Page 2 of Lycans & Lattes

“Yeah, well,” he said, his voice making my stomach do that little flippy thing. “Now that Eloise is taking over the bakery, I guess my hours can shift.”

“Ehh,” I said, making a jokey voice at the pun.

Werewolves couldn’t get away with saying the word “shift” without a little side-eye snicker.

Then I realized it was Harlow who was the hokey-jokey sister while I was type A, so I might have inadvertently borrowed my sister’s personality for five seconds there.

“What do you mean she’s taking over?” I asked, pinning him with a judgmental glare. “I thought you said she just needed a place to work after moving home from college?”

Wyatt paused as if I’d caught him saying something he shouldn’t have. “Oh yeah, not . . . taking over, just taking charge, you know?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Just the usual. You know how little sisters are.”

“Oh,” I replied with a chuckle. “That I do.” I glanced at him. Usually, he was the lighthearted teddy-bear type, but right now, he seemed troubled. “Uh, so do you want your usual?”

Coffee was my love language, after all, just like baking was his.

“Sounds good,” he said with a nod.

Wyatt set his plate below the countertop next to my keys and leaned against the counter while I started making his standard order of a cinnamon flat white. Normally, it was easy for us to fill the space, but today, something about him felt . . . restrained.

The entire town had long suspected that there was something more between us, but neither of us had ever confirmed or denied. Harlow called it a “situationship,” but it wasn’t like we’d ever sat down and talked about the tension or flirting or the time he’d watched over me for days after I’d been poisoned.

Yeah . . . we danced around that topic better than Misty Copeland.

I always kept the same sentiment when it came to our will-we-or-won’t-we game: if Wyatt wanted to ask me out, he would’ve done it by now. So until that happened or one of us started dating someone else, we would just be good friends. Even if it was confusing and a bit frustrating at times.

I was working up the courage to ask him if there was something more to his mood when I was interrupted by Billy Bacchus, our unofficial town mayor and giant green Frankenstein-esque monster. It was easy to know when Billy came around because he was a real crowd pleaser. This time, he was flanked by Dean, his even taller nephew. Dean was a broad-shouldered mountain of a monster who had to duck so as not to whack his head on the ceiling fan.

The whole café erupted into claps and cheers, and people hopped up to take selfies with the monsters, as if they were Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Billy dutifully, albeit moodily, took photos with everyone who wanted one before leaving Dean to take the brunt of the adoration and sidling over to the counter.

“Willow,” he said in his usual scolding timbre.

I let out a long-suffering sigh. “Yes, Billy?”

“I thought I told you that the current allotment of outdoor dining tables was five, and yet I see six outside your establishment.”

“Someone must’ve split the four-seater table in two,” I grumbled, rubbing my forehead as I passed Wyatt his flat white. “I’ll go push them back together now.”

“I’ll do it,” Wyatt volunteered. “Or you could on the way out,” he added pointedly to Billy.

The tall green man scoffed as if that were beneath him. He always acted like his store, Midnight Market, was the premier destination in Maple Hollow.

“Thank you for rectifying it,” Billy said directly to me. “It is, after all, against the rules.”

“Your rules,” Wyatt bit out, taking a step between Billy and me. “Why don’t you give her a break?”

“Whoa,” I said at the sudden growl in Wyatt’s voice. I clapped a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder and tried very hard not to notice the rippling muscle beneath my palm. “It’s okay. I’ll fix it.”

“A little too close to the full moon, hmm?” Billy goaded. Nothing could scare a six-foot-five monster, not even a snarling, fully grown werewolf.

I squeezed his shoulder. “If you wolf out in my busy café, I will make you pay for all the damages,” I hissed. “Now, take your coffee and go chill.”

“Go chill?” Wyatt asked incredulously, the spell on his aggression snapping just as quickly as it had appeared.

“I realize the irony of me saying that to you,” I muttered. “Don’t make me be the mellow one of the two of us.”

A lazy smile stretched across his face when I said “the two of us.” And there my stomach went, doing somersaults again. I didn’t get it. He seemed to like the idea of an “us,” but maybe just as friends? God, I need to get a life. Small-town dating pools were more like puddles.

“I should get back anyway.” Wyatt idled for a second before offering me an awkward half wave. “Bye.”