Coffee and Cafés - Book Two of the Café Latte Trilogy

Café au Lait

Mornin' all! Hope you have a lovely day.

Love, Cam

♡

Café au Lait

Thomas and Savannah Belmont lived in a very nice neighbourhood. It was in London but a fair way outside central London, so I'd driven. Angelo was in the car, having promised to come and rescue me if I sent an SOS text.

I hesitated on the doorstep of a perfectly nice house, with hanging planters next to the door and big doorbell. It all looked so normal. My birth parents had been hanging out in this totally normal neighbourhood, with their totally normal house, for years, and I'd had no idea. I hadn't thought about them more than a handful of times over the last few years. It was usually just my birthday that they came to mind. I wondered if they celebrated it.

Quickly, I pressed the doorbell, and waited.

Twenty seconds stretched on like an eternity. I felt the back of my neck heating up in embarrassment, like I was preparing myself to fuck it up immediately. I heard muffled footsteps get clearer, and then the door opened tentatively.

I sucked in a breath immediately. Somehow, I hadn't prepared myself for looking at someone who looked so much like me. Thomas Belmont was the spitting image of me. I saw myself in his nose, the shape of his face, his wry smile.

"Hi," I managed to say after a few seconds.

"Hi," he replied, his voice a slightly softer version of mine.

I hesitated. "This is weird."

"Yes," he agreed, and then opened the door a little wider. "Last chance to run away?"

I genuinely considered it. I could get back in the car with Angelo and bolt. But I caught sight of a photo frame hung on the wall behind them, of a little girl in a ballerina outfit. My sister. I had a sister.

"I'm not much of a runner," I admitted, stepping over the threshold. "My friend Jasper jogs every morning."

"Yikes," Thomas replied, shutting the door behind us. "My doctor says I should get more exercise but it seems like a lot of effort."

I looked at him sharply. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, Tom," he replied, smiling a little. "Just older than I'd like to be."

I snorted a little. "Dude, my boyfriend is only a few years younger than you."

I wasn't sure what really surprised him more; me calling him dude, me coming out as into dudes, or the fact that my boyfriend was nearer my father's age than mine. After a moment, he said, "That's a lot of information to get in one sentence."

At that point, Savannah rushed out of a nearby room, looking frazzled. "Hi!" she said nervously. "I forgot to ask if you were vegetarian or gluten-free or something - there's stuff for both if you are!"

My stomach perked up at the thought of snacks. "I'm neither, but I'll happily eat it. My friends Jasper and Ross are vegetarian, so we eat a lot of veggie food."

"I told you it'd be fine," Thomas teased her a little bit, looking amused by his wife's over-planning. "This way, Tom."

He led me into a living room, where I perched on a sofa, not yet feeling relaxed enough to sit casually. It probably looked like I had a rod shoved straight up my arse.

"So, did you drive?" Savannah asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, I nicked my boyfriend's car for the day," I answered, choosing to not reveal that said boyfriend was still in the car.