Layla sidled up next to him.
“We have time to sit down for a bit, right? I’d rather eat in here anyway. It’s so cute.”
“Fifteen minutes at the most.” He didn’t mind a bit, eyeing the tiny cafe tables. He’d rather look at her across a table than her profile in two-second spurts on their way up to Hendricks. Besides, there was something he’d been dying to ask. He wanted to look her in the eye when he did.
Layla ordered a coffee while he grabbed the table in the corner, away from the drafty door and underneath a festive paper lantern. He moved the ceramic pot of evergreen stems to the table next to them.
“I’d come here every day if I lived closer,” whispered Layla when she set her coffee on the table and sat. She pointed to the winter arrangement and then to the wall behind them plastered with hundreds of photos of people posing with their sweets from Hal’s Bakery. “The decor is charming. And the photo wall. What a fun gimmick.”
He watched her close her eyes when she took the first bite of the roll, purring as she tasted it.
He smiled. “Told you.”
Dabbing her mouth with a napkin, she eyed him. “Do you ever not get the last word in?”
He clamped his lips shut and shook his head, making her chuckle.
Layla glanced toward the counter. The woman restocked a tray of iced sugar cookies, her face visible through the glass case.
“I take it that’s not Hal,” she said.
“No, that’s Linda, his wife.” He leaned back against his chair. “I’m surprised it’s not busier. I hear they sell out of these rolls a lot.”
“Well, it is near closing time,” she said. “And it’s a Friday. People want to get home after the work week.”
“Yes.” He took a deep breath. “So, I got a call from your friend Ernie again. Kyle Brenneman’s place is for sale. Wanted to know if I was interested.”
Layla froze midbite. She set her roll down.
“So Ernie called you because—”
“—because he remembered I was looking for a space. When he mentioned you knew the guy who was selling, that his aunt lived right across the street, I put two and two together. It’s Marybelle’s nephew, isn’t it?”
Annoyance clouded Layla’s face for a moment.
“Yes, that sounds like Kyle.”
“Did you talk about me with this Kyle guy?”
She huffed. “No. Why would I do that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He didn’t look too happy about me sitting in front of your shop on the day he dropped you off.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Kyle.” Her tone turned flat, indifferent.
“Are you two still dating?”
She picked up the roll again, took a bite. “No way,” she mumbled around the roll in her mouth.
He laughed, maybe a little too enthusiastically. “Not just a ‘no,’ but a ‘no way.’”
“Don’t rub it in.”
“So you’re not heartbroken?”
Layla slowly shook her head with a deadpan expression and his heart lightened.
“What can you tell me about his property?”
