Chapter Eighteen

“This place is so cute.” I breathe as August and I walk into a small cafe thirty minutes later.

The drive over August had taken advantage of the time and peppered me with a million different questions, like he was trying to get to know me. He’d asked my favorite color, my favorite animal, if I was allergic to anything. At first it had been weird talking about myself so much with a perfect stranger, but eventually I’d relaxed and just gone with the flow. They were all pretty innocent, insignificant questions, but I found myself liking that he even cared enough to ask if I preferred whole grain bread or white. No one had ever taken the time to get to know me quite so thoroughly.

We’d pulled up into the small parking lot of a tiny green building tucked into a corner downtown. It was halfway underground, with steep steps leading to the pale pink front door. There were vines crawling up the sides of the building and potted plants around the entrance. There were no signs or indicators to