Page 40 of The Backup Groom

Danny gave a thumbs up. “Sounds great, thanks.”

“What about you, Lois? Same?”

I waved him off. “Hard to believe, but I’ve had enough coffee for today. I’m treating Danny to a drink and then I need to take off for some business.”

Scotty looked a little disappointed. “Oh, okay.” He pulled my favorite snickerdoodle cookie from the display, slid it in a bag, and handed it to me. “Congratulations, you’re my five hundredth customer today.”

“Thank you,” I said, glancing at the cookie, surprised that he gets five hundred people coming in per day.

Stella’s voiced popped into my head again.

He doesn’t give other customers free chips and cookies.

Danny pulled out his credit card to pay.

Scotty waved him off. “On the house.”

I shook my head. “Wait—I don’t expect you to give him a free drink as part of our bet. I was planning on paying for it.”

Scotty shrugged. “Too late.”

“No, it’s not.” I nodded at the register. “Tap your little fingers on that screen right there and ring, then I’ll swipe my card.”

Scotty glanced at his hand. “Little fingers?” He grinned and pointed to the people behind me. “Hey, lady, you’re holding up the line.”

I pointed right at him “You’re going to get it, mister.”

Scotty pumped his eyebrows teasingly. “I look forward to that day.”

Okay, that totally sounded like flirting to me.

More surprising was how much I enjoyed it.

We stepped aside and waited for the drink by the pickup counter.

“Caramel Spockiato for Danny!” Dean called out a couple minutes later.

Before Danny could snap the top on the cup, I leaned over and peeked inside.

There was a pointy Vulcan ear design in the foam.

No heart.

Stella was right again.

Why had she told me that? Now, I was going to be obsessed with watching for signs from Scotty every time I came in for coffee.

After whispering goodbye to Danny, I snuck toward the bathroom without making eye contact with Scotty or Dean, then continued straight out the back door.

Ten minutes later, I was sitting with Radio Ryan at Starbucks.

He resembled Matthew McConaughey, except for that very distracting birthmark on his neck that looked like a three-legged armadillo. It took every ounce of my willpower not to stare at it. His voice really caught me by surprise, though, very much like Morgan Freeman’s. A weird combination, but he seemed like a nice guy, except for his obsession with talking about his own work voicing radio commercials.

We had been chatting for over thirty minutes and he still hadn’t asked me a single thing about myself. I was going to strain a muscle in my neck from all the nodding.

“My most popular commercial by far was the one for constipation,” Radio Ryan said. “Have you heard it?”

Way too many times.“Actually, I think I have—”