of the day comes in, stomping rain off boots. I slide back into my opening rhythm. Grind, tamp, steam, pour. Smile, mean it, take a breath. I chase the memories of Callie and Luke with the sizzle of the milk wand and the way Aqua flicks a wrist to add a flourish to the tip jar sign that saysBee generous.
“I keep thinking about that word,” I mutter during a lull. “Boring. Like he’d been saving it for when I didn’t behave.”
Aqua leans over the counter, close enough that I can see the handlaid crystals at the corner of her eye. “You didn’t behave the way he wanted you to,” she says, voice soft for once. “And what a joy for me, personally. But also—listen to how you talked about last night. Youlet him dothings.” She lifts a brow. “You hear it?”
I blow out a breath that smells like coffee and denial. “I did not say Iwantedthings.”
“No,” she says. “You said you let him.” She taps the counter with one perfect nail. “Wanting is the opposite of boring. Letting is…passing the buck.”
“I wanted us to not be flat,” I say, then wince. “Which is the flattest sentence.”
“So you agreed to things that didn’t thrill you because compromise is noble in your mind,” she says, singsong like she’s narrating a cautionary tale. “Except compromising on dinner is not the same as compromising on your body. You don’t owe anyone enthusiasm except yourself. Going along with what someone else wants is the barest, saddest kind of consent, honey. You did the right thing.”
I hate it when Aqua is right. I love it too. “I don’t want to be a person who only surprises herself when somebody else is steering.”
“Then don’t,” she says simply, as if it’s not the hardest instruction in the world.
The day rolls over me. My other baristas show up, mostly on time. Tom cracks jokes about the weather being against capitalism. Bex sets out the honey-butter samples, complaining about the state of the music scene. Aqua holds court at the register, calling everyone darling and sweetheart and sir and madam depending on who needs which word to feel like they chose it.
All day, Aqua’s words ring in my head louder than a commuter’s phone.Want. Wanting is louder than I’m used to. I’m good at duty. Great at it. I am a champion at showing up and staying.Wantingfeels like a language I used to speak and then put away because other people needed me.
“Say it,” Aqua says.
“What?” I blink up from the pastry fridge.
“What you want to do about it.”
I think about tequila and the boys’ faces and that black dress pushed into my bag under a sweater because I couldn’t stand to look at it on the chair. “I want to not think about him for a night.”
“Ah,” she says, pleased. “Then my remedy applies.”
“What remedy?”
“The oldest one in the book, baby. Best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” She flicks her lashes. “We could go out. Plenty of eligible, eager, firm adult men would volunteer as tribute.”
I laugh, at first. I’m not the one-night stand type.
But then Hudson’s face flashes in my head. Rocco’s laugh. Oliver’s steady hands. They’ve been the antidote to most poisons in my life since middle school. Why would tonight be any different?
The thought arrives whole. Not strangers, not a blurry club, not someone whose name I’d have to ask twice.Them. Because I trust them with my worst day. Because the sound of their laughter resets my pulse.
“I don’t want to go out,” I say softly.
Aqua’s eyes go bright in a way that means she is fully, deeply here for this. “Oh?”
“I want to go home,” I say, and the word means their place. It always has. “I want to…ask for what I want. Without getting talked out of it.”
“Who do you have in mind, because I can see it in your eyes that you’ve already got a plan.”
I bite my lip. “This stays between us, right?”
“You have my most solemn vow.”
