Four Of A Kind

Chapter 274: [4.92] Rebecca Ashworth

The afternoon brought a different energy. The crowds thinned as families left and the students who remained settled into longer visits, ordering second and third rounds while taking photos for social media. Harlow changed the playlist from gothic organ music to something with a beat, and a few tables started swaying along.

The fog machines had been toned down to a gentle mist that crawled along the floor, and the candelabras cast warm flickering light across every surface.

Rebecca Ashworth appeared at 2:47. I tracked her entrance because she walked through the coffin archway like she owned the gymnasium, her crimson eyes scanning the room with the same cataloguing attention I had seen in Sabrina.

She wore something from 3-C’s haunted house, a white dress that was either a ghost costume or a nightgown depending on interpretation, and her midnight-black hair spilled across her shoulders in waves that she had not bothered to tame.

She bypassed the seating system entirely, ignored Vivienne’s pointed throat-clearing at the hostess station, and walked directly to my espresso counter.

"Isaiah Angelo." She placed both hands on the counter and leaned forward. Up close her eyes were even more startling, that deep red that everyone assumed was contacts and nobody could prove wasn’t. "The vampire butler. I’ve been hearing about this cafe all day."

"Welcome to our humble establishment. Can I get you something?"

"A flat white. And a conversation."

I started pulling the shot. "Conversations are free, but the flat white is three dollars." freewebnøvel.coɱ

"My mother says hello, by the way." She watched my hands work the machine with that focused attention that reminded me uncomfortably of the way she watched me at the bar. "She’s very curious about your recent lifestyle changes. The car. The suit at the gala. The photographs with the Valentine girl."

"I’ve been getting a lot of questions about those photographs."

"I’m not asking about the photographs." Rebecca’s voice dropped lower. "I’m asking about you. The boy from the Velvet Room who turned down every woman who offered him everything, now surrounded by four identical sisters who look at him like he hung the moon." She tilted her head. "What changed, Isaiah? What made you stop saying no?"

I poured the steamed milk into the cup, creating a leaf pattern on the surface because some habits die hard regardless of the venue. "Nothing changed. I just started a new job."

"Liar." She smiled, and it was the kind of smile that carried information and intent in equal measure, the kind that reminded me she had been watching me for months before I ever noticed her watching. She took the flat white, dropped a ten-dollar bill on the counter, and turned to leave.

She made it three steps before Cassidy appeared at her shoulder like she had teleported from across the room. Cassidy stood half a head shorter than Rebecca but occupied twice the space, her presence expanding to fill the gap between them with something that felt like the moment before a thunderstorm breaks.

"Nice ghost costume," Cassidy said, her voice carrying the particular sweetness she reserved for people she was about to dismantle. "Very creative. Must have taken you, what, five minutes?"

Rebecca looked down at Cassidy with that half-smile. "Cassidy Valentine. Your cafe is quite impressive. Harlow’s work?"

"Family effort." Cassidy’s jaw tightened. "You finished your drink? Because we’re on a rotation and your table’s needed."

"I haven’t sat down yet."

"Then I guess you’re leaving." Cassidy held Rebecca’s gaze with the unflinching directness that I had come to recognise as her default mode when something she considered hers was being examined by someone she considered a threat.

The air between them crackled with something that was not quite hostility and not quite respect, occupying the narrow space between the two where dangerous women recognised each other and chose their next words very carefully.

Rebecca looked from Cassidy to me, then back to Cassidy. Her red eyes held something that might have been amusement, or interest, or the early stages of a plan that I wanted no part of.

"See you around, Isaiah," she said, and walked through the fog toward the exit with her flat white and her ten-dollar overpayment and the distinct impression that she had learned exactly what she came to learn.

Cassidy watched her leave, then turned to me with her arms crossed and her purple eyes burning at a temperature that could have powered the espresso machine.

"Who was that?"

"Rebecca Ashworth. Her mom’s a regular at the bar."

"She was flirting with you."

"She was ordering coffee."

"She was ordering coffee while flirting with you, which is worse because she’s doing two things at once and both of them are irritating." Cassidy’s voice climbed half an octave. "And you made her latte art. You don’t make latte art for customers. You barely make latte art for us."

"I make latte art for everyone. It’s muscle memory."

"You made her a leaf. You made Harlow a blob this morning."

"Harlow’s order had whipped cream on top. You can’t see latte art under whipped cream."

"That’s not the point!" Cassidy grabbed the counter edge hard enough that her knuckles went white. A vein pulsed in her temple that I had catalogued over three weeks of tutoring sessions as the exact indicator of when Cassidy’s frustration tipped from performance into genuine emotion.

She leaned across the counter, her voice dropping to something raw and private despite the twenty people sitting within earshot. "The point is that girl looked at you like she was shopping and you were on sale, and I don’t share."

The word hung between us. I stared at her. She stared back. Her cheeks turned the colour of her hair, starting at the tips of her ears and spreading down her neck in a wave that disappeared beneath the collar of her battle maid costume.

"We literally agreed to a rotation schedule yesterday," I said quietly.

"That’s different and you know it." She released the counter and stepped back, straightening her headband with fingers that shook just enough for me to notice. "Your sisters and some random bar girl are completely different categories."

"She’s not a bar girl, she’s a classmate."

"She’s competition." Cassidy said the word like she was biting into something sour. "And I don’t lose competitions."

She turned and stalked back to her tables, her skirt swishing with each aggressive step, and I stood behind the espresso machine wondering when exactly my life had become the kind of story that Iris drew in her manga notebooks, complete with love rivals appearing out of fog banks and jealousy confessions delivered over themed coffees while wearing vampire costumes.

The answer was September. The answer was always September, and a coffee stain, and a girl with purple eyes who promised to hate me forever and then couldn’t stop looking at me across crowded rooms.