Jonah stops the bike in front of the corner shop I point out to him.

Vegan Eatin’ is a decent sized eatery on the corner of Main Street and Elm. Its menu is entirely vegan and gluten-free and all the recipes are made with 100% organic ingredients purchased from local farms.

Donny, my boss, and his wife moved to Greenfield from Oregon a couple years back and founded the Vegan shortly after arriving. Much to the town’s surprise, they’ve been a moderate success.

“Vegan Eatin’? This is where you work?”

I give him a sideways look as I slip off the back of the bike and readjust the strap of my purse. “Yeah. Why?”

“It just seems so…”

“So… What?”

“Not what I expected…?”

“Lilly!”

Jonah and I turn in tandem to the source of the voice calling my name.

The front door to Vegan Eatin’ stands open and a blonde, blue eyed young man with a green apron around his waist stands in the doorway.

“Donny’s asking for you.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll be right there.” I turn back to Jonah as he retreats back into the store. “Sorry, duty calls.”

He nods. “Do want me to come get you later?”

“Nah, I’m going to go get Iris after I get off. I should be home around six thirty. If I don’t come home, feel free to eliminate the Order to avenge my death…” I shrug. “Or I suppose you could call, but I’m not at all partial to the order you decide to do those in.”

He gives me a stiff salute. “Aye-aye, captain.”

I wave over my shoulder as I turn toward the eatery. “Thanks for the ride.”

“No problem.”

Jonah pedals back down the block toward home and I step into the Vegan, the little bell that hangs over the door signaling my arrival. The restaurant is moderately busy this morning, a fair number of customers seated at various tables.

Before I do anything, I search out Donny.

I find him in the kitchen helping with food prep, but he abandons his bell peppers when he sees me walk in. Wiping his hands on his apron, he smiles as he makes his way over to me and my heart warms.

Donny has been somewhat of a surrogate father to me in the few months I’ve been working at the Vegan. With his scruffy beard and his bright brown eyes framed with laugh lines, I’ve always felt at ease around him—a feeling that doesn’t come easily to me.

“Hey, girl. Don’t worry about being late today, it’s just good to see you alive and well. You haven’t missed a day since starting here, so I must say, I was a bit surprised that you called out yesterday.” He gives me a concerned once over. “Are you feeling better, then?”

“Yeah, it must have been something I ate…” I laugh awkwardly.

More like something that ate me

“You’re still looking kind of pale. Are you up for delivery today? Or do you want to stay on site?” He rubs his beard absentmindedly.

“I think I’ll stay on site, manage the tea bar. I’m going to try to take it easy today, if that’s alright?”

I normally do the delivery runs. I find it much easier to deal with customers for the five minutes it takes them to hand me money, rather than faking a smile all day. But, putting aside for a second the fact that I’m totally exhausted today, I’d be pretty useless on delivery runs without Iris.

“Yeah, sure.” He waves me off as he returns to his cutting board. “Just let Connor know he’ll be taking over.”

“Sure thing.”

I grab a scone off the warming rack as I exit the kitchen and head to the back of the restaurant into a small break room where lockers for the staff are kept. The young, twenty-something who’d called to me earlier breezes in as I’m reaching into my locker to pull out my green apron.

Connor Adams is your everyday ‘boy next door;’ sweet, kind, caring, and quick to smile. Luckily for Connor, he hit the genetic jackpot and, instead of having the generic looks most nice guys have, he was born with the kind of movie-star looks all girls wish their neighbor boy had—bright, blonde hair (natural, of course), piercing blue eyes, and a smile he must have inherited from Prince Charming himself.

Yes, Connor Adams is every girl’s wet dream, and, for some reason, he’s decided I’m the girl of his dreams.

Don’t ask me why.

I’ve long since given up on understanding the male population.

You’d think I’d be happy to have a boy like Connor pining after me, but the problem with the ‘all American, cotton candy, apple pie’ types is that they tend to want something us ladies-who-chase-revenant-in-the-night can’t provide: stability.

Which is why Adams and I will never be a thing, no matter how many hours a day he spends pining after me with those beautiful, puppy-dog eyes of his. It’s just not possible because there is no scenario in which our lives would ever mix.

Other than at work. Obviously.

“Hey, Adams.” I call to him through a mouthful of scone. “Mind doing delivery today?”

He shakes his head. “No, not at all. Still not feeling well, then? I heard you were out sick.”

“Yeah, still pretty tired today so I’m gonna take it easy and make the hipsters their fancy teas.”

I take a seat in one of the chairs lining the table that takes up the center of the room, idly pushing at a lost crumb as I finish up my scone.

Behind me, the fridge hums softly, and the display on the microwave indicates that there’s three seconds left on a timer that has long since been abandoned.

“That’s probably a good idea. You’re not looking so well. What’s—?” He reaches a hand toward my neck and I immediately slap a palm over the twin marks that lie just above the collar of my shirt.

“It’s nothing! I, uh, tripped and fell into a coat rack the other night. It was a close call, but I wasn’t seriously hurt. So, no worries!” I plaster on a bright smile and hope to god he leaves the topic at that. The bruising has faded, but the two puckered puncture holes still linger steadfastly.

Hastily standing, I retrieve my jacket out of my locker and put it on to cover the marks.

Connor eyes me warily but doesn’t press the issue further. Instead, he reaches into his own locker to exchange his green apron for his jacket.

“I tried calling you when you didn’t show up on time today, but it wouldn’t connect.”

“Oh yeah, I got a new phone.” Just another one of the many stops on the mall tour Jonah and I took yesterday.

“Oh, sweet. What’s your new number?”

My cool glance is enough to start him stuttering into an excuse.

“Uh, you know, in case I need to get ahold of you for, um, work stuff or something?”

Truth be told, I’d rather Connor not have my number. God forbid he texts me ‘just because.’ He only had it before because I used to call him for the schedule when I first started at the Vegan.

On the other hand, you never know when you might find yourself in a pickle.

“Tell you what. You give me your number, and I’ll call you.”

“Uh, sure.”

He rattles off his phone number and I apathetically type it into my phone, saving it under ‘ICE’ for ‘In Case of Emergency,’ because that’s the only situation in which I would ever actually call him.

With that done, I turn to make my way out of the break room and return to work, tucking my phone into my pocket and leaving Connor standing there awkwardly with his phone in his hand.

“Wait, Lilly. Were you going to call? …Lilly?”