Page 6 of Coffee Shop Cupid
“You planning to abandon me for a cushy city job?”
“Hell no! I’m not cut out to sit behind a desk.”
I laughed. “Good to know. I’d hate to lose you to a boring job like that.”
She glanced over, grinned, then tossed an empty plastic bag at me.
I shook my head as the bag floated to the floor, then picked it up and tossed it in the garbage. “Can you handle the front for a while? I need to go make the schedules and get an order together.”
“No prob,” she replied. “I’ll give you a holler if it gets busy.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t forget to put an ad out for another part-timer,” she called as I headed to my tiny office.
“Thanks for the reminder,” I shouted back.
I smiled as I mostly closed the office door behind me. It had taken a lot of work, but my dream was coming true. I had a successful cafe of my own.
Now I just needed a mate and kids.
Chapter 3 - Tristan
Isat up in bed, gasping for breath as I tried to force the nightmare from my mind. Though nightmare wasn’t quite the right description, it was more a distorted memory.
There had once been a time when I’d had dreams of holding my baby, but now they all ended the same way: with the doctors telling me that they had been forced to remove my womb.
I didn’t even have a mate to cling to anymore, nobody to support me through the grief.
I couldn’t decide which betrayal was worse: my body’s, or Vince’s.
I took several minutes to collect myself, then climbed from my bed. There was no way I’d be able to get back to sleep.
Shower… a shower would be a good place to start. I scrubbed a hand down my face, then trudged to the bathroom. I turned the water to scalding, then stepped in.
The warmth felt good, but it never seemed to reach deep enough. It never managed to thaw that frozen part of me; the part still stuck in that hospital room.
Don’t cry… don’t cry…
I scrubbed myself clean, forcing myself to think of anything except the nightmare that had roused me. Then I pulled on my fluffiest bathrobe and padded to the living room and the desk that made up my impromptu office.
I started my laptop, planning to get to work, then made my way to the kitchen to start some coffee. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that I was out.
I sighed. “This day already sucks…”
I meandered back to my desk and grabbed my phone off the charger. I flopped onto the couch and opened a delivery app. Then I started browsing for coffee shops nearby.
The closest non-chain coffee shop was a little place a couple blocks away named the Jumpstart Cafe. I quickly decided on a coffee, then decided that it made sense to order some food as well to make the delivery fee worth it.
I started browsing the menu, trying to decide which of the standard pastry offerings sounded best. Then I saw a small line printed on the menu image: All pastries baked in house, and sandwiches made on house-baked bread.
My stomach rumbled. One of my favorite places growing up had been the bakery at the end of the street, a smell I’d missed when I mated Vince. He’d never appreciated it like I had, and had grumbled whenever I said I wanted to go to breakfast at a cafe to smell all the baked goods.
I frowned. Why was I still letting that asshole run my life? He wasn’t around, and if I wanted to go to a cafe for breakfast, then he couldn’t stop me.
I headed back to the bedroom and pulled on my favorite sweater and jeans, then double-checked the cafe hours and directions.
The chilly air bit at my skin as I walked to the cafe, but it felt good—rejuvenating. For the first time in years I felt free of the shackles that had kept me down, whether it was Vince’s attitude about certain things, or the seemingly never-ending cycle of preparing for various fertility treatments. For once I wasn’t worried about caffeine or too much sugar.
