Karen looked up at the new figure who’d approached the table. He looked familiar, though she couldn’t quite place him. Either way, she smiled politely and nodded. “Yes, give me one moment and the table is yours.” She made quick work of packing up her bag and securing it on her shoulder before standing, intending to vacate the coffee shop to begin the rest of her day. At least, that had been the plan until Clarissa McAllister walked in the front door, children in tow. Karen hadn’t taken more than two steps from the table before she saw her fellow PTA mom, and she instantly froze. It wasn’t that she disliked Clarissa… well… it wasn’t that she wished ill on Clarissa. It was just that Karen had been so successful at avoiding her the last few months and she didn’t want to lose that streak here, in public, on a day where she had so much else she needed to be doing.
Immediately Karen weighed her choices. There would be little to no chance of slipping out of the store without Clarissa noticing her, and even if she did, Clarissa had the kids with her and one of them was sure to call out hello. But simply continuing to stand here, even in the back corner of the coffee shop, was bound to attract her attention regardless, and the familiar-looking stranger had already sat at her table. But that table, tucked in the back like it was, might be far enough away from the door… With little to no choice of anywhere better to hide, Karen made her decision. Backtracking to the table she’d just vacated, Karen quickly dropped back into her seat, pulling her purse into her lap and offering her most winning smile to the man now sitting on the other side. “I forgot one other thing I needed to do,” she chirped brightly, like they were old friends. “And then I’ll be out of your way. But you’re welcome to stay, I won’t take the table from you,” she offered magnanimously, as if she hadn’t already left it. Ducking her head, Karen began to quickly rummage through her purse, as if looking for something, hoping Clarissa would leave as quickly as she’d come in.
“Sure, no problem.” Monty waited until after she had stepped away from the table to take the seat that had been opposite hers.
His glance in the direction of the cafe’s entrance was more of an absent thing while he fished one of the books out of the small backpack he’d brought, than anything else. The pair of teenage girls who’d somehow managed to project their conversation to a volume that cut through the humdrum of peak hours almost slid out of his attention as quickly as they had entered, would have, even, had they not been trailed by the more familiar face of his nephew Johnathan, and— oh shit.
Monty had just enough time to register Clarissa following after her three eldest with her youngest in tow, had planted a hand on the table and started to rise from his chair like he was considering getting up to put his back to the door, when the seat across from him was suddenly occupied once more, Karen dropping herself back in the chair she had just vacated. He wasn’t sure what expression he had on his face, but it was probably in line with the stunned, “Uh?” that he managed, only partially in answer to the tone far chummier than her initial words had been.
He sat like that for a moment or two, caught between the flight response seeing Clarissa had triggered and the stillness brought on by being so caught off guard by Karen’s sudden return, until one of the twins turned her head in the direction of the back of the cafe, and Monty abruptly sat himself back down, gaze snapping back to Karen from where it had drifted to watch his older sister and her kids.
He really didn’t want to open up a book on something someone like Karen might actually have interest in and lock himself into the potential of a conversation about it, but he also didn’t have a lot else on him to look busy with, just in case Clarissa did spot him. Buy it, Rent it, Profit! started up at him in glaringly large print on the cover of the book Elias had foisted onto him. Monty managed a strained smile, put his hand down over the book, and drew it back toward him.
“Trevor said something about you making tarts for the carnival this year?”
