“Have you heard?”
“Have you heard?” Cassie White, the morning waitress at Patsy’s said to her regulars sitting at the bar sipping coffee and eating eggs. “Supposedly there’s some up and comer moving in the old Hazel House.”
“Is there?” Danny Johnson, the evening grocer at Mackeys, asked interestedly. “That place has sat empty for twenty years.”
Cassie nodded eagerly and topped off his coffee cup.
“My cousin saw the moving truck herself,” she said, preening under the attention of the group. “Tina said it looked like a family, lots of little ones judging by the toys they were unloading.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Rachel Shields, the mail carrier for town, said. She pushed her empty mug forward, getting a refill from Cassie and eager ears from the others. “I saw the guy who bought the house. He came in and registered it properly. He was young, probably no older than Cassie‘s boy, twenty-three, max. There’s no way there’s a bunch of rugrats.”
“I’m telling you, Tina saw them unload half of a toy store in that house,” Cassie insisted.
“Never mind that,” Erika Shroyer, the secretary for the elementary school, said, leaning over Danny to see Rachel properly. “What’s his name? What’s he do?”
Rachel smiled smugly, pleased to have the gossip spotlight now.
“Harry Potter, and…” She waited until she was certain that the others were all giving her their rapt attention. “He’s British.”
Cassie eagerly stored away the information, thrilled to have gotten such good gossip so early in the morning.
By the time the lunch rush was over, the whole town of Forks had heard about their newest resident, Harry Potter.
***
“I met him!” Danny declared a couple mornings later, taking his usual spot with the ladies he’d shared breakfast with every day for the last ten years.
“Who?” Cassie asked, already writing up their orders on her notepad for the kitchen.
“Potter, the guy who bought the Hazel House!”
“Ooh,” Erika lit up at the promise of new information on Forks’ newest resident, “and?”
“And he’s very polite, looks rich,” the women all sniffed at that. The only rich people in Forks were the Cullen’s, and nobody was too fond of them. “And he’s dumb as a door.”
“Is he?” Rachel asked curiously. “How so?”
Danny grinned and accepted the cup of coffee Cassie gave him. He poured his two packs of sugar in and stirred while he let the ladies sweat for a moment.
“He couldn’t figure out how to make the card reader work,” he told them. “I know it’s some fancy nonsense, but still. Most folks know how to swipe a card and enter their PIN.”
Erika shared a smirk with Cassie. Danny had griped nonstop when Mackeys first installed their credit card reader, he hated it more than anyone.
“What was he buying though?” Rachel asked, entirely enraptured in the information. “Young guy like that? Cart full of booze?”
“Nah.” Danny waved his hand and politely waited until Cassie turned in their order slip to share what he learned. “Seems like a health nut, actually. Had a cart full of fruits and vegetables, some meats, pasta, milk, two dozen eggs.”
“Two dozen?” Erika scoffed. “Who needs two dozen eggs?”
“Probably some rich fancy fad diet,” Cassie said dismissively. “Dan, did he have any kids with him?”
“Nope.” Dan scratched at the scruffy grey beard on his face and shrugged. “Didn’t seem like much of a kid friendly cart of food either.”
“I’m telling you, he had a whole toy store in that van!” Cassie said firmly. “And you know how those rich people are, he’s probably got the kids on some weird diet. I heard the Cullen family is vegan.”
“He wasn’t old enough to have a bunch of kids,” Rachel reminded her. “Maybe just one or two really spoiled ones?”
Erika nodded sagely. “Those rich folk are always spoiling their kids. No sense of humility in any of them.”
“Now, I dunno about all that,” Danny said slowly, taking the spotlight back. “Potter seemed like a down to earth guy, he even thanked Charlie real politely when he showed him how to use the card reader.”
“Chief Swan?” Cassie, who’d been harboring a soft spot for Charlie Swan for years, perked right up at that bit of news. “Of course he’d offer to help, Charlie’s a good man.”
“Potter seemed to think so too,” Danny nodded. “He was all smiles while he bagged up his groceries and chatted with him.”
“Well,” Rachel waited until their breakfasts had been brought over, “if it’s for Charlie, who wouldn’t be smiling?”
The others agreed and then fell silent for a few minutes while they ate their meals and Cassie took care of some of the other diners.
***
“You were wrong!” Erika declared when she marched in Patsy’s for her Saturday morning breakfast, which she only has thirty minutes later than her weekday breakfasts.
“Who was?” Rachel asked as she moved her purse out of Erika’s barstool seat.
“Cassie,” Erika said, plopping in between Rachel and Danny as she always had. “Potter only has one child.”
“What??” The others gave Erika startled looks.
“How do you know?” Cassie demanded.
Erika puffed up and refused to elaborate until Cassie grumpily poured her a cup of coffee.
“I met them,” she said once she’d had a sip of her morning brew. “Potter came and registered his adopted son for school yesterday evening.”
“Well, he could—”
“Nope,” Erika cut Cassie off quickly. “I asked. I said ‘is this your only boy?’ Because the reports ask, you know, and he said it was.”
“Adopted, huh?” Danny asked with a curious look. “Did you meet his wife?”
“Not married,” Erika said. She scrunched her nose, showing her opinion of that. “He isn’t married and only has the one boy, little Teddy Lupin.”
“Lupin?” Rachel asked, putout at her news on the Davis’ new minivan not getting nearly as much attention as Erika’s. “He isn’t named Potter?”
“Nope. And I asked him about that, because it’s rather odd, but he said he was friends with Teddy’s parents and he wanted Teddy to stay connected to them.”
“Oh.” Cassie felt a little teary eyed at the realization. “Potter adopted an orphan boy? That’s so sweet.”
“It is,” Erika agreed. She smiled as she thought of the man and his son. “And Potter is very handsome too. With a sweet little boy like young Teddy? Oh,” she clicked her tongue, “the vultures will be swarming.”
“You know who would get on with him like a house on fire?” Danny snapped his fingers and nodded. “Susie Wallace! The sweet girl that works at the Get N’ Go?”
“No,” Rachel laughed and swatted Danny’s arms. “That girl is nothing but trouble. You know what I heard just last week from her aunt?”
The four of them kept up their clucking, perfectly content to whittle away a Saturday morning by sharing and rehashing the gossip of their small town.
***
Cassie was all but vibrating with excitement a few mornings later as she popped a piece of gum and waited on her friends and best customers to arrive.
She already had the coffee pot ready, four cups laid out, and their orders scribbled down and waiting to be turned in. The very second the bell dinged over the door and Rachel and Erika walked in together, Danny only a few steps behind, Cassie turned the order slip in and started pouring coffee.
“Where’s the fire?” Danny joked as he sat down and added his creamer.
“You’ll never guess who came in for lunch yesterday!” Cassie said with a wide smile, not even bothering to lower her voice. “Harry Potter and his boy!”
“Did they?” Rachel leaned over the chipped blue counter and poked at Cassie’s arm. “Well? Tell us everything!”
“First off, Potter is just as handsome as any of the boys in this town,” Cassie said decisively, receiving agreeable nods from Rachel and Erika. “But I don’t know about his parenting, he let his boy dye his hair blue!”
“Oh, that’s just a fad with the kids,” Erika said, waving her hand airily. “Best to let them get it out of their system before they start walking around town causing mischief.”
Cassie pouted her lips out, disappointed part of her story didn’t inspire gossip as usual. She was certain the rest would though.
“Charlie had lunch with them.”
“What?!”
That was more like it.
Cassie had an eager and rapt audience as she shared the story of Harry Potter and Teddy Lupin coming for lunch and being joined by the Chief of Police. She described what they wore, Teddy in a little school uniform much too nice to Forks Elementary, Harry in a leather jacket and fitted white shirt. Charlie came in uniform, as he usually did when he got lunch at Patsy’s on break.
She told them about the lunches they all ordered. Harry and his grilled chicken salad, Teddy and his cheeseburger and fries.
“Then who comes marching in? Charlie!” Cassie gushed. She paused her story long enough to grab the three breakfast platters and to refill all their coffees. “And I think they planned on meeting, because Charlie marches right over and apologizes for being late.”
“You know, it makes sense that they’d be friends,” Rachel said thoughtfully in between bites of her fruit. “Both bachelors, single dads.”
“Yeah but Charlie’s a real down to earth guy, good man,” Erika nodded, “and Potter’s an ‘investment banker’.”
“You didn’t tell us that!” Rachel scolded her friend. “Goodness, an investment banker? What does that even mean?”
“That little Teddy absolutely did not qualify for free lunch,” Erika said wryly. “Now I can’t go talking about someone’s income, but I was rather surprised by the number he put on Teddy’s paperwork.”
“He was a good tipper,” Cassie admitted. “Right polite too. Even his boy’s a sweet little thing, all shy smiled and good manners.”
“Think we can get any information from Charlie?” Danny asked with a crooked grin.
Rachel clicked her tongue.
“You know Charlie’s a closed book ever since he made chief, he says gossip isn’t proper. And,” she lowered her voice, causing the others to lean in, “you know how he feels anytime we ask about those Cullen’s.”
The others pulled long faces. They all remembered Charlie’s tirade about the Cullen family when Jack Farmer made the mistake of criticizing the Cullen’s during a dinner rush when Charlie had been in earshot.
“Either way, Charlie seems much more fond of Harry than he is the Cullen’s,” Cassie said firmly. “He even held little Teddy’s hand and walked him out to Potter’s car.”
“Charlie’s a good man, friendly guy,” Danny said decisively. “It’s good of him to be welcoming Potter to Forks.”
The ladies agreed and their gossip dried up on the topic and moved on to Brittany Stewart’s recent wedding.
***
Rachel never had much fresh gossip to feed her friends. So when she did, she wanted as much shock as she could get.
“Now either Potter’s having trouble with vandals or he’s trouble himself,” Rachel said casually as she could. She plucked a blueberry off her plate and popped it in her mouth, giving the others a chance to swallow their own bites of food and turn to her.
“How’s that?” Cassie asked quickly, her eyes narrow as she waited for the news.
Rachel chewed slowly, savoring the spotlight. She drew it out a moment longer, taking a long sip of her coffee, then caved when Danny looked downright impatient.
“Charlie’s cruiser was there when I drove by, dropping off the mail,” she explained. “And Charlie’s shift doesn’t start until eight, so why was he there at half past five if it wasn’t serious?”
“I hope nothing happened to little Teddy,” Erika fretted. “He’s such a good boy at school. He had a spot of bullying from that terrible Owen girl, but he handled it very maturely.”
“That girl is on a one way trip to jail, just like her dad,” Danny tsk’d. He eyed Rachel shrewdly. “Potter’s a nice guy, always friendly when he comes in for groceries. You really think he’s having some legal problems?”
“Either he’s in to something shady or his son isn’t the only one being bullied,” Rachel said. “I can’t imagine why else Charlie would be there at that time.”
“Hmm…” Cassie refilled her own coffee mug and added a spot of creamer. “Charlie could have stayed the night?”
Danny chuckled and wiped his mouth before propping an elbow on the counter and fixing Cassie with an amused look.
“Now why on earth would Charlie have stayed at Potter’s house?” he asked. “Charlie’s been living in the same place for twenty years.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Erika chided Cassie. “It’s much more likely that Charlie was there for something big.”
“It is not ridiculous,” Cassie insisted. “If Charlie went over to watch a game last night he might have had a few beers and decided not to risk driving home.”
“Ooh,” Rachel nodded in understanding. “I suppose that’s one explanation, of course I think it’s just as likely that Potter’s having legal problems.”
“You always think worst case scenario ever since June went and robbed the post office,” Danny scoffed. It had been quite a scandal, one still heavily discussed even fifteen years after the fact.
“Speaking of June! I heard they moved out of state!”
The four of them eagerly began chatting away about the scandalous Roberson family while they finished their meals. And, a few days later, Rachel had to admit it was probably more likely that Charlie just had a few too many to drink while he watched the game with Potter since his car had been in Potter’s driveway every morning since then.
Which led to quite the discussion on if it was proper for the Chief of Police to be drinking so heavily every night.
***
Cassie sat at the hostess stand on a Sunday morning, waiting for the services to get out and the rush to begin, and yawned.
Her friends never came in on Sundays, choosing to have breakfast with their families before or after service, and customers wouldn’t start showing up for another two hours. She could probably hide out in the back, prop her feet up in the office, file away some of the never ending stack of credit receipts.
She might have done just that, if it weren’t for the bell dinging above the doorway and a trio of familiar faces walking in together.
“Charlie!” Cassie got up at once and smiled. Charlie nodded at her while he held the door open for Potter. And Cassie would have to be as blind as old Mary Tolbert to not notice what a nice looking young man Harry was. His dark hair could use a good brushing, but he had the prettiest eyes Cassie had ever seen a man have, all bright green and framed with thick black lashes. He held his little boy by the hand and Cassie held back a disapproving sniff at little Teddy’s new hairstyle.
Honestly though, who let their son parade around town with pink hair?
“Morning, Cassie,” Charlie said, polite as can be as always. “Mind if we get a booth?”
Cassie snatched a menu for Potter and a set of crayons and a paper menu for little Teddy and nodded. She waved a hand at the empty dining room, “Help yourself, dear.”
She followed behind as Charlie led Potter and Teddy to a little booth in the back corner. Charlie waited for Teddy to slide in and Potter to take the seat beside him before sitting across from him. Cassie laid down the menus and smiled warmly.
“Now, what can I get you boys to drink?”
“Two coffees and a chocolate milk, please,” Potter said, polite as can be. He smiled across the booth at Charlie while he fussed over helping Teddy take his jacket off. “Two creams and sugar, right, Charlie?”
Charlie, who usually wore stoicism like Cassie did lipstick, smiled right back at Harry.
“Unless that chocolate milk is for me.” He winked at Teddy and got a giggle from the boy.
“I’ll share,” Teddy offered with a little gap toothed grin.
“You ignore him,” Cassie told Teddy with her own wink. “Charlie doesn’t need your chocolate milk, dear. I’ll be right back.”
By the time Cassie made it back to the booth with a tray of drinks, Teddy had his menu in the center of the table and played a game of tic tac toe with Charlie while Potter watched with a little smile on his face.
It was a sweet picture. Poor Charlie had been alone for so long, it was good he had a friend and a little one to bring out his fatherly side. Ever since Charlie’s wife ran out on him, taking his little baby girl with her, Charlie had been alone. Sure, his girl came back a few years ago, but she ran off quick enough with one of the Cullen boys and everyone saw how disappointed Charlie was to be by himself once more.
It was for the life Potter and Teddy put in Charlie’s eyes that Cassie gave them an extra sweet smile while she dished out drinks.
“What can I get you all?” she asked. “Charlie, the usual?”
Cassie was proud to have the breakfast orders for half the town memorized. She should, after ten years of serving them all. She didn’t know Potter or Teddy’s, but she figured if they stayed long enough that she would.
Charlie was easy, he always got the meat lovers breakfast with his eggs over easy. Cassie would guess, based on what Danny said Potter bought at Mackeys and what Potter got last time he’d had lunch there, that he would pick something from the healthier side of the menu.
“Yeah, thanks,” Charlie said, distracted. “Teddy, do you want chocolate chip pancakes? They’re much better than your dad’s are.”
Teddy laughed while Potter pulled an affronted look.
“Oi! You had a whole stack of those!” he cried with a playful pout. “I didn’t hear any complaints from either of you.”
“Well our other option was to starve to death,” Charlie said with an easy smile. “Really, Harry, it was practically child abuse. I should lock you up.”
“Charlie’s just kidding, Dad,” Teddy told Potter. He patted his dad‘s hand with an impish little grin. “I’d never let them take you to Azka—”
“Chocolate chip pancakes or bacon and eggs?” Potter asked Teddy, cutting off whatever silliness the boy was spouting.
“Pancakes, please,” Teddy said with a shy smile.
“Of course, dear,” Cassie cooed. “And you, Harry?”
“I’ll have whatever Charlie’s having,” he said with a charming smile. He handed her back his menu. “Thank you.”
Oh, he was a charmer.
“I’ll be back in a jiffy,” Cassie promised. And by that she meant, she was going to turn in their orders then pretend to fill the salt shakers for the nearby tables so she could try and eavesdrop and gather something of interest to share later.
And boy did she.
“Teddy Bug, tell dad you want to go fishing today.”
“Ooh, can we, Dad? Please?”
“I’m so bad at fishing, love. I don’t have the patience you do.”
Now, Cassie assumed that Potter had been talking to Teddy, with such an intimate nickname like that. Which would be odd, because most seven year olds weren’t known for being patient, but it was even more odd when it had been Charlie who replied.
“You watched the Incredibles four times in a row the other day,” Charlie chuckled. Cassie peeped over at them and her jaw dropped at the sweet smile Charlie was aiming at Potter. “You’ve got patience, you just don’t like sitting still.”
“The Incredibles are INCREDIBLE!” Teddy yelled, earning a quick shush from his dad. “They’re not real heroes, not like you, Dad, and my other daddy and mum, but they’re pretty cool.”
Cassie’s heart melted at the little boy talking up his dead parents. Poor dear. It was sweet too how he idolized Potter, just like all little boys and their daddies.
She would have loved to hear Potter’s reply, but the bell dinged by the kitchen and she had to bustle off to collect their meals. Cassie pondered on Harry calling Charlie ‘love’, but had been willing to brush it off as foreigners having more affectionate nicknames for their friends than Americans had.
She added a little extra cool whip to Teddy’s pancakes, such a sweetie, and returned just in time for Charlie to win out their plans for the day.
“You’ll like Eerie Lake, Harry,” Charlie was saying when Cassie brought their trays over. “We can pack a lunch, load the boat up. Teddy, you wanna have a picnic on the lake?”
“Yes!” Teddy cheered. He shook his dad by the shoulder with a wide smile. “Daddy! A picnic on the lake! And I bet there’s no giant squids in there or nothin!”
“Maybe you’ll see a mermaid,” Cassie said with a wink as a way to announce her presence to the boys. “I heard Lake Eerie is full of them.”
Teddy turned a wide eyed look to Charlie, but Charlie only shook his head.
“Not really, Bug.”
“Daddy met mermaids before,” Teddy told Cassie very seriously when she put his plate in front of him. “He saved Uncle Ron from them.”
Potter laughed, looking more uncomfortable than ever. “Kids have crazy imaginations,” he told Cassie.
Charlie grinned and cocked an eyebrow up at Harry. “Suppose you didn’t outfly a dragon either?”
“Don’t encourage him,” Potter said with a heavy sigh. “Thank you, ma’am,” he accepted his platter of food with a nod. “This looks wonderful.”
“Oh, tosh.” Cassie waved a hand at Potter before handing Charlie his plate. “You can call me Cassie, dear, we don’t stand on fancy airs around these parts. Now, can I get you boys anything else? Coffee? More chocolate milk?”
When they turned her down, Cassie resigned herself to shuffling off once more. She couldn’t resist sneaking peeks over at them and smiled each time at the little sense of family breakfast they out off while they laughed and ate.
Cassie hadn’t seen Charlie so happy since…
Since…
Since Renee.
“Oh my,” she gasped to herself. Cassie sat herself down at the bar with a cup of coffee and thought over all the little pieces that she’d looked at the wrong way.
It was more shocking to be so very off with her interpretation of gossip than it was that the Chief of Police was seeing some new, hot, well-off, young single dad.
Cassie had always said that Renee had been all wrong for Charlie. And he never did date after Renee, despite a few rumors about Sue Clearwater from La Push.
By the time Cassie took the boys their check, she’d been so confident in her assessment that she didn’t even bother splitting the check. And Charlie, ever the gentlemen, insisted on paying.
“You made dinner,” he told Potter gruffly as he peeled a few bills from his wallet to hand Cassie.
“That’s because you can’t cook,” Potter said fondly.
“Precisely. So I have to be good for something.”
Cassie walked off with orders to keep the change and barely heard Potter’s smooth reply.
“You’re good for more than a free breakfast, love.”
Oh, yes, that boy was a charmer and one quick glance at Charlie over her shoulder confirmed that he was a goner.
And when they left, Teddy holding their hands and being swung in between the two of them, Cassie nodded in approval.
They made quite a sweet picture.
***
“Anything interesting happen this weekend?” Danny asked Cassie come Tuesday morning when she was back at work.
Cassie hesitated for a moment, her mouth opening on autopilot to share about Charlie and his boyfriend. Then she thought about it while she hid her hesitation behind a long draw of her coffee.
Charlie Swan was a good man, Harry Potter seemed like a decent enough person, and that Teddy was downright plum perfect. And if Cassie opened her mouth, the whole town would be talking about them nonstop and…
And she didn’t actually think the three of them deserved that. Not while they were so new and so sweet.
“You know what?” Cassie said thoughtfully. “Not a single interesting thing happened this weekend.”