Chapter 20—Jackson

When he pulled his truck onto Main street, the first thing he registered was that there was a line snaked around the block. He slowed the truck, trying to examine the line’s origin as he crawled the street in search of a parking spot. He had to hit the brakes when he finally reached the front of the long line of people. They were waiting to get into his shop. The Cozy Cup had a line that was five shops long. People were standing out in the cold waiting. For what, he had no idea.

He parked in the closest spot he could find—three blocks away. By the time he’d walked back to the shop, there were even more people waiting in line. He hurried inside to find Andi and Allison, of all people, working away behind the counter.

Allison was taking orders at the register while Andi was behind the counter, frantically stuffing things into bakery boxes. Eric, his employee, was using both hands to run the espresso machine and the steamer simultaneously.

Jackson scanned the room. Every single table was full. There were people standing in the back, cups of coffee and scones, cookies, or brownies in hand while they chatted. The tip jar was overflowing with bills, and most noticeable of all—the bakery case was full. He looked behind Andi to find that a baker’s rack was also full of various confections.

How on Earth had she had the time to do all of that baking? And how had everyone in Cherry Creek, and possibly other towns from the looks of it, have found out and come by?

“Jackson!” he heard Allison’s chipper greeting.

“Hey,” he said, still stunned. “What is all of this?” he asked her.

“The power of social media and a gorgeous bakery case,” she said, laughing. “Now, please put on an apron and come help us,” she called over the noise.

Jackson walked numbly through the crowd of people and made his way behind the counter. “How?” he asked Andi as he put an apron on and washed his hands. “And also, what?”

Andi’s eyes were huge, and she shook her head. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean for any of this. I was just trying to help, and then all of the sudden, Allison is posting to social media and all of these people are here, and I figured it’s worse to disappoint them now when they’re already here. I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Jackson insisted. “Don’t be sorry. This is amazing.” He would have to figure out the logistics of offering baked goods again, but for now, he was going to take all the help he could get.

***

Three hours later, the rush was finally over. The bakery case had been completely cleaned out. The baker’s racks were empty. He was completely out of ingredients to make anything else, including most of the specialty coffee drinks.

He sat at the small coffee bar in utter shock, looking over the sales report for the day. “We’ve never had anything close to a day like this,” he said to Allison and Andi as he shook his head. “I don’t even understand how the two of you did this.”

“I was trying to bake for the festival,” Andi told him. "But people started smelling the stuff I was baking and asking for them. So, I just kept going. Allison and Eric picked the prices, and we went on like that.”

“Then, I posted a photo to The Cozy Cup’s Instasnap, used a few clever hashtags, and the rest is history,” Allison chimed in.

Jackson blinked at her. “The Cozy Cup doesn’t have an Instasnap,” he said.

“It does now,” Allison said. She pulled out her phone and jabbed away at the screen for a second before turning it to face him. Sure enough, there was the shop’s logo and five new posts.

He was happy to see that she hadn’t just posted about the baked goods. She’d taken some really amazing shots of his holiday drinks and posted descriptions of each of them. He read through some of the comments on the photos. His mouth turned up in a smile. “They came for my drinks, too,” he said in disbelief.

“Duh,” Allison said. She looked at Andi. “Don’t get me wrong, those scones and those chocolate chip cookies—” she made a chef’s kiss gesture. “But people were just as into those awesome coffee flavors of yours,” she said to Jackson.

***

Later, he asked Andi, “Were you even able to get your orders done today? You really didn’t have to spend the whole day baking for the shop.”

“I got all of mine filled except for one special order. I always send my first ever customer, Mr. Freeman, a special box around Christmas. I’ll get to that before my parents get in tomorrow,” she said.

“Are you mad?” she asked him after a second. “I know what you said about not wanting to set up false expectations. I’m really sorry things got so out of hand today.”

“It’s okay,” he told her. “Some things have changed. So, the false expectations thing isn’t as big of a concern as it once was, let’s just say that.”

“What does that mean?” Allison asked him.

“Nothing,” he said, waving the question away. “It just means that I’ll take all the help I can get. Just don’t let it mess up your own orders. I don’t want to get in the way of that.” If the business was really booming, maybe he could get a better offer out of Demetri.

“Oh,” Andi said, digging in the pocket of the apron she was wearing. “Before I forget, I found this when I was getting supplies in the basement. It fell off a shelf when I was pulling a box down.”

She placed an old school broach on the surface in front of her. It was red and green. It looked like something his grandma would have worn. He didn’t recognize it, but judging by the size of the stones, it had to be fake. “Were there boxes of trash down there?” he asked Andi.

“Yeah,” she said, her nose wrinkling as she nodded. “What’s up with that?”

“Zack,” Jackson huffed. “We got our first few months of rent at a discount under the stipulation that we take care of cleaning out the basement from the last business that was here. It was Zack’s job to haul off the boxes, but I’m pretty sure he just stuffed them all on the top shelves.”

Jackson examined the broach, turning it over in his hands. Finally, he handed it back to Andi. “I’m not sure why there was costume jewelry down there. But you’re welcome to it if you want it. It looks Christmas-y—kind of reminds me of you,” he said.

Andi laughed as she took the broach back from him. “It’s not really my style,” she said. “But it is pretty.”

“It looks like something Tess would appreciate,” Allison chimed in. They all nodded in agreement.

Andi tucked the broach back into the pocket of the apron. “Remind me to bring it to her when we get back from picking up my parents tomorrow,” she said.

“You sure I shouldn’t give it to your mom?” he asked Andi. “Maybe it’ll soften her up.”

“It’ll take more than a broach to make my mom soften,” Andi said with a laugh.

Jackson gulped and the anxiety he got when he thought about meeting Andi’s parents twisted in his gut.