Page 11 of Brewing Up My Fresh Start (Twin Waves #2)

Because I’ve spent years rebuilding emotional walls after my divorce like some kind of construction project.

Because caring about people leads to disappointment and anger and the kind of vulnerability that makes you do stupid things like buy breakfast for women whose lives you’re disrupting.

Because keeping relationships surface-level felt safer than risking genuine connection and potential heartbreak.

“I don’t know.” The admission feels like emotional surrender.

She nods like she understands incomplete answers and the general messiness of human feelings. “I don’t know either. But I saved your table this morning.”

“What?” The word comes out strangled.

“Your usual spot by the window. I put the reserved sign on it before the committee meeting started. Force of habit, I guess, or maybe muscle memory overriding rational thought.”

Warmth spreads through my chest at this revelation. Despite everything—the demolition notice, the accusations, the community warfare—she still saved my table.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t read too much into it. A decade of routine is hard to break, and I’m apparently a creature of habit even when I’m plotting somebody’s professional downfall.”

But I am reading into it. Hope and possibility and the chance that this situation doesn’t have to end in mutual destruction or me fleeing town under cover of darkness.

My phone buzzes like a fire alarm. Scott’s name is on the screen, and he’s probably wondering if I’ve been kidnapped, had a mental breakdown, or joined a cult.

Scott: Where are you? Investor call in 20 minutes.

Reality crashes into our coffee shop peace treaty like a bucket of ice water thrown by a vindictive universe.

I have responsibilities beyond this conversation, and she has a community to organize for what’s probably going to be my public execution.

We can’t solve everything over breakfast and jazz music, no matter how much my traitorous heart wishes we could.

“I have to go.” The words taste like disappointment mixed with construction dust.

“Of course you do.” She’s already turning back to her legal documents, but her posture suggests the kind of disappointment that makes my chest feel like someone’s using it for demolition practice.

“Michelle.”

She looks up with wariness.

“This was good. The conversation, I mean. We should do it again, preferably before one of us destroys the other’s livelihood.”

“Should we?” She tilts her head like a confused bird that’s just been offered advanced math.

“I think there might be solutions neither of us has considered yet. Solutions that don’t involve pitchforks, angry mobs, or me fleeing town in the dead of night.”

She tilts her head farther, studying me like I’m a puzzle she’s trying to solve or possibly a psychiatric case study. “What are you suggesting?”

“That we’re both fighting for the same thing—we just have different ideas about how to achieve it without causing widespread emotional damage.”

“Which is?”

“A Twin Waves that thrives without losing what makes it special. Like your coffee beans—finding the perfect balance instead of burning everything to the ground.”

She considers this, drumming her fingers against her coffee cup. “You really believe that, or are you just saying things that sound good while secretly planning my doom?”

Excellent question that deserves an honest answer, even if honesty makes me vulnerable to disadvantage and possible emotional devastation. “Both, probably. But mostly the first one.”

She laughs, and the sound transforms her entire face into something that could power the Eastern seaboard. “At least you’re honest about being calculating and emotionally confused.”

“I’m honest about being confused by a person who saves my table even when she hates everything I represent. This situation is more complicated than I expected, and I specialize in complicated.”

“Because of the community opposition?”

“Because of you.” The admission explodes out of my mouth like a confessional grenade.

The words hang between us, more revealing than a full psychological evaluation. Her expression shifts, surprise replacing skepticism.

“Because of me?”

“Because you’re not who I thought you were and watching you fight for this place is making me question assumptions I’ve held about development philosophy and possibly my entire career.

Also because you make excellent coffee and save my table even when you should probably ban me from the premises and maybe have me arrested. ”

“I don’t hate you,” she says quietly, like she’s admitting to a crime.

“No?”

“I hate what you represent and that you’re threatening everything I’ve built. But I don’t hate you. ” She pauses. “Which is inconvenient, because hatred would be simpler and require significantly less emotional energy.”

“Simpler isn’t always better, even though it would make my life considerably easier.”

“Says the man who just bought me breakfast and possibly dismantled my entire worldview.”

“Says the woman who saved my table and may have accidentally given me hope for humanity.”

We look at each other across the small space between us, the ground shifting beneath everything I thought I understood about this situation and possibly my entire emotional landscape.

My phone buzzes again. Scott, increasingly frantic and probably stress-eating office supplies.

“I really do have to go before Scott sends out a search party.”

“I know.”

“But this conversation isn’t finished. We’re going to figure this out.”

“No,” she agrees, and her smile could melt steel. “It’s not.”

I pause at the door, looking back at her surrounded by paperwork and morning light, coffee cup in hand and determination in her posture like some kind of caffeinated warrior goddess.

“Your father would be proud of how you’re fighting for this place.”

Her smile could power the entire waterfront district and possibly several neighboring counties. “By the way, you make a decent breakfast delivery service.”

“Don’t let that get around. I have a reputation to maintain as a heartless developer.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, along with your apparently sophisticated jazz knowledge and tendency toward emotional vulnerability.”

Outside, I lean against my truck and conduct post-battle analysis. By any reasonable business standard, this morning represents a disaster of epic proportions. But it also represents the best conversation I’ve had in ages.

My phone rings again. Scott’s patience has officially expired and possibly died. I drag a hand down my face before answering.

“Where are you?”

“Conducting community relations that may have saved our entire project,” I say, watching Michelle laugh with a customer at the counter. The sound carries faintly through the glass, far too distracting for an executive with a multimillion-dollar development on the line.

“Did they involve missing investor calls and possibly your sanity?”

“I was preventing community warfare and finding solutions that don’t require witness protection.”

Silence crackles on the other end. I can picture Scott pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Grayson, what’s going on? You’ve been distracted since this committee started organizing, and now you’re talking like you’ve had a religious experience involving coffee.”

He’s right, and that terrifies me. For years, I’ve approached every project with clinical detachment, the kind that would make robots proud.

I don’t linger at community shops. I don’t buy breakfast for opposition leaders.

And I definitely don’t stand outside a plate-glass window watching Michelle like she’s the gravitational center of my morning.

“I think we might need to reconsider our approach in ways that could revolutionize everything we think we know about development.”

Another pause. Longer this time. He’s giving me space to walk it back. I don’t.

“Reconsider how?”

“Find a way to build around the coffee shop instead of through it.”

The silence stretches so long I check the screen to see if the call dropped.

“Build around the coffee shop,” Scott repeats finally, his tone the verbal equivalent of a raised eyebrow.

“Build around the coffee shop.”

“The coffee shop that’s currently occupying the center of our development site?”

“The very same.”

“Owned by the woman organizing community opposition to our project and possibly staging a small revolution?”

“Correct,” I say, shifting my weight as Michelle leans over the counter, animated, her hands painting the air. “And she’s surprisingly strategic about it.”

“Grayson.” Scott’s voice carries the weight of years of partnership and possibly impending doom. “Are you having a breakdown?”

Possibly. My hand tightens around the phone until my knuckles ache. But no—it’s not a breakdown. It’s a breakthrough that feels like emotional lightning.

“I’m having a realization that could change everything,” I say, low. “And I think we’re going to need to get creative in ways that might require advanced engineering.”

Another heavy exhale on the line. “Creative.”

“Very creative. Like, ‘redefine what development means’ creative.”

“This is about the coffee shop owner, isn’t it?”

“More like community development that actually serves the town instead of steamrolling it into submission.”

“Right. The coffee shop owner who makes you sound like you’ve joined a cult.”

I press my forehead to the cool glass, eyes locked on Michelle as she wipes her hands on her apron and dives into the next order with relentless brightness. I can’t deny it without lying.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I mutter. “We’ll figure this out.”

“We better. Because if we can’t make this project work, we’re looking at significant financial losses that could end our partnership.”

“I know.”

“And if you’re developing feelings for the opposition leader, we’re looking at significant personal complications that could end your sanity.”

“I know that too.” My voice drops. “And it’s terrifying.”

Scott doesn’t respond right away. The silence digs under my skin, a mirror for the frustration I feel at myself—for letting feelings cloud my usually flawless instincts.

“Do you?” he asks at last, voice softer. “Because years of partnership has taught me to recognize when you’re about to make decisions with your heart instead of your head, and your track record with that is awful.”

“My heart has better judgment than I’ve given it credit for,” I say, watching Michelle’s face light up as she explains something to Caroline. “Even if its timing is terrible.”

“Your heart got you divorced and emotionally unavailable for three years.”

“My fear of emotional availability got me divorced. My heart is apparently trying to stage a comeback—and it has excellent taste in coffee shop owners.”

Scott groans. “Just get to the office. We have investors to convince and a project to save from your sudden onset of human feelings.”

“We have a project to improve,” I counter, “and a community to serve properly instead of bulldozing into submission.”

“Same thing.”

“No.” My gaze lingers on Michelle one more moment before I finally turn away. “It’s really not.”

I drive toward the office thinking about jazz music and coffee philosophy, about the way Michelle’s face transforms when she talks about craft and how she fights for things that matter with equal parts passion and strategy that could probably topple governments.

Miranda accused me of being emotionally unavailable, but she was wrong.

I’ve just been unavailable to the wrong people for the wrong reasons while building emotional walls that could withstand nuclear attacks.

Michelle Lawson might be the first right person for the first right reasons I’ve encountered since my emotional landscape resembled a functioning ecosystem.

Which means I need to find a way to make this work that doesn’t require choosing between my business and my heart. Good thing I specialize in solving impossible construction problems. This just happens to be the most important project of my career and possibly my entire emotional future.