Love Me Love Me Knot Read online

  Donovan’s eyes lit. “Wouldn’t that be great?”

  Charlie seemed to reserve her smile as if any sort of positive emotion would jinx the acceptance letter, forcing a hard no. Though a small grin slipped past her lips as she pushed a vinyl chair up to the table, collecting the $4.32 tip left under the receipt. “Want half?”

  “All yours, my dear.” Sophie waved off the crumpled bills. Charlie always offered to share the tips. But Sophie had never taken money from any of the teens.

  Donovan wrapped his scarf around his neck and slipped on his coat. “Okay, the last batch of sweet potato fries are in the warmer, unsalted for now—deal with it—and I’ve prepped a few more turkey burgers with my secret awesome sauce. Also in the warmer. The cran-walnut salads are prepared and in the cooler, and Jenny and I are off for our pedi-date. Her toes have been banned from sandals until further notice.”

  “Pedicure, huh? ’Bout time.” Charlie tossed a fry in the air and caught it in her mouth. “Pretty good. But I agree. Needs salt.”

  Donovan twirled his finger between Charlie’s eyes. “Watch it, girlie. And tomorrow we’re going to separate that unibrow.”

  “Gross, no. Sophie, Donovan’s trying to turn me into him.”

  Donovan let out a wicked laugh. “You wish!”

  Sophie grinned. Tormenting her teens through pampering was a rite of passage she never experienced in her own adolescence. “No sympathy here. I agree with Don Juan. Time for your brows to become two separate entities.”

  Donovan grabbed Jenny and waved. “See you all tomorrow.”

  Sophie watched them leave, eternally grateful that he spoke their same hormonal teenage language. She glanced at the only occupied table in the back. Two older ladies, regulars who almost always ordered the chicken-pesto salad, stared back at her.

  Sophie smiled and walked over. “Can I get you anything else?”

  “Nope, we’re just enjoying dinner and a show,” one of the ladies answered.

  Sophie cleared their empty plates. “We aim to please.”

  “You do it so well,” the other lady said, patting her modern bouffant hairstyle in place. “I just adore this little café. We’ll take two of your famous custards to go.”

  That warmed Sophie’s heart more than anything. The custard here represented far more than just an old-fashioned dessert. “Coming right up.”

  Sophie walked the ladies to the door and handed them their custards. When they left, Sophie shoveled another chocolate into her mouth.

  Charlie raised a brow. “Those little Satan’s will go right to your hips.”

  Sophie stuck out her chocolate-covered tongue. “And?”

  “You still not over the Twit?”

  “Six dates hardly constitute a need to get over someone,” she lied. “I’m more heartbroken that I lapsed enough judgment to justify dates two through six.”

  “Name one woman who hasn’t,” Charlie said over her shoulder as she carried the empty plates to the kitchen.

  “When did you grow up and get all logical on me?” Le sigh. Sophie didn’t know what she’d do without Charlie. She represented the maturity Sophie required at the café, but dished out just enough back talk to keep Sophie grounded in adulting.

  As far as Ash-face, nothing about their ten-minute relationship had been serious. It wasn’t like Sophie had picked out a wedding dress or anything. But a spring wedding with her bridesmaids wearing peach and steely blue refused to give up real estate in her mind. It only solidified the awful, not-so-benign tumor that established residency in the pit of her stomach.

  The only true time Sophie had heard wedding bells was a decade ago. And that breakup was probably for the best—college romances had the highest divorce rate. Or so she’d read.

  Sophie absently popped another chocolate.

  Charlie tsked, walking out of the kitchen. “A few more of those and we’ll have to change the café’s motto from ‘a healthier lifestyle’ to ‘eating your emotions.’”

  “Don’t judge.” Sophie held out the bag. “Want one?”

  “Thought you’d never ask.”

  “Good, now please ask Deidra prep the fruit for tomorrow.”

  Charlie rolled her eyes, did an about-face, and then marched off. For a seventeen-year-old, Charlie was one part sassy teen and three parts Yoda. Her perceptive Jedi mind tricks didn’t come without heartache, however. Maybe it had to do with her pipe dream of going to law school. Thank you, Reese Witherspoon and Legally Blonde, for providing that idea, but not the funds!

  Charlie’s mom, Josephine D’Angelo, had kicked her out of the apartment a month after she turned thirteen because, well, prostitution and parenting didn’t mesh. Charlie, fluent in sarcasm, strolled down to the liquor store and called the police on a payphone. She had watched enough TV to know her basic rights. But rather than take Charlie back to her apartment, the police officer took her to an emergency overnight group home that, against Charlie’s wishes, turned permanent. Within weeks, Charlie added three misdemeanor charges for vandalism and petty theft to her rap sheet.

  During the court hearing, the judge listened as Charlie’s court liaison ruefully explained her family situation and recent bulimic tendencies. The judge was a golf buddy with Red and familiar with Up Front’s new outreach, and how it offered teens, mostly girls, with eating disorders a safe place to hang out.

  Then, Charlie’s mom kicked her pimp to the streets and completed a 12-step program. Newly reformed, having found religion, she begged Charlie to come home, and the judge approved the mutual request for Charlie to return.

  Sophie was immediately drawn to Charlie’s hard shell and soft interior, so when Charlie’s fragile relationship with her mom remained rocky, and she spent most afternoons at the new café anyway, it worked out that Charlie would often crash on Sophie’s couch. Being she was seventeen and pseudo-emancipated anyhow, the unofficial arrangement suited everyone perfectly.

  Sophie smiled at the thought, thankful for how things worked out.

  The front door opened with a loud thud. Sophie jumped and Amy charged in, bestie style. Mark, her newest fling, walked in behind her, his eyes glued to his phone.

  “Miss me?” Amy asked. “Because you’re gonna love me now. You’ll never guess what I have!”

  Sophie looked over Amy’s head at Mark. “A bun in the oven?”

  Amy scoffed. “God, no. I have something way better.” She slammed a check on the bar. “Cold hard cash for the café.”

  “Ooh, you’re right. That is better. Did you sell a kidney? I hear black market value has gone up.”

  Amy sat at the bar, and Sophie slid around to the front so they were face to face. Mark collapsed in the bar stool next to Amy, eyes still fastened to his phone. Sophie would usually comment on the guy’s obsession over a five-inch screen, but she really should be happy for her friend. Finding a boyfriend wasn’t exactly Amy’s specialty, so who was she to interrupt a budding romance?

  “Not exactly.”

  “Did you mug someone?”

  Amy lifted an eyebrow. “Closer.”

  Okay, that piqued Sophie’s curiosity. She leaned in, her attention dialed to full-blown. “I promise to plead the Fifth if subpoenaed. Spill it.”

  “You know Dirk Green over at Channel eight, right?”

  “The guy with the toupee?”

  “The one and the same.” Amy sashayed her shoulders as one does when the story is about to get good. “Well, he bought my silence for another three years.”

  Sophie’s eyes widened. “Sounds scandalous. What’d he do?” She gasped. “Did he lie about a story? They all do. Their embellishments put ours to shame. Not that I’ve ever done it. That I’ll admit to, that is.”

  “Better,” Amy enticed.

  Sophie felt her cheeks burn.
She’d had a YouTube video and hernia piece that could be considered for the humiliation-of-the-year award. So this must be real good. “Tell me already!”

  Amy’s lips pursed. “Ever hear of a Barney?”

  Sophie’s jaw dropped. “A fake lead that was aired?”

  Amy nodded slowly. “Right after college, he bought a story involving a French dossier that was transcribed incorrectly. He thought it was a financial institution that had embezzled millions from its customers. Sort of like a Ponzi Scheme.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened? And how?” Sophie’s voice cracked, almost afraid of the answer.

  “Total rookie mistake. But luckily, before the piece aired, I was in the van editing my own work when my then boyfriend, a French nudist model—God I miss his abs—got bored and read the dossier. Turns out, Dirk was being punked by a former classmate and his source was a paid actor out to make Dirk look bad.”

  Sophie sat back on her heels, only too sure how quickly that story would have ended Dirk’s career before it even took off. “How have you never told me that story?”

  “That story was never worth fifteen hundred dollars.”

  “Wow. He didn’t mind you blackmailing him?”

  “Not for a good cause. He’s forever in my debt, and he happens to love your column.”

  Sophie smiled.

  “Meanwhile, we’re that much closer to our goal.” Amy’s optimism revealed a truth. They were still thirty-five hundred dollars short. But progress and all . . .

  “Anyway, all that legwork made me hungry.” She turned to Mark who was busy building some world on an app. “I’m getting my usual. How about you?”

  He remained glued to his phone. “Okay.”

  Amy shrugged. “Two veggie burgers with sweet-potato fries please.”

  Sophie wrote up a ticket and took it to Deidra in the kitchen. Only one of the girls was legally old enough to work the grill, so when Donovan wasn’t around, most of the food was reheated from the warmer.

  With the grant money, maybe she could hire a real cook . . . or at least an adult who could use the grill. Maybe that would bring in more customers.

  Sophie brought Amy and Mark cucumber water. She heard the clinking of change being dropped in the jukebox.

  Charlie was at the box picking out a song. A few seconds later, Ariana Grande with her four-chord range that made baby cherubs cry broke through the sketchy speakers.

  Charlie danced her way to the center of the room and scooted two tables out of the way. It was common knowledge that none of them, save Donovan, had any rhythm, so watching Charlie dance ranked right up there with watching a cat take a bath. But sure enough, the music drew Deidra from the kitchen, spatula in hand, and the two of them jerked around the dining room paying homage to that one kid no one ever picked to play on the team. The girls threw their hands in the air and contorted their midsection in ways Sophie was sure would cause her to break a hip.

  Charlie grabbed Sophie’s hand.

  “Oh, no you don’t!”

  “Come on,” Charlie coaxed. “Don’t be a prude.”

  “I am not a prude.”

  “Then come dance. Live a little.”

  “I’m watching the kitchen, sorry.”

  “I’ll watch the kitchen,” Amy said with a betraying smile. “Go dance. It’s good for the soul.”

  “So is stabbing best friends in the eyeball.”

  Amy sipped her water. “Prude.”

  “Fine,” Sophie said, making sure Amy knew the ‘F’ in fine really meant another common four-letter word, saved for moments like these.

  Sophie popped her hands in the air and hip-chucked Charlie into a nearby chair. She shimmied her hips so hard, she put the other girls to shame. Laughing and music drowned out all other sounds. Except one.

  “Having fun?”

  The low voice that sent a sizzle down Sophie’s back was one she’d never forget. One she’d longed to hear for years, but now ranked right up there with an onset of herpes . . . or worse.

  Chapter 5

  Sophie froze like an ice sculpture, and cold pierced straight to her heart. Surely someone was punking her now. Ryan Pike wasn’t due for two days.

  Sophie dropped her arms and slowly turned. Amy must have seen “the look” because she jumped up and turned the music off.

  “Hey!” Charlie protested until she saw there was someone else in the café. “Oh.”

  “Charlie,” Sophie murmured. “Can you and Deidra finish Amy’s order please?”

  “Sure,” Charlie said in almost question form. “You okay?”

  “Super.”

  The girls disappeared behind the kitchen door and Sophie continued to stare at Ryan. He was here. Smirking, maybe. Or trying not to laugh.

  Either way, he pierced through her with those haunting Caribbean-blue eyes, the exact same shade she remembered from a decade ago. Broad shoulders had replaced that boyish stick figure. His hair was a little shorter and strands of gray peppered his dark roots. He still carried his blessed assurance in his back pocket. Like his ace in the hole. Weren’t memories supposed to pale instead of increase in hotness?

  Ryan grinned with that same commanding air of self-confidence. The cramped dining room shrank, and all the oxygen drained from the air. “You have quite the knack for dance.”

  Her skin felt tight, her mind numb.

  She was supposed to have until Wednesday to deal with this. Not tonight. Two more days. “What are you doing here?” She wanted her two days back.

  He shrugged. “I’m hungry.”

  Really? Five million cafés in the Bay Area and you waltz into this one? And did I mention it’s been ten years? She crossed her arms. “And you come here?”

  Amusement flickered in his eyes. “Since Up Front has a vested interest in this place, I figured I’d check it out.” Ryan looked around, taking in the ambiance. “It’s . . . quaint.”

  Was that a compliment?

  Amy slid to Sophie’s side. “So, this is him?”

  “Yes.”

  Ryan’s lips pressed together in a hard line. “I had a long flight and I’d like to have a sandwich? Or cup of soup maybe?”

  “We don’t have soup.”

  “A sandwich is fine.”

  Leave it to a man to leave for ten years and come back wanting a sandwich. Would it have killed Ryan to warn her he was coming? “Um, take a seat wherever you want.”

  He sat at the bar, still looking around, allowing Sophie a moment to wipe a gunk of mascara that took this exact moment to blind her. Stupid idea, since that just made her hand black . . . and probably smeared her cheeks. She escaped to the kitchen, grabbing Amy along the way.

  Amy followed. “Are you okay?”

  About as good as a lightning bolt to the head. “Peachy.”

  “I know he’s a trigger for you.”

  “I’m good.” Good enough. “I promise.”

  Amy studied Sophie’s face. “Just say the word and I’ll kick him out lickety-split.”

  “Deal.”

  “So, you didn’t tell me he’s gorgeous.” Amy’s eyes darted between Sophie and the end of the bar, where Ryan was shaking Mark’s hand like Rhett Butler himself.

  “Mother Nature has clearly been way nicer to him than to me.”

  Amy socked Sophie’s arm. “Stop it. You’re gorgeous. Even with raccoon eyes.” Amy licked her thumb and index finger and did the mother saliva thing on Sophie’s face. “There. We only have a few minutes before those guys start engaging in the fine art of man gossip.”

  Sophie cocked a brow. “Seriously?”

  “Trust me, it’s a thing.”

  Deidra stepped into the kitchen and rubbed her p
alms together as if she were about to feast on a Thanksgiving spread. “So are you going to tell me who that hottie is or what?”

  “Simmer, girl,” Amy warned. “He’s the opposition. At least for now.”

  Deidra rolled her eyes. “And you guys consider me the child.”

  Sophie kneaded her temples. Everything was pelting her too fast and Ryan was making himself at home in her café. Should she make him go or find out what he wants? Because coincidences were not a thing. He wanted something. “Amy, what do I do?”

  “You pull out all the stops and make him regret the day he walked away.”

  He did walk away. Or ran. At least that’s the story Sophie told. Still, he wrote that article about her. But the article didn’t specify how fast he typed the hurtful words. Regardless. “I don’t play games.”

  “But men love games.”

  Gamer extraordinaire she was not. Nor was she twelve. “No. No games.”

  Amy pursed her lips. “You’re no fun.”

  Sophie’s belly twisted. “Not with him.”

  “Fine.” Amy hugged her friend. “You’re in the driver’s seat. I’ll spare you my expertise in back-seat-driving.”

  The girls walked out of the kitchen, Amy in the lead. She slipped up behind Mark and slapped him on the back of his head.

  He rubbed his scalp. “What was that for?”

  “Anything you may have said in our absence.”

  Mark grinned. “Babe, if we’re going to make that show, we have to go.”

  Amy groaned. “Shoot. I forgot. I have a review tonight.” She looked dolefully at Sophie, and whispered, “I’ll cancel.”

  “No, go. I’ve got it here.”

  Amy wrapped Sophie in a hug. “Call me for anything. I’ll be right here.”

  Sophie smiled. “Thanks, bestie.”

  “You bet. Just play it cool. Remember, he’s on your turf now.”

  With that, Amy dropped a couple ten-dollar bills on the bar top and took Mark by his arm, leading him out the door.