Page 25 of Brewing Up My Fresh Start (Twin Waves #2)

TWELVE

GRAYSON

T he coffee shop has become our battlefield, and I’m losing badly.

Michelle sits across from me, papers scattered between us like broken treaties, her jaw set in that stubborn line that means she’s dug in for war.

Dark blonde strands escape her messy bun from all her earlier gesturing, and there’s fire in those brown-gold eyes that suggests she’d rather throw her coffee at me than continue this conversation.

I should be focusing on the development plans. I should be thinking about timelines and budgets. Instead, I’m wondering what it would feel like to tuck that rebellious strand of hair behind her ear.

“Your revised plans still miss the point,” she says, stabbing my blueprints with one finger. The motion draws my attention to her hands—strong, capable, with paint-stained fingertips. “You can’t just stick some fake historical front on a modern building and call it community-friendly.”

“The guidelines clearly state?—”

“I don’t care what your guidelines state!” The words explode out of her, rattling the coffee cups on the counter. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, and I force myself to look away from the way her vintage band t-shirt pulls taut across her curves.

That’s when the universe decides to test every remaining shred of my sanity.

A seagull—and I use the term generously because this thing looks like it was assembled by a person who’d only heard seagulls described secondhand—crashes through the window I’d cracked for air. He lands directly in our preservation reports with all the grace of a brick dropped from heaven.

This bird is clearly special. One googly eye twice the size of the other, three and a half tail feathers, and the kind of confidence that says he’s never met a problem he couldn’t make infinitely worse. He surveys our heated argument and apparently decides we need supervision.

“What the— Oh no! ” Michelle jumps back so fast she knocks over her chair, which crashes into the counter, sending sugar packets cascading in what might be the world’s lamest parade.

The bird—Frank, according to Michelle’s horrified shriek—surveys the chaos with obvious satisfaction, then grabs my development proposal and starts methodically shredding it.

“No! Those took me three days to—” I lunge forward, which Frank interprets as an invitation to play. He starts doing what can only be described as a victory dance across my financial projections, leaving tiny claw marks exclusively on the most important numbers.

“Don’t make sudden movements!” Michelle stage-whispers, pressed against the counter. “You’ll make him worse!”

“He’s destroying my work!”

“Good! Maybe it’ll knock some sense into your stubborn head!”

Frank squawks his agreement, then demonstrates his support by relieving himself directly onto my community timeline.

Heat explodes in my chest. “This is exactly your problem, Michelle. You’re so afraid of change you’d rather watch this place fall apart than admit progress might be necessary.”

Frank takes offense to my criticism, because he launches himself at my head. I duck, he overshoots, crashes into the espresso machine, and somehow activates the steam wand.

Steam shoots everywhere with the sound of an angry dragon. Frank begins squawking like he’s auditioning for a horror movie soundtrack, and Michelle starts laughing—deep, breathless giggles that suggest her sanity has officially evacuated the premises.

“Frank! ” She doubles over, gasping between laughs. “That’s not a perch!”

I’m fighting the steam machine while Frank performs an interpretive dance on top of it, completely unbothered by the scalding vapor shooting around him like tiny geysers.

“What is wrong with him?” I demand, finally shutting off the machine.

“I think he’s fundamentally broken as a bird,” Michelle wheezes, wiping tears from her eyes.

Frank, hearing his performance review, hops down and fixes us both with an indignant stare.

“It means,” Michelle continues, trying to compose herself while Frank begins knocking sugar dispensers off the counter, “the place where I rebuilt my entire life after someone I trusted destroyed everything that mattered to me.”

Her voice cracks on the last words, and something shifts inside my chest. Frank pauses his demolition project, head cocked.

“And what about the jobs my development will create?” The words come out rougher than intended, partly because Frank has claimed my tie as his personal playground. “What about keeping this town alive instead of letting it slowly?—”

Frank gives my tie an experimental tug. The silk, deciding it’s had enough abuse, snaps clean in half.

I stumble backward, clutching the remains while Frank performs what appears to be a touchdown celebration across my blueprints, complete with wing flourishes and triumphant shrieking.

“—die?” I finish weakly, staring at the tie in my hands.

Wrong word. I know it the instant it leaves my mouth, but Michelle’s already on her feet, eyes blazing with fury that could melt steel.

“Die?” She rounds the table with predatory grace, completely ignoring Frank’s continued victory lap. “This town isn’t dying, you arrogant?—”

“Realist? Someone who understands that sentiment doesn’t pay bills?” I counter, trying to maintain dignity while Frank builds what appears to be a nest from my shredded documents.

“Someone who bulldozes everything meaningful and replaces it with soulless tourist traps!” She’s close enough now that I can see the way her pulse hammers at the base of her throat. “You want to turn Twin Waves into some sanitized version of itself!”

Frank squawks approval, then immediately contradicts himself by trying to eat a sugar packet.

I stand too, suddenly tired of being lectured about community values while a deranged seagull uses my presentation materials as craft supplies. “And you want to let everything crumble into nostalgic ruins because you’re terrified of anything that might force you out of your safe little bubble.”

“I’m not afraid of change!”

“Really? Because from where I’m standing, you look absolutely terrified of letting anyone get close enough to matter.” Three weeks of frustration boil over as Frank investigates the cash register with scientific precision. “Heaven forbid anything might threaten your perfectly controlled world.”

Her face goes pale, then floods with color. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Frank, sensing escalation, abandons the register and perches on the counter between us like a feathered referee.

“Don’t I? Seven years of watching you, Michelle. Of morning conversations that never go deeper than weather and coffee orders. You’ve turned keeping people at arm’s length into an art form.”

“At least I’m not so emotionally locked up that I think destroying communities is just good business!”

“Emotionally locked up?”

Rage flares hot, but underneath it is something colder, something that feels uncomfortably like recognition. She’s not wrong, and the truth of it lands sharper than any insult.

“Yes! You’re so terrified of feeling anything real that you’ve convinced yourself tearing down everything I care about is just smart planning!”

Frank decides we need a referee’s whistle, because he lets out a squawk so loud the windows rattle. We both turn to stare at him.

He stares back with his mismatched googly eyes, head tilted like he’s evaluating our performance.

“Even the bird thinks we’re being ridiculous,” I mutter.

“The bird has excellent judgment,” Michelle shoots back, but something’s changed in her voice. Less fury, more... anticipation.

We’re standing close now—close enough that I can smell her vanilla-and-coffee scent. Frank has gone suspiciously quiet, like he’s holding his breath.

“You think I don’t feel anything?” My voice comes out lower than intended, rough with seven years of suppressed want.

“I think you feel everything, and it terrifies you.” Her chin lifts in defiance, but there’s vulnerability flickering in her eyes.

The words hit me like a strike to the ribs—because I do feel everything, more than I should, and it’s cost me too much already. Admitting that out loud would undo years of carefully built walls.

“I think you’ve been telling yourself that destroying my dreams is just business because admitting you care would complicate your nice, safe, emotionally unavailable world.”

Frank chooses this moment to hop onto my shoulder and gently preen my hair, like he’s trying to make me presentable for something important.

I should be annoyed, but my pulse is pounding too hard.

I’m standing inches from the one woman who can tear my control apart with a single look, and for the first time in years I want to let it happen.

“You want to know what complicates my world, Michelle?” I step closer, ignoring Frank’s grooming efforts. She has to tilt her head back to meet my eyes, and the movement exposes the elegant line of her throat. “You. You drive me absolutely crazy.”

Her breath catches, pupils dilating. “Good.”

That single word—breathless, defiant, loaded with seven years of buried attraction—detonates inside me. My restraint doesn’t just crack; it shatters. I’ve wanted this for so long that the hunger feels like a living thing.

I frame her face in my hands and kiss her like I’ve been dying to do since the first morning she smiled at me over a coffee cup.

Frank squawks once, apparently satisfied with his matchmaking, then settles in to watch the show.

Seven years of careful distance and buried longing explode into this moment.

Michelle tastes like coffee and cinnamon and every risk I’ve been too scared to take.

She makes a surprised sound against my mouth, then her hands fist in my shirt and she’s pulling me closer, kissing me back with the same fierce intensity she brings to everything else.