that felt a little heavy for small talk with the barista. “It’s still just a hobby for me,” I said. “But who knows? Maybe someday.”
“I take it back then. The fact that they have you making coffee runs instead of designing clothes makes me hate LeFranc,” Chloe said as she slid a lid onto Sasha’s macchiato. “I’ll never wear it in protest.”
“Give me a few more months,” I said with a wry grin. “Every day I’m a day closer.”
“I like your attitude.” Chloe turned back to the cappuccino machine behind her. “Just a few more to go.”
I nodded and pulled out my phone, scrolling through the to-do list Sasha had texted over that morning. I’d already made it through the first half—not bad for a morning’s work.
A minute later, a text came in from my brother, asking if we were still on for dinner that night. I inwardly groaned. I’d almost forgotten about dinner.
I should have been excited to see my twin. He still lived in Charleston, so we didn’t see each other very often. But Isaac and I—we couldn’t be more different. I was Gucci and New York Fashion Week. He was cargo shorts and . . . the couch in his basement. We’d done okay as teenagers. We’d tolerated each other, at least. But then he’d opted out of college to stay home and focus on the YouTube channel he’d developed while we were still in high school. I’d been furious at the time. Colleges had offered him money to come use his brain and Isaac had picked . . . YouTube?
Still, family was family. I keyed out a quick response, confirming the restaurant and time.
When the bell above Java Jean’s front door jingled, I didn’t even look up. But then I heard a voice that made the blood in my veins run New York-winter cold.
“I completely understand. I’ll take care of it right away. Right. Sounds good,” the voice said.
I gripped the edge of the counter, grateful it was there to hold me up. Because hearing Alex Randall’s voice? That was enough to put me flat on the floor.
Chloe leaned toward me. “Dani? You okay?”
I forced a breath in through my nose, and out through my mouth. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was some other Southern guy that just sounded like him. Some other guy who didn’t have wavy chestnut hair or perfect brown eyes or an incredible dusting of freckles across perfectly chiseled cheekbones. I closed my eyes, a sudden swell of anger surging to the surface, making my skin feel hot, prickly. I could envision those eyes like it was yesterday. Like it hadn’t been twelve agonizing months since he’d left New York. Since he’d left me.
I snuck a brief glance over my shoulder, my heart tripling its speed as soon as I determined that yes, the one and only Alex Randall was standing less than ten feet away from me. At once I felt both elated to see him again—I’d loved the man, after all—and furious that he felt like he had any right to place himself within a one-hundred-mile radius of where he knew me to be. Java Jeans was my territory. Maybe he’d introduced me to the place, but he’d ceded it when he’d left. He was the guilty one. The heartbreaking, dream-crushing, soul-stabbing, vanishing act that had nearly been my undoing.
A year-long relationship and he’d left without even sending a text.
If not for my job at LeFranc, and my close friends rallying around me, I might have left New York altogether, but I couldn’t have run home even if I’d wanted to. Home was where Alex had gone. If I had tucked tail and gone to Charleston, it would have looked like I was running to him.
Alexander Ellison Randall III had eased into my life with the grace you might expect from someone named like they belonged in the pages of a Civil War-era romance novel. We’d met at a fancy party on the Upper East Side where anyone who was anyone in fashion was in attendance. From the cultured southern accent that made me feel homesick and at home all at the same time, to his stories of spending his summers in New York with his stepfather, the legendary Alicio LeFranc who I’d idolized since childhood, it hadn’t taken me more than a minute to fall for him.
I couldn’t stand there gripping the Java Jean’s counter forever.
I had to face him. Unless I wanted to vault over the cash