The Fortune Cafe (12 page)

And then she wondered if maybe her mom’s condition
was
genetic since she was acting stupidly paranoid.

Friday morning came, and Emma remembered that Harrison said he’d be at the seaside reception center not too far from midtown Seashell Beach. She drove over, hoping to surprise him. She wanted to make his last couple of days count before he left back to Boston. She even toyed with the idea of taking an extended vacation to visit him there so they could explore their relationship further. She had the money now that
Dragon’s Lair
had sold out and was on back order for the second shipment. At Harrison’s advice, she was looking into getting a distributor. But she wanted to talk about that possibility with him personally rather than over text. The last thing she wanted was to show up in New England and have him horrified to see her there. She needed confirmation that they were still okay, that he wasn’t freaked out by her mom.

She entered the reception center excited and energized to help Harrison’s family the way they had helped her. But she stopped as soon as she passed through the doors and blinked several times to be sure she saw what she thought she saw.

Andrea was up on a ladder hanging lights while Harrison held the ladder and looked up at her. They were in deep conversation, one that looked natural and easy. “Oh,” Emma whispered, feeling stupid for just showing up without announcing herself. Andrea was a family friend. She’d helped plan the party. It made sense that she would be there.

Andrea looked up at that moment, as if sensing someone watching her and saw Emma standing there. She whispered something to Harrison, and he nodded and hurried away. Andrea returned her gaze to Emma as she methodically made her way down the ladder rungs. Emma felt an instinctive need to run— probably similar to what a lone zebra felt when facing down a lioness.

“Hi, Emma. It is Emma, isn’t it? I think that’s what you said at the restaurant. I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry about what happened. It was a really off-day for me. Harrison and I worked things out. He promised he’d patch things up for me with you. I hear he helped with all the book stuff you’re doing. Congratulations on that, by the way.”

Harrison had done that to patch things up for
Andrea
? No. That wasn’t right at all. Emma reevaluated everything she’d believed over the last two weeks. After the convention, his only communication with her was via text, but that was because he was busy...
she
was busy. Then she looked around the garden themed room with its fountain and lights. Harrison hadn’t even mentioned the reception to Emma as something she should attend. It was always just something
he
was doing. She had assumed that he’d take her, but now she realized that if he’d meant for her to go with him, he would have at least brought it up.

And he had been so distant since their weekend in LA.

It made a sort of twisted sense for him to protect Andrea, to make amends and apologies the way he did. Isn’t that what Emma’s dad had always done for her mom through the years? “Oh,” Emma said, the word starting out deep in her stomach and tearing free from her throat. “I just... I... tell him thank you for me.”

Andrea smiled. “Of course I will. And truly, I am so sorry about that whole mix up at the restaurant. I have no idea what came over me. You’re a really great person and didn’t deserve to deal with my bad day.”

Emma nodded and turned to leave. She didn’t know what she felt or thought about the whole situation, but she knew for a fact she couldn’t be there standing next to Andrea. Emma felt flayed and scoured by the ordeal with her mom and brother and sister. Her emotions were so unsteady, it was possible she’d misread Harrison’s intentions. She tugged on the heavy, leaded glass door and tried to squeeze her way through it when she could only make her rubbery muscles open it halfway.

She made it to the parking lot, but no matter how hard she breathed in and out, she couldn’t seem to get any oxygen. Where did all the oxygen in the world go? “Emma?” It was Kristin, Harrison’s sister, coming from the parking lot to which Emma fled. “You okay?”

“I just... think I misunderstood. Thank you so much for helping me the other day. I know you don’t owe me anything, and that was a really nice thing to do for a stranger.”

Kristin snorted. “To hear Harrison tell it, you are the furthest thing from a stranger to our family. Besides, it was fun. And Harrison paid me back tenfold in several days’ worth of anniversary work.”

“Harrison’s like that, paying off debts.”

She gave Emma a strange look. “Why don’t you come inside? Harrison will be thrilled to see you.”

“Oh, no. Andrea...” She trailed off not knowing what to say about Andrea.

“Oh, don’t let Andrea scare you. I promise she won’t throw any food or dinnerware at anyone. Everything’s been explained. She’s totally fine.”

“Yeah. She said that.”

Andrea. She seemed to fit in that garden room with Harrison and Kristin. How had Emma imagined that
she
could fit into Harrison’s life? Her mom was in a mental institution. Emma was a dragon-drawing waitress.

“Hon, you look sick. Do you need some water?”

“Water. Right. There’s water in the ocean. I’ll go to the ocean.” Emma turned and headed to cross the street to the beach. She didn’t know why she didn’t get into her car to leave, other than she felt unsafe to sit behind the wheel. Was this what an emotional breakdown felt like? Is this how it all started for her mom?

“Emma?” Kristin called after her

She didn’t turn back to face Kristin. Emma crossed the road, and on the other side, at the bike trail, she broke into a brisk walk until she was well out of sight of Harrison’s sister. She felt better walking. When she reached the water, she took a deep cleansing breath. “I’m not crazy. I’m not my mom,” she said to the waves and was relieved to find that the words felt true. She wasn’t crazy, just stressed, overtired, and confused.

She’d gone for several minutes when she heard the smack of footsteps on the hard, wet sand behind her.

“Emma!” Harrison’s voice.

She couldn’t ignore him, not after all he’d done. She realized that she was going to be okay if he didn’t really want to be with her. It would hurt, but she’d live.

He took a second to catch his breath. “What. Are. You. Doing?” Each word came like its own bewildered sentence.

“Look, Harrison, I’ll make this easy,” she said. “I know I’m a big hot mess right now with my whole family drama and everything, and I get that it’s a lot to take in from a male perspective. Andrea said you were back together. I don’t want to make things weird or awkward or anything. So you know, it was great. You were really nice to help me, though you probably shouldn’t have kissed me if you didn’t mean it, but—”

He grabbed her arms and pulled her into him, pressing his lips urgently against hers. Her legs nearly buckled with the intense flaring between them and around them until there was nothing but heat.

She forced herself to pull away before she became consumed into ashes. “What are you doing?”

He looked baffled and ticked off. “Did that feel like I didn’t mean it?” he asked.

“No. I... I don’t know.” She couldn’t answer because she couldn’t think.

Harrison raked his fingers through his hair. “Look, I don’t know what Andrea told you, but whatever it was, it obviously wasn’t true. I told her that you were important to me. I explained that you would be at the anniversary party as my date.”

“We haven’t had a vocal conversation in days,” she said. “You seem distant. It feels like you might have been avoiding me.”

“I was giving you space! Trying to be respectful because of all you’ve got going on.”

She frowned, trying to unknot the different emotions swirling inside her stomach. “But Andrea said—”

“Whatever she said,” he interrupted, “you know in your heart isn’t true. You know me. You know better. So what I’m not getting is why you’re running away from me?”

Emma stared at him, believing his sincerity entirely, which left her with an important question. Why was she running? Was she ashamed of being a dragon-drawing waitress? No. Was she really worried that she didn’t fit with Harrison? No, not when she looked at the situation honestly. Did she worry about being like her mom? Yes. That was the problem— the reason she didn’t date, the reason she pushed people away.

But she wasn’t like her mom. She knew that. Her little overreaction to Andrea and running off wasn’t because she
was
like her mom, but because she was
afraid
of being like her mom— which was its own brand of crazy, admittedly, but not the certifiable kind of crazy.

Look around. Love is trying to catch you.

She gazed at Harrison, his chest heaving with the exertion of chasing her. Was she afraid because of her mom and dad and their relationship? Was she so insecure that she bolted at the first test of her faith?

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s just all this is so big and scary, but you’re right, Harrison. I do know you. I’ve always known you. From the first time you offered to make a cut into the frog during our biology lab so I didn’t have to. I’m sorry... I...” Emma thought of her fortune and Cái’s smug grin. Love truly was pursuing her; she might not get another chance. It was time to stop running and let him catch her.

“I know you,” she finished and grabbed at the collar of his button-down dress shirt, pulling him into another fervent kiss, a fire hotter than before, a melding between the two of them, a decision made and understood. She pulled away more slowly this time and looked at him with a small smile. “Yeah. That actually does feel like you mean it,” she said.

She felt the warm whisper of his words breathed into her as he said, “All those years ago at graduation, I told you I loved you. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. But now you’re here, and nothing’s changed. I love you, Emma Armstrong.”

No more fear. Not for her. “I love you too,” she said.

Who would’ve guessed?

Cái really did have a magic restaurant.

And love had finally caught her.

Lucy Dalton stepped into The Fortune Café and took a breath of fresh air. Really, the breeze from the ocean outside the quaint restaurant’s windows should have been fresh air, but not with Blake around. And he’d be rejoining her and her parents any moment now. Whatever was making her fiancé cranky clung to him like a fog that even the Seashell Beach breezes couldn’t blow away.

Her mother touched her back, the light touch she’d used to say “I’m here” ever since Lucy was little. She turned for the hug Beth Dalton would give without being asked. Her mom smelled like Beautiful, the perfume she’d worn since forever. The scent soothed Lucy’s frayed nerves better than a Xanax until a loud clatter sounded behind them, and they both jumped.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” A waitress, her brown eyes crinkled in major distress, bent to yank an overturned platter out of the way. “I’ve never done that before. It’s lucky you moved right then, or you’d have sweet and sour sauce all over you right now.” She restacked the tray while waving a busboy over to help her contain the mess.

“Lucky,” Blake said. “Yeah. She’s definitely that.”

Lucy hadn’t heard him come in. “Hey. You find a parking spot okay?” She looked past him for his parents, trying to gauge how many moments she had before they walked in and the tension ratcheted up again.

Blake nodded and jammed his fists in the pockets of his golf shorts. “We can’t all find the spot closest to the door every single time, but I did all right.”

It was a dig.
She’d
gotten a spot right by the door. For a split second she’d considered passing it up because she didn’t want to annoy him, but her parents would have wondered why she was parking farther away.

Her dad cleared his throat, but her mom put her hand on his arm to keep him from saying anything. Lucy hoped her mom could read the thank you she was trying to send with her eyes. Her dad should probably be sainted based on how often he’d bitten his tongue since the Seftons showed up, but she needed her dad to keep the peace just a little longer. The Seftons would get on the road, and they could all breathe easier. The door opened again and admitted Deborah, looking like she’d caught a whiff of something rancid despite the hints of sweet and spicy wafting from the kitchen, and Calvin, tapping out something on his phone like he was trying to punish whoever the message was for with his angry fingers.