One Step at a Time Read online

  One Step at a Time

  A Taste of Port Andrea Romance

  Lily Seabrooke

  © 2022 Lily Seabrooke

  lilyseabrooke.com

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

  Cover design, formatting and typesetting are products of the author. For more information, contact above email address.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to real events or people, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

  Published through Amazon, with love.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  The End

  Thank You

  What Makes a Moment

  About The Author

  Taste of Port Andrea Romances

  Books By This Author

  For you,

  trying to find

  what life is

  meant to be.

  You’ll get there.

  And you won’t be alone.

  Chapter 1

  Remi

  She slipped, her foot missing the step and pitching forward, and just for a moment, I wondered if I had a sixth sense.

  The subway station around us was loud—the Robin Square station was the biggest station in Port Andrea, the main routing station at the center and the direct connection to the airport line, and it felt like it. I’d only gone through here once before, years back, but when I’d stepped back into its dark colors with modern lights and designs, my feet found their way through it as if it was a second home.

  Avery had warned me after I’d texted that I’d touched down in the airport, telling me be careful not to get lost in RSS, but maybe I just had the Andrean spirit inside me, because I wound my way through the different levels and was right on track to catch the orange line to Southport-Amber Station when I found the woman.

  There shouldn’t have been anything remarkable about her—there were people swirling around us in every direction, all talking at the same time, and I didn’t even see her from the front. She dressed well, but in usual Port Andrea style, a deep red trench coat for the spring weather, simple dark shoes with low wedge heels. She was headed for the same line as me, walking through the food court with the slanted ceiling high above us decorated with little lights like stars and paintings of galaxies and nebulas, but there were a dozen other people heading for the orange line too. By all accounts, she had no reason to stand out.

  But I saw her, and it was like hearing my own name at a noisy party—she stood out like she was the only one painted in color, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her, following not far behind as we came up to the massive three flights of stone steps that cut through the center of the lines, and then, like clockwork—like I’d just known it would happen and that’s why she’d stood out, or maybe like I’d sent too much creepy energy staring at her backside like this—she pulled her wallet from her coat pocket, hit a snag, turned to look at it, and her foot came down halfway over the top step.

  She dropped her wallet first, falling down the steps ahead of her as she pitched forward, and the sound of coins scattering across stone rang like little bells tolling. The world moved around me like I was in a dream, and the next thing I knew—I wasn’t a hasty person, didn’t ever act without mulling it over a while—I had my hand around her wrist, and I tugged her back from the fall.

  Everything teetered there like a dangerous balance on the edge, threatening to fall forward, and one millisecond went for hours before, finally, we both went down hard, falling backwards, away from the steps. Coming down finding myself sitting at the top step, my tailbone fiery-hot from the pain of impact, I wondered if my sixth sense couldn’t have led me to half-price ice cream or something a little better than this.

  “Are you okay?” someone else said, a man’s voice stepping up next to the two of us—station security stepping away from their post. The woman waved him off.

  “I’m just fine—thank you so much,” she said, and it took me a second in the hazy swirling aftermath to realize she’d said it to me. She glanced back at me with her face ashen, eyes wide, and in my dizzy confusion, I needed a minute to figure out how to respond.

  “I like your coat,” I said, before realizing that wasn’t quite the right response. She blinked, once, quickly.

  “My… coat?”

  “I was staring at it. If I hadn’t been, I probably wouldn’t have reacted in time.”

  She laughed, once, breathless. “It was a gift from my sister. I’ll tell her it saved my life.”

  She stood up, slowly, leaning heavily on the railing as she did, and I fumbled back to my feet with her. She looked more shaken-up than she did hurt, hands shaking, eyes still wide. Me, I felt like I needed a new tailbone.

  “Christ, those stairs are dangerous,” I said, wincing as I tested my weight. She looked at me with her brow knotted in concern, and it was only then that I placed how intensely, almost worryingly pretty she was—a tall frame with warm, tanned skin and rich, brown eyes, dark hair scraped back into a tight ponytail. Her complexion was impossibly perfect, and it sent nervous little shudders through me. I was not going to have a gay panic over a pretty girl in the subway the day I left my parents’ little social sphere.

  “Are you all right?” she said.

  “Just fine, thanks,” I said, turning away, brushing myself off. “Just glad I didn’t have to watch anyone split their skull open today.”

  One corner of her mouth lifted up in an odd smile. “Ah. That’s for another day you want to watch that, huh?”

  “See, when you put it like that, it makes me sound like a horror movie villain.”

  “Here I thought it was a superhero movie as the dashing hero swoops in to save me…” She trailed off, frowning. “Or maybe a medical drama, judging by how much you’re wincing right now. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “It’s getting better. I’ll walk it off.”

  A voice chimed out from over the speakers. “Blue line is now arriving,” it said, and the woman jolted, eyes wide.

  “Oh, crap,” she said, turning back to the stairs. “Oh, crap. My wallet. I need to catch my train.”

  Judging by the contents of her wallet strewn out like confetti, just picking it up would take a minute. She rushed down the steps, taking them two at a time and stooping to grab her wallet, and I rushed down with her to kneel alongside her and pick up the cards and bills that had scattered from her wallet. The coins—of which she had a lot—they seemed more like a lost cause.

  “Oh my god, I really owe you,” she said, taking a stack of cards and bills from my hands. “Maybe just keep some of the bills…”

  “You were just paying for rescue services upfront, huh?” I said, moving down the steps to pick u
p some of the scattered quarters. She looked up and past me as the train car with the blue stripe down the side came sweeping into the station, blowing my hair around my ears and flapping my jacket against my back.

  “Well, I’m nothing if not conscientious,” she said, speaking twice as fast as she took a card from my hand, her fingers brushing along mine. “And clumsy. Thank you so much! I owe you my life!” she called, running down the steps at a fast enough pace I worried she might pitch and fall again, but she got to the bottom at a sprint and dashed into the train car, turning to give me one last wave before the door shut and the car lurched and moved again.

  I looked down at my hand, the warmth of her fingers still lingering on them. It was shaking—the adrenaline of the situation still rippled through me, and my breath felt like it came through a thick cloth.

  Of course, shaky hands and difficulty breathing was just part and parcel of talking to a woman as pretty as she was, no matter how much I hated that.

  “Orange line is now departing,” a voice called from over the speakers, and it took me a second to realize that was me.

  “Oh—shit,” I said, taking two steps quickly down before I caught a glimpse of the train with the orange stripe taking off. “Oh… I’m so late,” I groaned, falling onto my butt on the step. A stabbing pain in my coccyx made me shift, and I looked down to see the girl’s face looking up at me—her ID.

  Dana Gallagher. At least now I had a name for her. And an address for her, which was going to be very helpful, seeing as how I was kind of obligated to get this thing back to her.

  I’d been in Port Andrea for an hour, and I’d already gotten in trouble. This was why I didn’t do people.

  *

  Avery gave me a sympathetic smile. “It’s an easy station to get lost in.”

  I bristled. “I was not lost.”

  Avery Lindt, a woman with shoulder-length loose brunette waves and green eyes, wearing a smart black suit and an easy smile on her expression, raised a hand for the waiter, who jogged quickly over to us. “My friend’s here now,” she said. “We’re ready to order.”

  “Oh. Are we?” I fumbled with the menu. The restaurant was a nice one—above my pay grade—right on the corner of Elwind and Vine, with a two-story dining area full of glass walls looking out into the greenery of the lot next door, dark in the falling rain. The whole place smelled fresh like rain and crisp like white wine, sweet on my tongue, and I was pretty sure I could point to anything on the menu and get something good.

  As long as it wasn’t shellfish. I didn’t need to die the day I got to Port Andrea, or my mother would get to feel smugly satisfied that something terrible did happen to me after I left.

  “The—how about—manicotti?” For the most part, it was just the first thing on the menu that stood out. Avery laughed into her hand after the waiter was gone.

  “Didn’t mean to put you on the spot,” she said.

  I sank back in my seat, letting out a long sigh. “It’s not a problem. I’m just… disorganized today. Discombobulated.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “I see we’re jumping right into the SAT words.” But she relaxed, taking a sip of her water before she said, “It’s nice to see you again.”

  “You do look different,” I said.

  “That’d be the power of positive thinking for you,” she said. “Keeps your skin clear. Oh, and the estrogen, too.”

  “I have to admit, I was thinking it was mostly the estrogen.”

  “The positive thinking didn’t hurt, though.” She winked. Avery was trans—she’d been open about it six years ago, when she was only a year on hormones, and we’d met in a queer Andreans’ group on Meetup, about the first and last time I’d openly embraced my sexuality. The girl was pure positivity, pretty much the exact opposite of me, and even though she looked like a completely different person now than she had then, it seemed like she was still the exact same.

  “I’m happy to hear things have been good for you here,” I said. “I mean, so long as you consider owning a successful luxury restaurant and dating a celebrity chef to be good.”

  She laughed. “So good I don’t know how I did it, and just hoping I don’t screw it up somehow. When everyone told me to fake it till I made it, I never stopped to think about what happened after I made it.”

  “Well, woe is you,” I said. “Just so successful now you can’t keep it straight. Whatever will you do?”

  She beamed. “I’ve been journaling a lot lately on what growth looks like for me at this stage in my life. I think there’s plenty of new territory in the plane of my potential to explore.”

  I sipped my water. “I see you still don’t get sarcasm.”

  Her face fell. “That was sarcasm?”

  “To the point—I did not get lost in RSS.”

  She laughed, waving me off. “Relax, Remi. You haven’t been in the city in years. I got so lost when I got back here last year. I still get lost in Robin Square Station. It’s labyrinthine enough I’m expecting to find a minotaur there one of these days.”

  “I mean it. I’ll have you know I was perfectly set to reach my train with a few minutes to spare, when Dana Gallagher nearly cracked her skull like an egg on the stone steps.”

  She cocked her head. “I really hope I’m not supposed to know who that is, or I owe Dana Gallagher an apology.”

  “I had no idea either. That’s just the name on her ID.”

  She looked up as the waiter brought back a basket of bread rolls, giving him such gushing thanks, I’d think he brought her solid gold. The smell of warm bread, sweet and hearty, flooded the table, and immediately my stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten since before my flight. I took a roll as Avery said, “Oh, so you shoved an old lady down the stairs and took her wallet.”

  The waiter stopped, glancing back at us. I put my hands up. “Christ, I thought you were soft and fluffy. Why is your mind going there? No. She tripped, dropped her wallet, and it was a good thing I was admiring her—uh, coat—or I wouldn’t have been paying close enough attention to catch her.” I paused. “And she’s not an old lady. She’s twenty-seven years and four months old, according to her ID, which she missed when she was scraping up the contents of her wallet.”

  She grinned. “Oh, I see. So she’s some pretty girl right around your age who you saved from a terrible fate, even though it made you late for your meeting…”

  I glowered. “What are you implying? Never mind, I know what you’re implying, and I’m not even dignifying it with a response.”

  “Hey, I’m just saying, there are a lot of queer girls in Port Andrea. There’s even a lesbian bar here. You might find your happily-ever-after here.”

  I paused. I had not known there was a lesbian bar. And I was not supposed to want to visit. “I am not dating women,” I said. “We are pretending I never admitted to being bisexual, in case you forgot?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course,” she said, eyes twinkling again.

  “My parents would find out within twenty-four hours and book an express ticket to come over and murder me themselves.”

  Her smile dropped. “Remi, you’re hundreds of miles away from them now. They don’t control your life anymore.”

  “New subject,” I said. “Living arrangements. How long are you open to me using your apartment?”

  She shrugged. “As long as you need. There’s a bit of an influx of people moving into Port Andrea right now, Liv told me. Friend of mine at the restaurant. It’s a little hard to find a place, and it might take a bit. You can stay as long as you need. Lord knows I’m barely there anyway,” she laughed.

  Right. Because she spent most nights with her incredibly hot and talented celebrity girlfriend in a luxurious penthouse apartment in Robin Square. Not that I was supposed to be here thinking about women as incredibly hot, which included the very Dana Gallagher I was going to have to try tracking down. “I’m—very grateful for your help,” I said, straightening my back. “I’ll find some way to pay you back for—”

/>   “Oh, please,” she said, putting a hand up. “You already gave me a compliment. That’s the only thing I ever really need to achieve self-actualization.”

  I paused. “What did I even say?”

  She grinned. “That I look different now than before. The best compliment I could get. When does the apprenticeship start?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Oh, cutting it close. Need help getting there?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to make you go out of your way for it.”

  “You’re going from my apartment to the bakery barely a block away from my restaurant. It could not be any less out of my way.”

  I sighed, hanging my head as I broke my bread and spread butter on one piece, biting in and tasting the warm, flaky crust crackling on my mouth. It was sweet—a little overly so, but nothing that would ruin it—and the high quality flour came through in a complex, earthy flavor touched with bright undertones. “I’m still going to pay you back for it,” I mumbled, mostly to myself.

  “Ah, Remi. You have a hard time not repaying things, don’t you?”

  “And you breathe oxygen, don’t you?”

  She laughed. “No, no. I breathe pure concentrated power of belief and the possibility of a brighter future.” She paused. “And oxygen. Nitrogen, too.”

  “I had a hunch those two would come into play.” I fumbled Dana’s ID from my pocket, setting it down on the table, and I studied it while I took another bite of bread. “Looks like she lives in… Cross Street is over in Archer Bay district, right?”

  “Barely a twenty-minute walk from your bakery,” she said. “That’s lucky.”

  “No kidding. Guess I’ll just head over there tomorrow morning before work.”

  Work. Describing White Rose Patisserie as work felt like a dream. Was this actually happening?

  “Sounds good,” she said. “We’ll get up bright and early and hit the subway together. Southport-Amber Station is pretty quiet in the morning. Shouldn’t be anything like getting lost in RSS.”

  “I did not get lost in—” I sighed. “Okay. You’re doing that on purpose to get under my skin. You won’t win, Avery Lindt.”