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Chapter One
Avery
THE KEY IN my hand weighs me down like an anchor. A single house key shouldn’t feel as dense as a boulder, but when it drops into my hand I tilt forward like it might topple me to the ground.
“Are you sure?” I say.
The tall, dark-haired man before me nods. Albert Carrington never does anything halfway. He never says anything he doesn’t mean. But I still press him for reassurance.
“I can’t afford this,” I say.
I shoot a nervous look at the house we stand before. Two stories. Three bedrooms. A basement we’ve transformed into a thriving café for students from the nearby university. Even if I wasn’t a sophomore at CityUniversity of Montridge, there’s no way I could afford this place.
“I don’t require payment,” Albert says.
“But…”
“The mortgage is paid off,” Albert says. “I’ll have the utilities forwarded to my new address. But regardless of your answer, I won’t be living here. Either the home will stand empty, or it will have a caretaker, and I’d vastly prefer it have a caretaker.”
“Albert, I’m not a caretaker. I’m just a student. I can’t live in your house.”
“Why not? It will save you money, and it will save me worry. And I presume you mean to host the café here, so someone will need to occupy the home. It ought to be you.”
As usual, Albert’s logic is unassailable. But I still hesitate to accept his offer. It’s ahouse. Like, an entire freakinghouse. Who just hands that to someone?
Albert Carrington, that’s who.
The guy has so much money that he never has to worry about money. He’s also at least half of the reason the Boyfriend Café exists at all. When Rhett dreamed up a café where charming servers drank tea with university students and talked them through their worries, he went right to Albert to ask to use his basement to host it. Since then, Albert has become the official legal owner of the café, even after graduating from the university. He hung aroundhere this year while his boyfriend, David, finished up his degree as well. But with both of them now graduated, Albert has no reason to stay.
None of them have had any reason to stay.
The entire original crew of the Boyfriend Café is gone. They’ve all graduated. And they’ve left me behind as their chosen successor. Next year, my junior year, will be my first year running this place without any of them around to help me, and I’m freaking terrified.
Now I have to be the caretaker for Albert’s house too?
It’s just one more responsibility added to the heap, and it makes the key in my palm weigh a thousand pounds instead of a few grams.
I close my fingers slowly over the key. The Boyfriend Café is mine now. I’m the one who has to make sure the legacy keeps going. No matter how scared and stressed out I am, I have to keep this thing alive. Living in the house above the café could certainly make some of that easier.
“Alright,” I say. “I’ll do it.”
I SPEND THE entire summer getting ready to take over the Boyfriend Café at the start of my junior year at City University of Montridge. My brother Gabriel and his friends have been preparing me for this since before I even officially enrolled at the university, but it’s one thing toknow I’ll take over someday and it’s another to actually have to do it. We have new servers this year, a new manager I brought on to help me with administrative tasks, new customers, new teas, new everything.
A few days before my junior year of college begins, I sit in Albert’s — no, inmy— basement and address the four anxious faces watching me.
I run my dark ponytail through my hand, a nervous tic I’ve never managed to shed. I look down at the notes I jotted on my phone, but I’ve reread them so much I have them memorized.
“So,” I say, “are we clear?”
I’ve already run through the schedule. I’ve already done some practice sessions with the newest server, Henry. I’ve already cleaned the whole basement twice over, talkedto my new manager, assigned everyone their tables, double checked our scheduling for our opening week. I have done every single thing I can to prepare us for this, but some piece of me fears it’s not enough.
The four similarly anxious college students before me nod.
“One question,” a guy named Cameron says. He has dark eyes and even darker hair. I brought him in last year, despite some reservations, but his brooding bad boy thing turned out to be a hit.
“Yes?” I say.
“Why do I have to be next tohim?” He jabs his thumb at the guy next to him, a perky blond who’s all smiles. Julian might seem oblivious to Cameron’s ire, but I learned last semester that he’s well aware of how much his step-brother (or whatever the hell they are to each other) doesn’t like him. He simply enjoys the bickering too much to stop it.
