They Left Me Out of Their Group, So I'll Leave Them Out of My Life novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Coffee

Santino and Bailey come to the café; Tegan reads the first message aloud in front of the line, drops his key in his cup and blocks all eight, then zooms in on the pinned photo and finds her own name painted on the canoe.

I slept on Dee's couch with Gran's cardigan over my knees and my phone face down on the floor.

It buzzed again and again before six in the morning.

Dee found me at five-thirty, standing in her kitchen in yesterday's clothes.

"You look like you got hit by a bus," she said. "Did you get hit by a bus?"

"I got hit by a group chat."

I showed her the photos.

She read them standing up, with a toothbrush in her mouth, and when she got to the pancakes she took the toothbrush out.

"I'm driving you to work," Dee said. "And I'm charging my phone to a hundred percent."

We both work the morning shift at Hearth & Bean, the coffee place on Larkin's main street.

By eight the line was out the door.

I had steamed milk for twenty people without once looking up, and it was the only thing that kept my hands still.

At 8:10 the bell over the door rang, and I looked up.

Santino had on the good jacket and the face he uses when he wants a table at a restaurant.

Bailey was right behind him in the big green cardigan, holding a paper bag against her chest.

"Tegan," she said. "Oh, honey."

The line went quiet as the two of them walked to the front.

Dee set her phone against the napkin dispenser, propped up, camera facing the counter.

She didn't hide it.

"Babe, I'm so sorry," Santino said. "I woke up and you were gone and I was sick with worry. Can we talk? Please? Just five minutes."

"You can talk," I said. "I'm working."

Bailey set the paper bag on the counter. "I brought you a croissant. Tegan, that chat is a joke. We have one for everybody. Santino's mom has one."

"Which one is it called?"

"What?"

"The one for Santino's mom."

"I don't know, Tegan, they're just group chats."

"Is there one called Good Times Without Bailey?"

Bailey opened her mouth and shut it again.

A woman in a yoga jacket near the front said, "Oh no," and took out her phone.

Santino put both hands flat on the counter. "Okay. It's a stupid thing. It was a dumb joke that got out of hand. It doesn't mean anything."

"It's got your name on the first message," I said.

His hands stayed flat.

I took out my phone and found the photo.

I read it out loud, slowly, so the back of the line could hear.

"Funeral is at noon. Bring beer to mine at three. She'll be with the old ladies till dark."

Nobody said a word.

The espresso machine hissed.

"The date was March fourteenth," I said. "Three years ago. I was burying my grandmother."

Santino's face did something fast. He looked at Bailey, and Bailey looked at the croissant.

"That was Bailey's idea," he said. "She made the group. I only said yes to be nice."

"Santino!"

"You told me everyone needed to blow off steam!"

"I never said to use the funeral!"

They looked at each other.

The woman in the yoga jacket was filming them.

I reached into my apron pocket and took out the apartment key.

I had found it in my bag at five that morning at Dee's, and for a minute I had almost kept it.

I dropped it into Santino's to-go cup, which he had set down by the register.

It went in with a small splash.

"Four years," I said. "You can have the coffee too."

"Tegan, don't do this here."

"You did it at a funeral."

His mouth closed.

Dee leaned over the counter and tapped her own screen. "That's a full minute of you two arguing about whose idea it was. It's a good watch. I might post it."

"Don't you dare," Bailey said.

"Next," Dee said, loudly. "Who's next?"

They left.

The bell rang behind them.

I stood there with my hands on the steam wand while everybody in line pretended not to look at me.

Then I took my phone, and while the milk steamed, I blocked every number I had for them, one at a time.

Santino. Bailey. Beckett. The couple, and the three guys.

Eight, and the last one took the longest.

On my break I went out to the alley behind the shop and sat on an upside-down milk crate.

I opened the photos from the chat again, to look at them without a crowd.

I opened the pinned one.

The dock, the flat gray lake, the red canoe tied up at the end.

I put two fingers on the screen and made it bigger.

The side of the canoe had a name on it, painted by hand in white, with a little curl on the last letter.

TEGAN.

Gran painted that for me the summer I turned nine.

She had run out of white and used the end of a pot of house trim, and the E was thicker than the rest.

I sat in the alley and looked at it.

Santino had told me the lake house was sold, and a stranger's name was on that boat.

Except the name was mine.

I texted Dee: "Can I borrow your car tonight?"

She wrote back in a second. "Where are we going?"

I typed: "Lake Ossery. I need to see if my grandmother's house is still there."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend