“Ow! Holy shit!”

“What’s happening?”

“I just burned myself on this!”

I hurried over to the side of the espresso machine. Owen was there, hunched over the counter, learning the basics of how to prepare a latte. He was holding his hand away from the machine, a canister of half-steamed milk at his side.

“Yes, Owen, if you are steaming milk in a metal canister, it is going to be hot. Extremely hot, even. That’s why there is a handle on the canister. Use it.”

“Fucking ow,” he said.

“Watch your language; there are customers in here,” I said quietly. “And go run your hand under some cold water.”

I sighed as I watched him head over to the sink, trying not to look too visibly frustrated. I had known that Owen wouldn’t be perfect at first, but if I had to teach him basic things like don’t touch steaming hot metal, I knew I had my work cut out for me.

It was Owen’s second morning working at the shop, and five days since I’d last seen Taran. I should have known at the time that when he said he’d stop in for a cup of coffee, he hadn’t been sincere—a guy like him had probably forgotten I existed the minute I wasn’t in his apartment any longer.

Still, it hurt a little. I felt like I had connected with him that night, even if it was just the beginning of a casual friendship. But apparently I had been wrong.

It was for the better, though. If Taran had come in this morning, he would have thought I was running a ramshackle pigsty of a café. Training Owen had been more demanding than I’d expected, and I’d given Emmett this morning off as a thank you for covering my night shift earlier in the week. So many things needed to be restocked in the front of the house, and there were half-full milk pitchers all over the back bar from Owen’s experimenting.

The morning rush had ended a while back, but business was still steady enough that it had been difficult keeping up the café essentially on my own that morning.

I took a deep breath as Owen tended to his minor burns. As I started to gather various milk canisters, the minute I turned away from the front door I heard the little bell jingling yet again.

“What’s up, pretty boys?” a familiar voice said.

I turned to see Andy walking in with his boyfriend Chase, smiling wide. Andy worked at the little mini-mart across the street from Brew for You, and he was absolutely one of my favorite people in Rose Falls. He was young—still in college—but despite his wild attitude, he was wise beyond his years in many ways. He’d recently fallen in love with Chase, and the two of them were almost sickeningly adorable together.

“Hey Andy,” I said. “Long time no see.”

“I know, right?” he said. “I’ve just been so busy with this one here,” he said, leaning against Chase. A light pink blush fell across Chase’s cheeks—the kid was shy, but somehow he perfectly complimented Andy’s zaniness.

“Holy shit, Owen! How the hell are you? You work here now?” Andy asked as he came up to the bar, leaning over.

“Hey Andy,” Owen said. “Yeah, I’m back in town for a while. And everything was going fine, at least until I gave myself, like, eighth-degree burns here.”

“There’s no such thing as an eighth-degree burn,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’ll be just fine.”

“How’s life, Patrick?” Andy asked. “I noticed you haven’t been coming into the mini-mart to get last-minute fruits as much lately.”

“Yeah,” I said, “the nighttime business hasn’t exactly been booming here lately. We aren’t selling out of the drinks that need the citrus.”

Andy narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t tell me it’s that Cobalt place’s fault,” he said.

“God, I’ve had to deliver about ten dozen different bouquets to that place since they opened,” Chase said. He worked at a local florist’s shop. “Most of them were going to the owner—I think his name is Taran?”

“Yup, that’s him,” I said. “And he’s exactly the kind of guy who’d constantly be having flowers delivered to him, I’m sure of it.”

“The place sure seems… fancy. But I don’t know why anyone would ever go there when Brew for You is right here,” Andy said.

“You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that. After this past week, I’ve been about ready to admit that they’re the better bar. But if I’ve got the youth on my side…”

“Nonsense,” Owen said, walking over to me and leaning against the bar. “Brew for You now has Owen Davis as an employee, and therefore it is the best bar in Rose Falls.”

“He’s kinda right,” Andy said. “You’ll always have the better bar because you’re here.”

“D’aww,” I said. “You’re flattering me now, Andy.”

“I always flatter you. It’s how I get all my free cups of coffee.”

I laughed as I turned back and started to teach Owen how to make Andy’s regular drink, an iced hazelnut latte. It was ridiculous, of course—I did give Andy free cups of coffee from time to time, but he always tipped more than the drink would have cost in the first place. He was a good kid, and I was always glad to have him in the café.

“That being said…” Andy continued, “have you seen that guy Taran? He’s not exactly rough on the eyes.”

“Of course I’ve seen him,” I said. “He’s fine.”

I heard Andy stifling a laugh, and I turned to shoot him a glance. “What?”

“Yeah, sure, he’s fine,” Andy said, still grinning at Chase.

“Listen, not that I’m not enjoying this middle-school level giggling, but what’s the problem?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Andy said. “Chase and I just sort of… have a little bet going.”

“A bet about what?” I said, adding the hazelnut syrup to Andy’s drink.

“Andy thinks you’ve… already slept with Taran,” Chase said. “And I think it’s going to take a few more weeks before it happens.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said. Owen had busted up laughing next to me. I tried to ignore the ridiculous, childish rumor mill that was going on around me. “Come on, Owen, I have to show you how to make the rest of this drink.”

“I know how to make it,” Owen said, waving a hand through the air. “You put in the espresso; then you pour in the milk. It isn’t exactly rocket science.”

“But apparently not burning yourself on burning-hot things is rocket science to you, Owen, so I want to make sure I cover all my bases here.”

Owen finally stopped laughing. “Sorry,” he said.

We finished making the drink, and then poured Chase’s usual iced tea for him.

“Patrick, you don’t have to worry about Cobalt,” Andy said. “Sorry to joke around like that, but I really mean it. There’s no bar like yours. Cobalt seems fun for a crazy night out, but Brew for You feels like a second home.”

“Thank you, Andy,” I said. “I’m not upset that you joked around about that. I just… I’m only ever going to be friends with Taran Vallas, and that’s the way it is. He isn’t staying in Rose Falls for long, and he hasn’t even come into my bar once since he’s been here.”

“He hasn’t visited? But in the newspaper article from this morning—”

Chase suddenly nudged Andy hard on the shoulder, and Andy immediately stopped talking. It was like flipping a light switch—Andy’s face fell into a composed, polite smile, his wide goofy grin a shadow of its normal self.

“Anyway,” Andy said, clearing his throat.

“We should get going,” Chase said, picking up his iced tea, blushing deep red, now. “Good to see you, Patrick.”

“Stop by sometime soon,” Andy said, nodding at me before they left.

When they were gone, Owen and I exchanged a look. “Well, that was fucking weird,” Owen said after a pause.

“Yeah, it really was weird,” I said. “I’ve never seen Andy shut up so quickly like that in my life.”

“Andy normally never stops talking, and that was like, instantaneous.”

Owen gazed over at the front of the store before quickly walking over to the end of the bar and crossing over to the newspaper stand. He came back, flicking open this morning’s paper as he leaned back against the bar.

“Oh come on, don’t bother reading whatever article it was they were talking about. Clearly it’s not something I should know about.”

“I’m way too curious to stop now,” Owen said.

“No, you need to help me clean up this mess,” I said, looking again at the devastation around the bar.

“It’s not that messy!” Owen protested. Unfortunately, part of me knew he was right. It was actually pretty well kept, but to me, it looked like a madhouse. I tried to keep the bar as clean as possible at all times.

“You never know when someone new is going to come into the store,” I said. “That’s a good lesson for me to teach you: you should always consider what your first impression of the bar would be if you walked in at any moment. Because every day, someone could be getting their first impression of us.”

When he didn’t respond, I turned to see him engrossed in the newspaper, eyes wide.

“Give me that,” I said, trying to swipe it from his hands.

“No!” he said, practically shouting, jerking the paper away from me. “No,” he repeated as he stuffed the paper into the nearby trashcan and then dumped a bunch of old espresso grounds on top of it. “You’re right; we have to clean the bar. No point in sitting around reading the paper. Who even reads those things anymore? So, want to show me how to make a cappuccino now?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Nice try.”

Within seconds I’d crossed over, gotten another copy of the paper, and had opened it to the section with a huge picture of Taran on it.

It was the first time I’d seen his face at all since Cobalt’s opening night, and I was struck again just by how attractive he was. He was dressed in a black button-up, the top few buttons undone, his arms crossed as he smiled out at the camera. He didn’t look like he belonged in the Rose Falls newspaper at all, and he would more likely be at home in GQ Magazine. I remembered how it had felt having those sultry eyes on me—like he was bewitching me without even trying.

The headline read: “A New Era for Rose Falls? Vallas’ Cobalt Has a Smashing First Week.” Most of the article was fairly benign, and I was having a hard time finding why Andy would have acted so strange about bringing it up.

But near the end, the reporter asked him a question that I knew was the culprit. I swallowed as I read it, knowing that it would probably better if I didn’t go on. But of course, I did anyway—I had to know the truth, and I was already in too deep.

“Do you think that Cobalt will affect nearby bars such as Brew for You?”

Taran had answered a similar question before, but this time he explained things slightly differently.

“Don’t get me wrong; I love Brew for You. It’s clearly a very important presence in the neighborhood, and one of the only bars that isn’t in the downtown Promenade area of Rose Falls. Some people would say that’s a mistake, and even I have wondered why a small bar would position itself on a quieter street. But do I think of Brew for You as my competition? No, I do not. I don’t anticipate it being an issue for me. No, I don’t intend to put them out of business, but they aren’t a threat to me in the slightest. I’m no more scared of Brew for You than I would be of a fly, you know?”

I stared at the paper in disbelief, reading the passage through again and again.

“What the fuck is this?” I said aloud.

“Language, Patty,” Owen whispered at me, and when I looked up, I realized that two people had gathered at the register, waiting to order drinks. Luckily, Owen took the reins for the first time since starting work.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” he said, putting on his best customer service voice. She wanted an iced tea, which was something that even Owen knew how to prepare.

And that was good because I was so taken aback by Taran’s quote that my hands had started to shake. I didn’t understand it. Taran had really seemed genuinely kind the other night when we had hung out. Had I really been so drunk that I hadn’t realized he was a total asshole? Had he actually been making fun of me that whole night, only hanging out with me as some kind of sick joke?

I felt like a teenager who’d been stood up for prom. Of course I knew Cobalt was bigger and slicker than my bar, but for Taran to publicly say that Brew for You wasn’t even good enough to compete with Cobalt—that we were the business equivalent of a pesky fly—was a step out of line.

And I didn’t care how rich, how slick, how attractive Taran was. I wasn’t going to let him get away with saying it.

* * *

For the rest of the day, I didn’t feel like myself. I’d gone the whole week wondering—and half-hoping—that Taran would stop by to get a coffee, and with each passing day, I’d become more and more disappointed. But that quote in the article had morphed my disappointment entirely into anger.

By the end of the long day, I’d barely thought of anything else. The bar was closing at midnight because it was Sunday, and I knew that Cobalt was also closing at the same time.

And so I did something that I’d normally never dream of doing: I marched over to Cobalt as soon as I closed my own bar. Confrontation has never been my strong suit, but I really did feel like I was defending my own child. I couldn’t abide watching Taran publicly talk about Brew for You like he had in the paper. I knew that almost all of my daily customers read that paper.

The air outside was surprisingly balmy and did nothing to chill my hot temper. I shrugged off my flannel as I walked over to Cobalt, tossing it over my shoulder on the way. I was clutching my copy of the newspaper in my fist—it was now crumpled from how many times I’d folded and unfolded it throughout the day.

As I approached Cobalt, groups of women were still streaming out of the front door, clearly drunk and very boisterous. I stepped past them, trying to make my way inside.

“It’s closed, darling,” a tall, blonde woman told me. “They just kicked us out.”

“I know. I have… I have personal business with the owner,” I said.

“Oh—good luck finding him,” she said, a disappointed look coming over her face. “He was the reason we came here in the first place, but we only caught a glimpse of him before he disappeared into the back. He’s so hot!”

“Wait, do you know him?” the woman by her side said excitedly. “Could you tell him to come out here? I wanna see if the rumors about him are true.”

“I don’t know him that well,” I said. “Sorry, ladies, I’ve gotta go now.” I pushed into the bar beyond them, scanning the place.

It looked so different than it had on opening night. The main difference was that I was now seeing the place empty for the first time, which somehow made it less intimidating. After all, it was just a bar, and when it wasn’t packed with debutantes and hipsters, it pretty much looked like any other bar, gussied up with fancy fixtures and pretty furniture.

I didn’t see Taran anywhere, as the women had said. But when I looked over toward the bar, I did recognize Mary, the nice bartender from opening night.

“Patrick?” she said when she looked up from the register she was closing. “Sorry, we’re closed, but I’ll make you whatever drink you want, on the house.”

I walked over toward her. “Jesus, you remember my name?”

She shrugged. “Of course. You own Brew for You.”

“Right,” I said, nodding. I remembered how strangely she had acted when I first told her I was from Brew for You, and now I knew why: Taran had most likely told all his employees from day one that my bar was to be treated like an insect pest.

“Thank you so much, Mary,” I said. “But no. I’m actually looking for Taran. I… I really need to talk to him.”

“Oh,” she said, a look of surprise on her face. “He hasn’t really been around much tonight. He’s been staying in the back. Sometimes he gets in these moods….”

“Quite frankly, I don’t care what mood he’s in. I just need to see him,” I said, my voice sterner than I’d meant it to be. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. Not to you, anyway—”

“Patrick,” a deep voice came from the hallway behind the bar. I turned and saw Taran, dressed sharp but much less fancy than he had been the other night. The suit was gone, replaced by a tight-fitting sweater that probably cost more than my monthly rent.

“Taran,” I said. I watched his eyes drift down until he saw the newspaper clutched in my hand. His lips pressed into a tight, grim line.

“Come back here to the office,” he said. His face was stony and unemotional as he disappeared back down the hallway. I followed, finding myself in a very small but very… Taran-like space. There was a desk, a couch, and two chairs just like my own office, but everything was new, made out of rich woods, and there were plenty of plants and artwork in the office.

Even his tiny back office was lavish and all-around better than mine. It was like he’d swooped into town solely to one-up me at everything I did.

“What are you doing here, Patrick?” Taran said, going over to his chair but not sitting down.

I remained standing as well. “You know exactly why I’m here. Don’t play dumb,” I said, tossing the crumpled paper onto his desk. My hands were shaking again, and I could feel my heart beginning to race—I couldn’t remember if I’d ever confronted someone like this, someone who very obviously could beat me to a pulp if he chose to. I wasn’t scrawny, but it was clear that Taran spent more time at the gym than I did.

“Fine,” he said, shrugging. “You saw the article. What do you want to say to me about it?”

“I want to ask you why the hell you’re going around comparing my pride and joy to a housefly, when just days ago you were feeding me lines about how we should be friends and how our bars were going to be helping one another. Or was that all bullshit?”

His face hardened. “It wasn’t bullshit, Patrick.”

“Then why? Why would you say it? Jesus, Taran—do you not think about the fact that this is already hard enough for me? It’s already been bad enough with you waltzing into town, erecting the Taj Mahal of bars, and then galavanting around town like you’re better than all of us lowly small-towners?”

He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms, his face betraying no emotion whatsoever as he looked at me. “What is the problem? It’s just a newspaper—no one reads them anymore, do they?”

“What?”

“Everyone’s on their iPhones, looking at Buzzfeed and Facebook. Probably two or three old men read the article, and it’ll all be forgotten about by tomorrow. Just ignore it, Patrick. It’s business. I said what I thought I had to say.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “God, you couldn’t be any more clueless, could you?” I said, raking a hand through my hair. “You really have no idea how Rose Falls works. Of course you don’t—you don’t give a shit about this town or anyone in it. Yeah, Taran, people still read the newspaper here.”

“If you’re so proud of your bar, you shouldn’t care what I say in the paper, anyway.”

“Well, I do,” I said, “I fucking do. And I’m going to need you to apologize.”

“Why?”

I paused for a second, mouth agape at him. “You’re joking, right?”

He shrugged one shoulder up, still acting completely nonchalant about everything. “What’s the big deal? Why are you so worked up about this?”

“Because I’m afraid for my livelihood!” I said, raising my voice. “I risked everything in my life to bring Brew for You into existence, and I don’t want to see it fail just because Goliath has come into town. And that might happen whether or not you’re saying shit about my bar in the paper—but if you’re talking down about it, it sure doesn’t help.”

I had been speaking so loudly that I worried that the bartenders out front might have heard me. But a split second later I realized that I didn’t care. I needed to tell Taran this, and if people overheard it, so be it. It was the truth.

Taran looked down, briefly pinching the bridge of his nose. The office now felt oddly too quiet after my outburst, and despite all the anger inside me, I felt some strange need to fill the silence.

“What do you have to say to me, Taran?”

He shook his head as he looked up at me. “God damn it.”

“God damn what, asshole?”

“Great, really nice, now you’re calling me an asshole.”

“Well, you’re certainly being one, for seemingly no reason at all.”

He shook his head slowly, meeting my eyes. “Have you ever considered that maybe I’m intimidated by you, Patrick?”

I furrowed my brow, practically laughing in his face. “What?”

For the first time that night, Taran looked defeated rather than defiant. “Guess you haven’t considered it. Not that I’m surprised.”

“Listen, I’m all for having empathy, but I really can’t think of one reason why you would be intimidated by me.”

“Not by you,” he said. “By your bar. You’ve said it yourself—Brew for You has become an absolute favorite place in Rose Falls, especially on our street.”

“So what?” I said. “You’re a big shot from the city with endless money. Don’t try to play the pity card now.”

“I opened Cobalt here only because Madeline wanted me to. She’s my business partner, my best friend, and I owe her my life. But if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t even know Rose Falls existed.”

I barked out a laugh. “God, if you’re trying to get sympathy from me by talking shit about Rose Falls like this, it’s really not going to work,” I said.

He shook his head again. “No, no, no, you still don’t get it,” he said, now raising his voice a little. “I fundamentally don’t belong here, Patrick. In D.C., I belong. I know what the people want. And even if half the city ends up hating me, there are still so many people there that I’m bound to have some success at my bars. But in Rose Falls? I don’t have anything like that. Nobody knew who I was before I got here. And it feels like the entire town has been watching me ever since Cobalt opened its doors. And a huge part of me thinks that the whole town is waiting for me to fail.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Taran. First of all, it isn’t true—people are loving Cobalt. At least it seems like it, based on the women that were leaving here tonight.”

“Don’t talk about those women. They didn’t give half a shit about the bar. They only ordered the cheapest drinks. They just came here because they saw some newspaper write-up about me being the ‘Casanova.’”

I raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that what you’re going for? Notoriety, fame?”

“That’s what I’m saying, Patrick,” he said, his eyes wide. “That’s all I have going for me. If I don’t stay in the headlines, would anyone in Rose Falls even come to Cobalt?”

I paused, unsure of how to answer that question. Part of me knew it was true, honestly. A lot of the buzz around Cobalt had been due to Taran’s personality. People wanted to see him, wanted to indulge their curiosity about a small-time bar celebrity.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay, I understand that. You’re worried about the success of your bar, just like I am. I can’t blame you for that. But I have a question for you, Taran, and I need you to answer it honestly.”

“What’s the question?”

I watched him closely. “…Why would you even care so much if Cobalt wasn’t successful? You have two other amazingly popular bars in a bigger city. You don’t need this.”

“Madeline needs it,” he said. “She practically had to beg me to consider doing this. And I told you—I owe her my life.”

I didn’t know the details of what had brought Taran together with his best friend, but the way he talked about it made it seem like Madeline really had saved his life. For the first time all night, I saw raw emotion on Taran’s face—he meant this, every last word of it. He was no longer bluffing, no longer blindly defending himself against the stupid things he said in the newspaper.

He really cared. About Madeline, and about Cobalt.

“Also,” he continued, taking a step closer toward me, “I don’t care how many bars I’ve opened, each one is still my baby. You of all people should know that, Patrick. Of course, I want Cobalt to do well. Having my bars do well is the only thing I know how to do right. And if I fuck that up? Well, then… I guess it’s all a lie, right?”

I paused for a while, watching him. When I’d met him on opening night, I never would have dreamed that I’d see him pouring himself out emotionally like this—he had been nothing but slick and suave, and now the cracks in his armor were beginning to show. It was interesting, but there was a true sadness to it, too.

“Brew for You is exactly what Rose Falls needs,” Taran said softly, collapsing onto the leather couch at his side. “Rose Falls needs people like you. People who are genuine, who are so fundamentally sweet and kindhearted, people who aren’t…” he trailed off.

“People who aren’t what?” I asked, finally beginning to feel my anger melt away. I was more confused than anything, now, in disbelief that this Taran had been hiding under the cool, confident exterior.

“People who aren’t like me,” he said, with a small shrug. “I feel like everyone in this town is so… good. Like you. There’s nowhere to hide here. Everyone knows what I’m up to, and that means… I have to actually face who I am. Do you know what I overheard two people saying earlier tonight, at the bar?”

“What?” I asked, sitting down next to him, keeping my distance but trying to show that I was no longer on the offensive.

“There were two middle-aged men, probably dads, sitting there drinking beers. And they were saying how they liked the beer just fine, but that they’d never come back to Cobalt again. And do you know why they didn’t want to come back?”

I watched Taran closely as he nervously plucked strands of thread from his sweater.

“They said that they hadn’t liked me. That I wasn’t genuine. That, sure, I was nice enough on the surface, but that they could sense a ‘smarmy nature’ to me, too. And you know what, Patrick? I fucking get it. I totally understand why people would see me that way. All the expensive tastes, the money. But I didn’t realize that people in Rose Falls don’t care about status. They just want to feel like they’re at home. And Brew for You feels like that—at least, that’s what I’ve heard so many people say.”

“So… you told the newspaper that I wasn’t competition because you were secretly intimidated by Brew for You?”

“I still am, Patrick,” he said. “Sure, you’re the smaller bar. And maybe this week you’ve lost some business to Cobalt due to some exciting novelty of my bar. But I can’t shake the feeling that Cobalt is going to be my first failure. And the thought of failing at the one thing I’m proud of in life… it kills me.”

I took in a deep, slow breath as Taran finally turned to me.

“I’m so, so sorry, Patrick. I really mean it when I say that I didn’t think you would care what I said in the paper. I thought for sure you were plenty confident that Brew for You is the better bar.”

“I do understand, Taran,” I said. “And thank you for apologizing. But you’re wrong.”