Page 81 of Between the Lines

I bite my lip, warmth spreading through me.

“I would never ask for more than you can give,” he continues. “Don’t overthink this, we don’t need to complicate things. You’re here for three more weeks, so we’ll keep doing us, however it feels right. We don’t have to label it. We don’t have to make rules.”

The words settle in, and I take a moment to see how they feel. “Us. Okay. So what exactly . . . ?”

Caden lets out a little laugh. “I want to keep spending time with you. I want to kiss you when I see you. I want to get to know you, Fia, all of you.”

Oh.

“Okay,” I breathe out. “What about work?”

Caden runs a hand across his strong jaw. “Yeah.” He sits up a little straighter too.

I know this is still a fear of his even if he’s pushed it aside for tonight.

“I think it’s best to keep things between us.” He rubs my hips. “I’m not asking you to lie to anyone, but this is all new . . . and I don’t want to ruin what we have professionally. But please don’t confuse that with how much I care about you, how much I like you, because I promise it outweighs the fear.” He swallows, and his eyes flicker. Then he lifts his chin. “I’m just trying to catch up.”

I think about Penny and explaining this relationship, about how everyone at work will think differently of me. Treat me differently.

He’s right.

“I understand, I do,” I reply, my hand over his. “I promise, my lips are sealed.”

I like this bubble we have here. I don’t want things to change.

“Like I said to you the first day you moved in,” he says, “all I care about is that you feel safe. That hasn’t changed.”

My chest constricts, and my eyes prick with tears. Because as I sit here, his arms around me, there’s a calmness in my body.

A realization.

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more safe than I do now.

33

Caden

The thing about owning a coffee shop in an old building, on an even older street, is that repairs are constant—inside and out.

Dust billows around me as I stand feet from Good Grinds’ door. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I grumble to myself, coughing as a jackhammer breaks apart the sidewalk.

Who the hell would want to walk past this?

I spot a guy with a clipboard and hard hat who seems somewhat in charge and wave him down.

“Hey, you guys know how long this will take?” I ask.

“They’re repairing a water line," he says with a shrug, not lifting his eyes from his paper. “So could be a day, could be a week. You should’ve gotten an email from the water company.”

I did not.

But it doesn’t matter anyway because my plans for the day don’t involve being at the shop at all. However, they do involve kidnapping Fia from it.

I dust my shirt off as I enter the shop, and just as I suspected, there’s not a single customer inside. I haven’t seen it this dead in a year.

The new barista behind the counter peeks up at me, a nervous smile on her face.

“How’s it going?” I ask nonchalantly, but before she can answer, Fia comes around the corner, arms brimming with overstock from the back room.