I took off the apron and stretched my back. It had been a killer morning and early afternoon. Donna leaned against the counter and let out a long sigh.

“Want to buy this place?” she asked me.

“What?”

“You heard me. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll pass,” I said.

“Shit,” Donna said. She looked at me and smiled. “Busy day today.”

“Very.”

“It felt touristy here. Something must have been going on.”

“I guess that’s good for the register, right?”

“To a point,” Donna said. “The more I make, the more it costs to make. There’s a fine line there, Bella. I’m not doing this to get filthy rich either. It’s not like I’m going to franchise my little cafes into something.”

She walked to the register and opened it. She grabbed some cash and swung her arm back toward me.

“Take it,” she said.

“This is too much.”

“You worked more today.”

“Donna.”

“Bella.”

Defeated, I took the money and stuck it into my pocket. I then took out a couple bucks and said, “I’m going to grab a coffee and sit over there to write. I’ll hang around in case it gets busy again.”

Donna put her hand over mine. “First, you don’t pay for coffee here. Ever. Consider it your only real perk of the job. Second, you do whatever you want. Your shift is over. So get out of here, stay here, I don’t care.”

“You’re going to work alone then?”

“You worked your shift, Bella. You’re done.”

“Right.”

I stuck the money into my pocket and got a coffee. In the back, I grabbed my bag and then took my seat at the window. Right at the front of the cafe. It was like a dream. Me. Coffee. A notebook. A little town. So quaint. And my life was a mess—a complete mess, but I was happy.

I got to play house with Zayne, which was basically us flirting about what to eat, fooling around in his bed, finding something to eat, and then fooling around again. I was pretty sure there wasn’t an inch of his body my mouth hadn’t tasted, and same went for him. He traveled more miles on my body with the tip of his tongue than I did on my feet during that busy shift.

It left me blushing, feeling all warm and gooey inside. Which was dangerous. There was a balance between sex and feelings, and truthfully, I had no idea where that balance was anymore.

So I sat there and wrote by hand. I was going to save up and buy a laptop soon. Then I would actually write something. Just for fun. Just to say I did it.

I got so lost in the notebook I didn’t realize Zayne was there until he stood at the table with two coffees, one in each hand.

“Never thought I’d be in a cafe buying a drink of coffee for a beautiful woman.”

“Used to the bar scene?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

Zayne kicked at the chair across from me. “Mind if I sit?”

“Of course not.”

Zayne sat and gave me a coffee. “I would take you to the bar, but I’m pretty sure you’re still banned.”

“Banned?”

“You tried to fight everyone there. Remember?”

“Oh. That. Yeah.”

I blushed.

“I’m only teasing, darlin’,” Zayne said. “You didn’t hit anyone. I can’t tell you how many fights have broken out in there. How many times the cops have come to break it up and then had a beer with us.”

“Small town, huh?”

“Real small town,” Zayne said. I watched the way he swallowed hard and looked away.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing. What are you writing?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, darlin’. I’ve shown you my drawings. What are you writing?”

“Stuff,” I said.

“So, let me see this stuff.”

“How about I tell you about it?”

“Fair enough,” Zayne said.

“I’m thinking a small-town thing,” I said. “Not because of this town, either. I’ve always loved the small-town kinda setting. Believe it or not, I grew up in the city. Busy parents. Busy life. Busy everything. All I wanted was something simple and easy, and I was the black sheep for it. Everyone in my family did something big. I’m talking going to law school, going to med school, becoming executives. Huge things. Everyone had expensive cars and lives. Me? I just wanted to sit in a little cafe and write a love story.”

“Ah,” Zayne said. “So, you’re writing a love story set in a small town. Is the man a hunk with tattoos?”

“Now who in the world would want to read about that?” I asked with a smile. “Better yet, who would want that in real life?”

Zayne laughed. “So, you’re the black sheep like me. Except I was the only sheep left, I guess you could say. It was survival by adapting. Finding opportunity. So I found it. I probably did everything wrong, but who cares?”

I held up my left hand and showed I wasn’t wearing the ring. I reached into my pocket and got it out and slid it onto my finger. “Yeah, you’ve done everything wrong, Zayne.”

“Ah, you don’t wear the ring at work?” he asked.

“Well…I wasn’t sure if I should. If people would talk.”

“Fuck people,” Zayne said. “It would drive them crazy. Imagine the stories. They wouldn’t know what to do.”

“I could put that in my book,” I said. “Maybe I can write our story. The whole… save the girl but then pretend to be engaged to make the ex jealous…”

“Except there’s one flaw.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“Well, this is a love story, right? That means the story people pretending would have to fall in love.”

Zayne just stared at me. My heart sank. It raced as it sank.

He didn’t say anything else. I didn’t say anything else.

What was he implying…that we weren’t…or couldn’t…

It really hadn’t occurred to me yet what me and Zayne really were.

And I wasn’t going to get my answer right then either.

“So I guess you’ll have to make up the ending,” Zayne said. “I can’t wait to read it.”

I swallowed hard and nodded. “Right. I guess I’ll have to keep working at this.”

“Want to see something I’ve been working on?”

“Sure,” I said.

Zayne took out a sketchbook and flipped it open. He spun it around and showed me a huge tribal design with the center blank.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“You,” Zayne said. “This will go around your butterfly. All the way up to your sides and then down to your leg.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m going from a small butterfly to all this? Who said I liked getting the first one?”

Zayne laughed. “I’m just joking, darlin’. This is for someone else.”

“Oh,” I said.

I felt a little jealousy. How stupid of me.

“There’s a woman who has a crow with a heart in its mouth. She wants this around it.”

“Where?”

“On her body?”

I nodded.

“Jealous?” Zayne asked.

“Maybe.”

Zayne closed the sketchbook. He reached for my hand. “If you must know, this is on her leg. And, yes, I’m going to see parts of her body that would probably make you jealous. But I don’t look at it the way you probably think. I’m an artist, darlin’. The body is my canvas, and I have the vision in my head. I’m not there for that kind of stuff. When someone comes to see me, they trust me to see them as an artist would. I promise.”

I nodded. “That was strangely romantic.”

“See, I can pull something out of my ass now and again.”

“Again, the romance,” I said.

“Well, I better let you be,” Zayne said. “So you can write that love story.”

“Where are you going?”

“St. Skin. Need to get to work.”

“Right.”

Zayne stood and grabbed his bag and threw it over his shoulder. It was interesting to see him with a bag on his shoulder. This super big tough guy with tattoos riding a motorcycle, but at the end of the day he was simply an artist.

“I’ll see you soon, darlin’,” he said. He leaned down and kissed me. Without worry. Without care. “And I hope you find the ending you really want.”

Zayne’s kiss left me breathless, and his words scrambled my brain.

I licked my lips to taste him as he walked out of the cafe.

I watched him climb onto his motorcycle and it roared to life and sped off into the distance.

I looked down at my notebook. Then to the engagement ring. After a few quiet seconds, a tear fell from my eye and splashed against the page, then quickly got absorbed into it.

I honestly had no idea why I was crying.

But then it hit me.

Whatever this thing was with Zayne…it was fun, and I was actually happy for once in my life.