Keira
I asked Ryder, Mason, and Jaxon to give us the room, and to their credit, none of them argued. They filed out onto the sidewalk in front of the café, close enough to keep an eye on the lingering crowd, far enough that my mother and I could talk without an audience.
She sat down across from me at the small table by the window, the one she usually reserved for regulars, and folded her hands together in a way that meant she wasn't going anywhere until she got a real answer.
"Start from the beginning," she said. "And don't leave anything out."
So I told her. All of it. The interview that started it, the offer Ryder made in the journalism building, the number that had felt impossible to say no to once he mentioned her café by name. I told her about the gala, the viral photos, the spon
