“Don’t … like … coffee?” He narrows his eyes. “You really are a monster …” he says, trailing off, eyebrows raised in question.
“Jahlani,” she says, shaking her head.
“Jahlani,” he repeats, savoring each syllable, testing it on his tongue and liking the way it sounds—loving the way it feels. “The evilest name I’ve heard since He Who Must Not Be Named.”
She looks down at her feet, her smile faltering.
“I don’t think your girlfriend?—”
“Presumptuous of you to think I have a girlfriend.” He jostles the bag of feminine products, flexing his fingers. “They’re for my sister.”
She says nothing, her expression wary. He takes another step forward, and his eyes flit to her pierced earlobes before moving back to the length of her nose.
“Come on,” he says softly. “Don’t say no. You have to admit that fate wants us together. Twice in one day? That’s something.”
At this, she laughs. And it’s a glorious sound. One that he could get drunk on if she’d let him. One he’d make sure to hear at least seven days a week, 365 days a year. Her head tips back and her eyes close before they fall back to him, a lightness to them.
“That’s not fate,” she says, shuffling on the balls of her feet.
“It’s not?” he asks, trying and failing not to sound winded.
“No,” she says with a snort. “You’re experiencing apophenia and confirmation bias. You’re spotting a pattern that doesn’t exist. You saw me once,” she adds, stepping closer. “And you’re choosing to focus on that, ignoring all the other times that we didn’t cross paths. Us meeting? That’s math. That’s probability.”
She waves her arm back towards the building, her stare unwavering.
“Let’s assume here that the store is large enough that there’s a reasonable chance of us crossing paths multiple times, but it’s not so large that it’s improbable we would never meet twice.” She looks towards the store this time, before settling her gaze back on his. “Let’s say it’s 10,000 square feet. We were clearly not sticking to a single area of the store.”
“Clearly,” he murmurs, angling his body closer as she continues, her hands moving wildly.
“Our movements are random, and we’ve probably been in here for roughly the same amount of time. So, maybe we’ve only covered about one-tenth of the store in our time here. There’s at least a point one, or a ten percent chance, of us meeting once.” She licks her lips, eyebrows furrowed in thought.
“But we met twice,” he says. “What are the odds of that?” She chews on her lip, looking away. “How do we get that number?” he asks, interest piqued, becauseholy shit, she’s a fucking math wizard.
She exhales, looking back up. “You’d have to combine the probability of both independent events. Assuming that both numbers are the same, the product would be point zero one or one percent. But it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a rare event.” She sounds less confident now, and it sends a sharp prickle through him.
His chuckle is low as he rubs two fingers against his temple. “Yeah, all you’ve managed to do is prove to me that your mind is just as beautiful as your face, and that I need to learn more about statistics if I have a fighting chance of keeping up with you in any kind of conversation.” He shrugs, finally toe to toe with her. “Numbers don’t lie, and I’d really like yours,” he says, his pulse ticking to an abnormal rhythm, his tongue feeling rather heavybecause the last time he asked a woman out, it didn’t feel like this.
He isn’t sure it ever has.
She blows out a gust of air, her eyes ricocheting over his features. “Did you hear anything I just said?”
“I did,” he says, glancing at her mouth. “And I promise, I’m not a serial killer. I’m just a guy wanting to get to know a captivating woman.”
“Why?” she asks, blinking rapidly.
He inhales deeply through his nose, sliding his hand into his front pocket. “You’re funny, blunt, smart,” he says, moving even closer.
Absolutely gorgeous.
“Unpredictable,” he says instead, watching her skin flush.
She licks her lips, swallowing. “And that’s a good thing?”
He shrugs. “It makes me curious.”
“But, what if … I’m a serial killer?” she says quietly, her eyebrows furrowed.
God.
