Page 4 of Change of Plans

“Si-i-lent mocha!” Hannah sang in the kitchen to the tune of Silent Night.

“That’ll be four ninety-five,” I laughed.

Linda paid and stepped aside to wait. Before I took the next order, I glanced hopefully toward the door, hoping Theo would march back in to demand a refund, replacement, or at least an explanation. Maybe Hannah had a point about doing something to break the ice.

Theo didn’t come back in, though. Instead, my usual routine was interrupted by Gilbert walking back behind the counter with a concerned frown on his face, still studying the paper that the tall guy had dropped off earlier.

“Have you heard anything about this?” he asked.

“About what?” I asked, leaning over to get a better look at the notice.

“It’s a notice about a construction permit for the lot next door,” Gilbert said. “Apparently, someone bought the lot and they’re going to build more retail space there.”

“Build more retail space?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

“Shit,” Brian said, stepping over from the coffee machines to take the paper from Gilbert’s hand so he could read it. “That means a hell of a lot of noise, dirt, and chaos.”

“Does it?” I asked.

It might,” Gilbert said, taking the notice back from Brian and studying it some more as he rubbed the bottom half of hisface. I really wished I’d understood the thing more when I’d first looked at it. “I’ll do a bit more research.”

“Construction sucks for places like this,” Brian said as we resumed our places so we could finish out the morning rush. “Especially if they have to block off the street while everything is underway. Businesses have gone under because of construction next door. That happened to a place I knew back in Pittsburgh.”

I flinched, hitting my toe against the side of the counter as I did. Closing the street would be a nightmare. And Brian was right. Small businesses like ours struggled when access to them was blocked.

I wasn’t going to sink into doom and gloom yet, though. A permit for construction wasn’t the same thing as bulldozers pulling up immediately to knock down walls. I wasn’t sure what I could do about anything, but I trusted my family enough to do whatever it took to keep Common Grounds from closing.

CHAPTER 2

Theo

Bad things happened when I broke my routine.

It was a fact that had first been established when I was in second grade and Rachel Latta took the red cushion that I always sat on out of the reading nook so she could sit with her friends next to the fish tank. I was forced to sit on the green cushion next to Aram Yardumian, who spent the first five minutes of silent reading time talking to me instead of reading. And when I snapped and told him to be quiet, Mrs. Buss blamed the distraction on me and sent me to sit in the hall.

Few things caused as much lasting damage as humiliating an eight-year-old.

The danger of breaking my routine was a truth that I was reminded of over and over—when I did my homework after supper instead of before for whatever reason and got a lower grade, when I put my car keys on the third hook from the door instead of the second and got a flat tire on the way to my first day of work at my first real job, when I bought new shoes and worethem right away instead of letting them sit in their box on my dresser for a week and immediately stepped in dog shit when I left my apartment.

I knew when to tempt fate and when to follow the rules.

That was why I’d started getting my coffee from Common Grounds every morning on my way to work instead of making it myself after my ex took the fancy coffeemaker with him when we split. Paul could have the blasted thing, for all I cared, and the bitterness that went with it. Common Grounds had much better coffee anyhow.

And it had Diccon Meyers.

I tried to ignore the heat that had taken over my face as I walked down Easton Road toward the offices of Gershwin and Anglesea Architects with my plain black, boring coffee in hand. It was perfectly reasonable to like the look of someone who I saw on a daily basis. I had half a dozen coworkers who were objectively attractive as well. The only reason my heart sped up a little every time I walked into Common Grounds was because it knew a caffeine fix was coming.

“Keep telling yourself that, boy-o,” I said, mimicking the way my Irish granny had always talked to me as an awkward teenager.

The problem was, I probably would keep telling myself that I wasn’t attracted to Diccon Meyers. I would probably keep on convincing myself that the hot barista with honey-blond hair and happy, hazel eyes was either straight or taken.

But no, he definitely wasn’t straight. None of the Meyers brothers were, if community gossip and the pride flags outside the café were to be believed. And I’d never seen Diccon out and about in Glenside or neighboring Jenkintown with anyone. That didn’t mean he wasn’t dating or that I stood a snowball’s chance in?—

I stopped so abruptly I would have sloshed hot coffee all over my face as I took my first sip from the cardboard cup if not for the lid.

It wasn’t my usual coffee.

Someone had made a mistake.