Al left the coffee shop and crossed the street to the Milwaukee Public Market, the one small but bright spot in Milwaukee’s culinary scene. He had heard about an outdoor farmers’ market here in the summer, but after four months in the freezing, godforsaken city, he thought summer was a cruel joke locals played on new arrivals. It was supposed to be the first warm day of spring, which was why he’d left his winter coat at his flat. Foolish of him.
The Milwaukee Public Market consisted of one building the size of a small city block. Of the two stories, the first contained several booths for vendors ranging from coffee to beef to spices. All good quality and a decent variety for such a small market, though it was nothing compared to the meandering and never-ending food stalls of London, Paris, or even Vancouver’s Granville Island. The second story had a small seating area for people to watch the action below and sample their parcels. A few of the stands catered to the downtown lunch crowd—business folks looking for a reason to escape their cubicles for a minute of sunshine and fresh air. On the rare occasion when Al wasn’t eating out for work, he came to the Public Market to pick out the freshest ingredients for dinner. This morning, he just wanted to get out of the wind.
The queue at the newsstand where he liked to buy his newspaper was long, but Al had time. Because he worked afternoons and into the evening, he didn’t have to be in the office until noon. While waiting, Al rocked back and forth, from his toes to his heels, sipping the hot tea. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the familiar warmth and comfort. It almost tasted like home: fragrant, clean, just a touch of milk. Al took another deep breath to warm himself a little when coconut, vanilla, and bacon scents mingled with his Earl Grey. Al looked around, curious about the enticing smells, and nearly collided with a fair-faced, brown-haired woman standing right behind him, causing a few drops of tea to splash onto the pristine white box she held.
“So sorry,” Al blurted out as he turned toward her, catching the cup before disaster. The woman’s face warmed into a stunning smile—straight teeth, except one that was charmingly askew. Her nose crinkled a little when her grin reached its widest, making her faint freckles dance.
“No serious damage done,” the woman said.
Al couldn’t help but smile back—she had that kind of face. A ponytail, tied low on her head and not quite pulled through the last time, kept the hair away from her face. She didn’t wear any makeup and, more importantly, didn’t need it. She wore jeans—not too tight, not too loose—and a warm-looking brown quilted vest over a long-sleeve brown T-shirt. She eclipsed everything around them. He couldn’t stop staring though he knew he should, but he wanted her image seared into his memory.
Al shivered again, despite himself.
“Cold?” the woman asked.
“Bloody freezing. The weatherman said it would be seventy-five today; it can’t be more than fifty.”
The woman nodded with a little smile. “It’s the lake.” Al frowned. “You know, cooler near the lake,” she explained.
“What?”
“Cooler near the lake. I’m sure the weather report said that, too.”
“Maybe. But we aren’t on the lake.”
“We’re close enough. The lake’s not more than ten blocks that way.” The woman gestured over his shoulder. “Cooler near the lake can mean a few miles inland. Lake Michigan is so big, it does all sorts of crazy things to our weather. Wait until we get lake-effect snow.” The woman’s smile got even larger, with a hint of gentle teasing. “I suggest layers.”
• • • • •
Lou tried hard to not laugh at the poor guy. He looked frozen in his neatly pressed tan pants and light blue dress shirt. His shirt pulled against his fit shoulders and arms as he crossed them, trying to stay warm. He wasn’t very tall, so she could see his shocking blue eyes, the kind of eyes that would change based on how he felt. Right now, they looked like a blue winter sky: brilliant but cold. His frosty face said he spent too much time indoors, and his straight features reminded her of the private-school boys in movies like Dead Poets Society and The Chocolate War. His hair was a dark brown, short on the sides but longer and shaggier on top—the kind of hair you could bury your hands in during a really spectacular kiss. His scruffy face broadcasted he hadn’t shaved for a few days and would probably scratch while kissing. Perhaps she should offer to warm him up. Lou shook her head to focus as he asked her a question.
“So what’s in the box? Coconut?”
“A coconut cake.” She adjusted the dry cleaning and coffee to get a better grip on the box. She had almost dropped it when the man turned around so quickly.
“Where did you get it?” The man leaned forward to get a good sniff.
“I made it.” His eyes widened.
“Really? Someone is very lucky.” With that, he paid the cashier for his paper and disappeared down the street, turning back once before disappearing around a corner.
With a sigh, Lou bought the gum Devlin preferred and a local paper because she wanted to see what this A. W. Wodyski was like. Her phone buzzed with a text from Sue.
Harley ate a piece the size of a suburban raccoon. I’d say he liked it.
Lou looked forward to teasing him later. With a grin, she tucked the newspaper under her arm and slid the gum into her vest pocket, adjusted the dry cleaning so it couldn’t slide out of the plastic bags, took a little sip of Devlin’s soy latte, and picked up the cake box from where she had set it on the newsstand counter.
Glancing at the clocks behind the counter, she realized she had thirty minutes before Devlin left for work. Clutching all the items, she hurried the few blocks to Devlin’s apartment, arriving while the coffee was still hot, so hot she was thankful for her heat-callused hands. A little scalding coffee felt good on a chilly morning.
She hadn’t given Devlin an answer to the La Perla question (as she liked to think of it), so the lingerie sat unused in his closet. Moving in seemed more real than the engagement. Since they hadn’t even discussed wedding dates, Lou hadn’t felt much different other than owning a sparkly piece of jewelry. Nothing else had changed. She liked the idea of sharing a life with someone, always having a date on Valentine’s Day and someone to open presents with on Christmas, but moving in meant real changes. Leaving her apartment, melting her life into Devlin’s—combining their books, their music, their clothes.
While she wasn’t often home, she loved knowing her apartment waited for her, with her pictures, her cookbooks, her bed. She liked Devlin’s apartment well enough, but it had too many nice things. He always reminded her to be careful so she wouldn’t knock over a statue and asked her not to drink wine on his couch. All too often, she felt like an actor in a play, performing only actions outlined in the script. She needed her apartment as a place to spill food, be loud, break things, be herself.
But she also looked forward to sharing their days over a bottle of good wine, planning out Devlin’s next career step, and laughing over the ridiculous antics of opposing counsel. Yes, the comfort outweighed her concerns. They would work out their disagreement over her restaurant—maybe she could convince him to bring clients in to dinner, perhaps a private dinner after hours. People loved to get special treatment at restaurants. Lou smiled, her decision lifting the worry off her shoulders.
She quietly slid her key into Devlin’s lock and bit the twine so the cake box wouldn’t topple out of her hands. With the door slightly ajar, Lou moved the box back to her hand to free her mouth and bumped the door wide open with her hip.
“Surprise!” Lou scanned the apartment for Devlin but only saw Megan, the blonde intern from the gala, standing in Devlin’s living room and wearing Lou’s blue La Perla nightgown.
Lou’s jaw was still open and body frozen when Devlin ran out of his bedroom wearing only boxers and carrying an armload of clothes. He looked at Lou, then at Megan, then back at Lou.