Slow Dancing on Price's Pier by Lisa Dale Read Free Book Online

moment from his anticipation of it. Thea would see. She would yell and scream, and he would know they had a chance.
    But days passed. Then a week. Then the bruises faded. And Thea, if she saw, had never said a word.
    Dear Thea. Just a quick e-mail here. You looked terrible when I came to babysit Irina. You’ve lost weight. Here’s what I’m thinking: it’s a good thing for you and Jonathan to be spending some time apart. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Might get the spark going again. Hopefully we’ll all look back on all this one day, and it won’t be any more consequential than a bad dream. Just keep loving him—as I know you do—and I’m sure he’ll come around. Sue.
    Â 
    Dear Sue,
    Â 
    Thanks so, so much for your kind words. I needed them. I miss you (and Ken too). Can I see you? Can we get lunch? I’d really love to talk.
    Â 
    Thea
    Â 
    Thea. I would love to have lunch with you. But you understand, I’m in sort of an uncomfortable situation. I worry what Jonathan would say. Sue.
    Because Sue and her husband Ken had held a standing reservation for the corner table at the Dancing Goat on Thursday nights, and because they’d stopped coming when Jonathan moved out, and because Thea couldn’t stand the empty spot in the coffee shop where she wanted them to be, and because the babysitter was fine with keeping Irina for an extra hour, Thea was thrilled to comply when her baristas asked if they could hang around a while after the shop had closed.
    She and Jules worked prepping drinks while the other baristas pushed the tables together and changed the music to something poppy and fun. She’d always felt that she could tell a lot about people by how they liked their coffee—and her baristas were no exception.
    For Claudine, the French ex-pat whose talkative African lover had left her after learning he was eligible for dual citizenship, she brewed a good strong cup of yerba maté, made from a South American shrub.
    For Rochelle, a pretty blond freshman who was majoring in biomedical engineering but who had yet to master perfect cappuccino foam, Thea made a raspberry-vanilla latte with mountains of whipped cream.
    For Lettie, a hobbyist piano player with arthritic hands who had been working at the Dancing Goat since before Thea was born, she set out a pot of ginger-peach white tea.
    Jules had made himself a slushy iced coffee with a drizzle of caramel before he sat down. And for her friend Dani, who was not a barista but who could probably run the place because her regular police beat brought her to the shop three times a day, Thea made a cup of coffee. Splenda and skim.
    â€œSo what do you think about my new marketing idea?” Claudine asked, smiling mischievously at Thea. Her eyebrow ring caught the light and gleamed. “We can call it Naughty Lattes.”
    Jules laughed. “Robusty Brews.”
    â€œSexpresso Station,” Rochelle said, her voice dripping with phone-sex cliché. “Gives new meaning to hot coffee.”
    â€œI think I’m gonna have to stop walking this patrol,” Dani said, leaning back in her seat and adjusting the high waist of her uniform. “But maybe . . . Café au Lays?”
    Thea heard Lettie groan at her side.
    â€œDon’t worry,” Thea said. “Nobody’s wearing a bikini to sell drinks. We’re not that desperate.”
    â€œReally?” Jules’s grin was wide. “But a bunch of coffee shops out West are doing it. And I figured we’d put Lettie out at the front of the alley to wave people in.”
    â€œNot if you want them to keep their food down, you won’t,” Lettie said, chuckling and pulling her lavender cardigan closed.
    The conversation wore on, but no one seemed to be in a hurry to leave. Thea was glad for their company. Lettie had been with her so long she was practically family; Jules had charmed her when he’d showed up on his first