The tables were clean, the booths inviting, and the scent calming. The staff moving behind the glass countertop served the small line waiting for their orders.
People were gathered in the booths and at tables. Some of them spoke with friends, but most had a computer or tablet in front of them and headphones. The dim lighting was enough to give the place a cozy feel, but not so much it made seeing a keyboard difficult. The interior was mostly painted a coffee brown, but the vivid pictures and positive sayings hanging on the walls brought splashes of color to the place.
She scanned the crowd for Dante. She’d told herself she would deal with it if he wasn’t here, but she couldn’t deny the pang stabbing through her.
She was about to leave when a man with a belly that would make Santa Claus jealous received his change and stepped away from the counter. With him out of the way, she spotted Dante sitting at a high-top table in the back corner of the building.
When his chocolate eyes landed on her, everything around her slowed until the world faded and all she saw was him. There were no customers or tables anymore; there was only them. A single heartbeat pulsed in her ears, and with unfailing certainty, she knew it was his.
This same thing happened the first time he walked into Addy’s, but it was stronger this time. Her breath eased out as all her anxiety vanished. She probably looked like a foolish idiot, but she couldn’t stop herself from beaming at him.
Dante felt as if someone kicked him in the chest when Cassidy’s beautiful face broke into a grin that lit the shop more than the overhead lights. His body’s visceral reaction to her made him feel like a horny teen all over again.
He grasped his coffee cup and pulled it closer as if that would somehow calm him; it didn’t. It had been years since he drank coffee, but he didn’t want to stand out when he entered the place, so he ordered a cup.
Now, he was glad he had it as he took a sip of the bitter liquid and tried not to eye fuck her while she glided through the crowd. He didn’t think she had any idea of her effect over him, and every other man, as she didn’t acknowledge the heads turning as she walked by.
Up until she entered the place, it was a bad day. Paris canceled on him and rescheduled for tomorrow, but without her lead to follow, he didn’t have much to work on all day. Which meant he spent a good portion of his day fantasizing about the woman coming toward him.
As she neared, Dante got himself under control enough to rise and pull out the chair across from him. When he glared at the men still watching her, they ducked their heads and turned away.
“Thank you,” Cassidy said as she settled on the chair.
He almost closed his eyes and inhaled deeply when her sweet scent drifted up to him. Instead, he stepped away from her. “You’re welcome.”
He settled in the chair across from her and, reclaiming his coffee cup, grasped it in both hands as he held it before him.
“You still like coffee?” she asked.
“I haven’t had it in years,” he admitted. “I was trying to blend in.”
Cassidy refrained from telling him that he would stand out wherever he went. There weren’t many men as handsome as him. He could easily grace the cover of any magazine, but seeking that kind of attention as a vampire was a horrible idea.
That was why she would never live her dream of standing in front of a sold-out stadium and entertaining thousands. The idea of seeing Dante again caused her palms to sweat when she entered, but the idea of standing in front of all those people calmed her.
But then, music had always been her escape from reality. When she was little and her mom sang to her, she would close her eyes and let the words envelop her in a cocoon of love. As she got older, music and singing became the one thing all her own—the one thing her siblings couldn’t do or try to take from her.
When she was still too little to have found her voice, she was drawn to the living room while her uncle Doug played the piano. Dragging her ratty yellow blanket behind her, she’d wander into the room and stand beside the bench where he sat. Often, he’d break off in the middle of a song, pick her up, and set her beside him. Sitting there, she’d watch in fascination as his fingers flew across the keys, creating the most beautiful sounds.
As she grew, he stopped having to lift her onto the bench, but she would still crawl up to sit beside him. When she was still too young to know the words, she hummed the tune of whatever he played until, one day, she found her voice. And for years, he accompanied every song she sang.
Until the day he died. It had been almost six years since Doug’s death, but she still felt the sharp knife of it twisting in her heart. Every time someone else played the piano for her, she recalled his loss and missed his smile.
He’d taken her innate love of music and nurtured it into a passion. She wouldn’t be this good of a singer or love it as much as she did if Doug hadn’t been there to guide her for so many years.
After his death, she stopped singing for a time. He was her teacher, her accompaniment, and her rock. He was her friend
