Page 18 of Steeped In Problems (Badges & Baristas #3)

He shrugged, and for a second, she saw the smile hiding there.

She wasn’t sure what to do with the soft side of her boss that kept coming out around her.

Deciding she needed to escape before she completely crumbled in front of him and everyone watching, she told him, “I should go grab some supplies from the closet inside.”

Kristy tried to walk off her confused feelings, but the Brave Badge’s storage room was only three paces wide and smelled like melted plastic wrap and industrial-strength lemon cleaner.

She wore a groove in the floor, back and forth between the mop bucket and the dry goods shelf.

Outside, the fundraiser raged on. She could hear the DJ’s bad microphone, the distant whoops of kids fighting over water balloons, and—just once—the sound of Tanner’s voice, calm and steady, ordering someone to “knock it off before you break the glass.”

Inside, it was just the silence and her own heartbeat, pounding like she’d just pulled a double in the trauma bay.

She thought about Mark, about his words, about the way he could still find the soft spots and poke them until she bled.

But she also thought about Tanner, about the way he just stood there, unruffled, letting her fall apart without rushing to patch her up.

For once, she didn’t want to be fixed. She just wanted to be, but she didn’t know how to do that.

Kristy could feel tears prick the corner of her eyes, and she tried to focus on the inventory—six gallons of oat milk, a case of espresso beans, and three unopened boxes of syrup pumps. Nothing required urgent attention.

The door creaked. Kristy whirled around, wiping her cheeks with the back of her wrist just in time.

Tanner stood in the doorway. He didn’t say anything. He just took in the scene—her red eyes, the way she’d braced herself on the edge of the dry goods shelf—and nodded once, like it all made sense.

She forced a laugh. “Didn’t expect the boss to catch me mid-breakdown.”

He closed the door behind him, quietly. “Didn’t expect you to have one.”

She snorted. “There’s a lot about me you probably didn’t expect. Like the fact that I can eat my own weight in lemon loaf when stressed.”

He moved closer, but not so close that she felt crowded. Just enough to block out the window, the noise, the rest of the world.

“You want to talk about it?” His voice was softer than she’d ever heard it.

Kristy fiddled with the edge of her T-shirt. “Not really. But I probably should, so I don’t end up crying into the espresso hopper later.”

He waited, hands tucked into his pockets, patient as a mountain.

She started pacing again, slowly. “Mark’s been showing up everywhere. He does this thing—whenever I try to move on, he suddenly remembers I exist. He says he’s ‘just checking in,’ but it’s more like he’s checking up. Making sure I haven’t found a way to live without him, I guess.”

Tanner’s jaw went tight. She noticed it but pretended not to.

“He thinks I’m having a crisis,” she continued, her voice getting louder.

“That I’m going to wake up one day and realize this”—she waved at the storage room, at herself—“was all a huge mistake. He keeps telling me to go back to nursing, that I’m wasting my degree, my time, and my life.

Like I’m too broken to know what’s best for me. ”

She stopped, looking at Tanner for the first time since he entered. His face was granite. His eyes, though, were different—soft, maybe, or just less grumpy than usual.

She laughed again, but it came out weird and brittle. “I know it’s dumb. I shouldn’t care. But it’s like every time he shows up, he drags all my old mistakes out and makes me wear them.”

He didn’t jump in to fix it. He just stood there, letting her talk.

“I just wish he’d leave me alone,” Kristy admitted, quieter now. “I wish he’d find a new hobby. Like pickleball, or collecting rare diseases.”

Tanner’s mouth twitched just barely. “I could make some calls. I know a guy who can get rare pathogens.”

That made her snort for real. “No murder-for-hire. Not yet.”

He nodded as if making a note.

She leaned against the wall, energy draining away. “I know I’m supposed to just ignore him. Or block his number. But it’s not that easy. He’s...like mold. You clean him out of the grout, and he shows up in the ceiling tiles.”

Tanner nodded again, and for a second, she wondered if he’d ever had someone like that—someone who kept finding their way back, no matter how much you tried to move on.

She didn’t want to cry in front of him. She didn’t want to seem weak. So she went for broke. “I need a boyfriend,” Kristy blurted.

The words hung in the air, suspended between them.

Tanner’s eyebrows shot up just a fraction. “A boyfriend?”

“Not a real one,” she added quickly. “A fake one. You know. So Mark will back off.”

She watched his face, waiting for him to laugh or say it was a stupid idea. Instead, he just blinked and then looked at the far wall like he was trying to solve a logic puzzle.

Kristy rushed on, “I know it’s dumb, but if Mark thinks I’ve moved on, maybe he’ll stop showing up. Stop trying to fix me, or whatever it is he’s doing. I’ll tell him I’m dating someone. If I’m convincing, he’ll lose interest and disappear.”

Tanner mulled it over, arms crossed tight. “You want me to be your fake boyfriend?”

She flushed, feeling the heat creep up her neck. “You’re the only one who’d be believable. I mean, you’re tall, you’re an ex-cop, you’re...you. He’d hate it. You’d be perfect.”

Tanner was silent for so long that Kristy started to backpedal. “You don’t have to. Seriously. I can just make up a guy. Say he’s a traveling magician or a hermit in the mountains?—”

“No,” Tanner interrupted. “You’re right; it has to be convincing if it’s going to work. If you want, I’ll do it.”

Now, she was the one who blinked. “You will?”

He nodded, simple as that. “If it gets him off your back, yeah. I’ll do it.”

Kristy stared at him, searching for sarcasm, but there was none—just a steady, unwavering offer.

She let out a long, shaky breath. “Thank you.”

He shrugged, but she saw the corners of his mouth twitch again like he was fighting back a smile. “Just let me know what the plan is. If you want me to punch him, I’ll need advance notice, a good lawyer, and bail money.”

She laughed, a real one this time. “I don’t think any of that will be necessary. You can start by holding my hand in public. That’ll kill him faster than violence.”

Tanner looked at her hands, then back at her. “Noted.”

“We can start tomorrow. Today, we have a car wash to finish.”

She felt lighter. Not fixed, but at least patched up for now. Maybe this was a bad idea, but at least it wasn’t the worst one she’d had when it came to dealing with Mark.

The day ended with Kristy finding herself in the back, flicking off the lights and flipping the chairs.

She moved on autopilot, hands still sticky from lemonade, brain still humming from everything that had happened.

The fundraiser had blown past their goal, and she knew the town would be buzzing about it for days.

Still, her brain replayed the run-in with Mark on an endless loop.

She tried not to think about it. Instead, she started a new loop: the thing she’d asked Tanner to do and the fact that he’d agreed without so much as a question.

She was halfway through wiping down the pastry case when Tanner appeared with two mugs in hand. He set one down for her and took a seat at the far end of the bar with his own.

“Rhonda’s gone home,” he told her. “No one left but us and the creaks of the floor.”

Kristy smirked, grabbing the mug and taking a seat across from him. “I think we can handle them.”

They sat there, not talking, while the hum of the fridge filled the silence. It was the kind of silence Kristy usually hated, but this one felt almost okay.

“So,” Tanner said finally, “we should probably have a story.”

“A story?”

He nodded. “If you want this fake boyfriend thing to work, we have to get the details right. How long have we been dating? Where did we meet? Stuff like that.”

Kristy straightened, all business. “We met here. Obviously. You hired me, fell instantly in love with my quirky charm, and the rest is history.”

He grunted. “Could be worse.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, so we met here. How long have we been dating?”

Tanner considered. “A couple of weeks? A month?”

She thought about it. “A month. Long enough to be serious but not long enough for people to wonder why they haven’t seen us together.”

He nodded. And made a note on his phone. “Makes sense.”

She tried to peek, but he held it at a military-issue angle.

“We should know each other’s basic info,” Kristy said, reaching for a stack of napkins and a Sharpie. “Favorite color?”

He looked at her, almost annoyed. “Blue. Yours?”

“Depends on the mood. But yellow, I guess. Or anything that doesn’t stain.”

He made a small smile at that, then went back to his phone.

“Pets?”

He shook his head. “Did as a kid. None now.”

“Same.” She scribbled down more notes, letting her curls fall in front of her face. It was easier to hide that way.

“What about hobbies?” he asked.

“Failing at rescuing coffee shops,” she deadpanned.

He snorted. “You’re not failing.”

She tilted her head to the side with a disbelieving smirk. “Is that so?”

He nodded. “You’re keeping the place alive.”

She let that sit, warm and strange, before moving on. “Okay. So, boundaries.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“For the act,” she clarified, cheeks burning. “Hand-holding, yes? Arm around the shoulders?”

He looked away, then back, like he was trying to read the fine print on a prescription bottle. “Whatever works. Just—don’t overdo it.”

She grinned, relieved. “No public makeouts. Got it.”

He drank his coffee, then said, “What if he doesn’t believe us?”

She looked up. “Then we’ll have to be convincing.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. But something in the air changed, just a little. Kristy felt her heart skip, then settle in again.

She tucked the napkin into her pocket. “I’ll memorize all this before tomorrow. Thanks for going along with it.”

He shrugged, but his posture softened. “You said it’d help.”

She smiled. “You’re a good boss.”

He looked at her, deadpan. “I’m going to be an even better fake boyfriend.”

That made her laugh, full and loud, and she realized she hadn’t laughed like that since—well, a long time.

They finished their coffee in a companionable quiet. Kristy packed up the last of her notes, wiped down the bar one final time, and turned off the last overhead light. The shop shrank into itself, cozy and small, like it was holding its breath.

“Ready to go?” Tanner asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded.

They walked out together into the cool night. The parking lot was empty, save for their cars and the ghost of the day’s noise. Tanner didn’t say anything, but he walked her to her car anyway, hands jammed in his pockets, eyes scanning the shadows like he was still on duty.

She slipped her keys into her door lock, then turned to face him. “Thanks, Blaze.”

He nodded once. “You’re welcome,” he told her softly, then walked away.

She watched him go, then got in her car. As she pulled out, she saw him pause at his own truck door, like he was checking to make sure she made it out okay.

She drove home with the window cracked, breathing in the summer night, and wondered how it was possible to feel so nervous and so hopeful at the same time. Maybe this was how second chances started.