His Coffee Shop Crush

HIS COFFEE SHOP CRUSH ELLE WATERS Copyright © 2023 by Elle Waters All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For Bea CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Epilogue Also by Elle Waters About the Author ONE Jack had been in Rosedale for all of an hour when he decided he’d made a terrible mistake. He never should have listened to Kingston, his agent, when he’d offered his country place for Jack to use until he finished the draft of his book. He should have stayed in his apartment in New York, with the city noise outside his apartment window constantly present even with noise-canceling headphones, yanking each word out of his soul with a pair of tweezers. Who cared if his apartment didn’t have air conditioning and the city had been having a mid-July heat wave? Who cared if hadn’t been able to finish the manuscript that was due August first? New York was familiar, New York was home, or had been since he moved there from Texas for college over a decade ago. Rosedale, Connecticut, was only two hours away from Manhattan but it could have been two continents away for all Jack found the endless green trees that surrounded Kingston’s cottage unfamiliar and unsettling. Not a single car had passed on the little two-lane road since Jack had arrived in his rented sedan. The silence was unbearable. He wanted to text Kingston that he was heading back to the city, but his agent’s words from their conversation a few days ago were still ringing in his head. “You can’t miss another deadline, or they’ll cancel your contract and no one is going to pick you up. You can’t disappoint your readers like that. They’re all looking forward to the next Super Rupert book. And you are going to finish your draft by August first if it kills you—or I’ll kill you myself.” Kingston was many things—a great agent, a bit of a foodie, and way too into paisley—but he did not make idle threats. Jack knew he was right—not only did he owe it to the publisher, to his agent, and to himself, but more than anything he owed it to the kids who’d made the Super Rupert middle grade series a hit. He owed them the next book about the adventures of the thirteen-year-old who thought he had superpowers but only had a really good imagination. He was also gay and had a crush on the most popular boy in his school. The fact that Rupert was gay was incidental to the plot of each story, but the way Jack wrote about Rupert’s crush, as if it was no different from any thirteen-year-old’s crush, had been hailed for its authenticity. The book series had been both lauded for its handling of middle schooler issues and decried by hate groups for sneaking a “gay agenda” into an otherwise universal story. Jack did think Super Rupert was universal. And even though he’d been creatively blocked as he attempted to write the fourth book in the series, he still believed the books were important. He needed to write. Kingston had sent him up here to focus and write without distraction. The problem was, Jack needed a little noise to get his creative juices flowing. He looked at his phone. Sighed. He’d never hear the end of it from Kingston if he gave up after one measly hour in the country. Instead, he opened the maps app on his phone and searched coffee shop. He found the usual smattering of chain places on the road from Rosedale to the next medium-sized city. One place caught his eye, in the cute downtown area—yes, he could admit to finding the narrow strip of downtown Rosedale cute. Hot Brew. Open until 8. Perfect. He grabbed his laptop bag and drove the seven minutes to town. He parked on a side street, then found Hot Brew—a narrow storefront on the main drag between a barbecue takeout joint and a secondhand clothes store. Two young women were leaving the place as he walked in and took stock. There were a few cafe tables near the window and a few more lined the wall beside the coffee bar and register. Promising. Two were filled with patrons chatting and he spotted one right next to an outlet. The air smelled strongly of coffee and there were a decent number of baked goods for sale, even this late in the day. The music was audible, but not deafening. He took a minute to place the voice on the sound system. Nina Simone. Even more promising. He walked up to the counter. A young woman with an eyebrow piercing and pancake makeup that made her pale skin even lighter greeted him with a smile. “What can I get you?” He scanned the white lettering on the black chalk board behind her. He usually didn’t drink coffee this late in the day, but this seemed like an emergency. If he didn’t get at least a few pages written today, that deadline was going to seem even less attainable. “Americano,” he decided. “And a bear claw. For here.” Since his thirty second birthday he’d noticed the pastries he loved so much didn’t simply melt off him the way they used to. But again. Emergency. “Name for the order?” “Jack.” He watched the woman as she rang him up, her black shirt and pants could either have been personal style, or a uniform, but the black apron was definitely mandated, because he saw another employee working the espresso machine who was