Page 160 - It Ends with Us

Chapter Sixteen

“I mea n . . . I’m no t trying to be sel fis h, but you didn’t taste the
des sert , Lily.” Allysa groans . “Oh, it was sooo good.”
“We’re nev er going back there, ” I say to her.
She stomps her foot like a little kid. “But . . .”

“Nope. We ha ve to res pec t your brother’ s feel ing s.”
She folds her arms over her ches t. “I kno w, I kno w. Why did you
ha ve to be a ho rmona l teena ger and fall in love with the bes t chef in
Boston?”
“He wasn’t a chef when I knew hi m.”

“Wha tev er,” she says. She walks out of my offic e and closes the
door.
My pho ne buzzes with an inc oming tex t.
Ryle: 5 hours down. About 5 more to go. So far so good. Hand is great.
I sigh, rel iev ed . I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do the surgery today,
but know ing ho w much he was looking for ward to it makes me ha ppy
for hi m.

Me: Steadiest hands in all of Boston.
I open my laptop and chec k my em ail. The firs t thi ng I see is an
inq uiry from the Bo ston Globe. I open it and it’s from a journa list
int eres ted in runni ng an article about the store. I grin like an idiot
and start em ailing her back when Allysa kno cks on the door. She

opens it and sticks her hea d in.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” I say back.
She taps her fing ers on the door frame. “Rem em ber a few minu tes
ago when you told me I could nev er go back to Bib’s bec ause it’s
unf air to R yle tha t the boy you loved when you were a teen ager is the
owner?”

I fall back agains t my cha ir. “Wha t do you want , Allysa?”