He studies me a beat, his eyes sharp, before he asks, “You know you can do this, right?”
“We’re going to find out,” I say. “I just hope Kara is okay.”
“I guess I was wrong about how sick she was.”
I bite back a little quip about his dating skills that would be a natural wordplay between us but might give away my seeing his profile on the app last night. Unease is instant, as if I’m walking on a bed of dull nails just sharp and awkward enough to ensure each step torments me. It’s similar to every conversation I have with my mother.
“I’ll come over when I get a break,” he offers, motioning toward the door and the desk. “IfI manage a break.”
Ouch, he’s right. He really needs me here. “I can stay.”
“No. No, I’ve got this.”
“I don’t want to desert you.”
“You’re not deserting anyone,” he assures me. “You’re supporting Kara, which is supporting our team.”
He’s right. I know he’s right, but this isn’t how I’d ever imagined myself doing so. “Call me if it gets too busy, and I’ll come back,” I offer.
“I won’t call,” he promises as the bell starts dinging, telling us both he’s in demand. “You got this,” he repeats and disappears out the door.
I exit the office and hurry beyond the busy desk and my guilt for leaving the staff behind, forcing myself to focus on what is before me, not what I’m presently leaving. With that idea in mind, I step on the escalator and text Jess to cancel lunch. Message sent, my gaze lifts and sweeps across floor two as it comes into view, homing in on one table. My heart hammers against my breastbone with what I find below. The dark-haired man is back, and I instinctively gobble up any details about this stranger and his intent—that wordintentin my mind for no explainable reason. There’s a book in front of him, a MacBook to his right, a coffee to his left. He seems to be here working, and yet, almost as if he does nothing but sit there and watch the escalators, his gaze is fixed on my location yet again. He’s watching me, tracking my slow descent down to floor one. Isn’t he?
And then he’s gone. The escalator has carried me behind a wall.
Chapter Thirteen
In a rush of anxiousness, I exit the library and step onto the sidewalk. The air I didn’t know was trapped in my lungs whooshes from my lips in what I can only call relief. When in my entire career have Ieverbeen relieved to leave the library? Quite the contrary, in fact. I replay my two brushes with the man on floor two and decide he’s a people watcher, as I am. That’s all. It’s nothing more, and people watchers see everyone.
Even those others ignore.
My phone buzzes with a text, and I start walking, telling myself to shake off the encounter as I read a message from Jess.Dinner tonight then?
Dinner with my father, I reply.My mother is out of town with her boss. Don’t ask. Not now before my presentation.
My head was not where yours clearly is, she answers.I have questions. Coffee tomorrow morning. Coffee Cats. Non negotiable.
I blink and I’m already at the entrance to Caroline’s Coffee and Bagels. The coffee isn’t as good at Caroline’s as it is at Coffee Cats, but the bagels are delicious, and the location is hard to beat. As for Jess, I don’t answer her last message. She’s made the decision. It’s just another one of those “The End” kind of topics. What Jess wants, Jess gets. What I want is some time to myself, to calm myself down before my meeting this afternoon.
Entering Caroline’s, I quickly find a corner booth, set my things down to claim my spot, and then head to the counter. There’s a person in line in front of me, with Greg, the familiar college kid who is here most afternoons behind the register, helping him. Once the man finishes ordering and pays, he steps away from the counter, and I inch forward.
Greg looks right at me and then walks away.
Of course he does. Most likely he’s just putting in the other customer’s order.
And yet I wait. And wait. Greg walks toward me, and all seems well, but then he grabs something under the counter and leaves again. I grind my teeth and wait a little longer. He walks by me again and keeps on keeping on. Finally, impatience ticking in my jaw, I ring the bell. Greg appears behind the register. “Can I help you?”
“Did you not see me standing here?” I ask.
His brow furrows. “You were standing here?”
I grind my teeth a little harder. Of course he saw me standing here. I’m not literallyinvisible, but I’m feeling anxious to get back to work and let the confrontation tempting me slide on by.
“My usual,” I say, trying to expedite this slow process.
His brows dip. “Usual?”
Is heserious? “I come in here several times a week and you wait on me. You don’t know what my usual is?”
