Ninety minutes later, I blink hard as I’m siphoned from that world. Three tables away, a woman wearing earbuds speaks loudly while staring intently at her screen. A person on the screen gestures and talks. The woman says, “When did the symptoms begin?”
Hmm. Odd.
I try to tune her out, but when she asks, “Is it a burning itch?” my focus flies off the rails and crashes to the ground.
I look around me to see if anyone else is hearing what I’m hearing. Power in numbers, or at least a shared ‘Can you believe this lady?’ look.
Two tables to my left, a man sits alone in front of a laptop. On his table is a scone and, judging by the full, steaming cup of coffee beside it, I’d guess he sat down recently.
Our gazes connect. He does a smiley smirk thing, side-eyeing the loud woman who is still having a one-sided conversation nobody wants to listen to. He looks back at me, and shrugs.
“I think she’s a tele-doc,” he says. “Her last conversation wasn’t this cringey. Something about an ear infection.”
“I must’ve missed it,” I answer, glancing at my open computer.
He pushes up his sleeves, revealing a shiny silver watch. “You looked deep in thought.”
His comment steals the beats from my heart. He could’ve made that assessment with a two-second glance, but I have a feeling that’s not what happened.
I nod. “Hard at work over here.” I’m not uncomfortable knowing he was watching me. It’s the fact I like it that’s making me uncomfortable.
He’s attractive. His dark blond hair is mostly straight, with a slight wave at the bottom. It’s long-ish, or at least long in my book. I’m not sure if hair that falls to the chin is really all that long. He wears a heathered dark gray hoodie and jeans. His jaw is square, his cheekbones chiseled.
He looks nothing like Gabriel.
He glances at my screen. “Do you mind me asking what you’re working so hard on?”
His eyes bulge. He hears it at the same time as me, and all I can do is purse my lips to keep from laughing.
He looks mortified. “I guess I shouldn’t end my sentence in a preposition.”
One loud sound of “Hah!” bursts from me. The tele-doc woman sends a ‘do you mind?’ look over her shoulder, and I laugh again. The man shifts, folding his leg so his knee rests on the bench and he faces me. His arm lies along the back of the booth.
I mirror his posture. We’re now two feet closer, simply because of a shift in our positioning.
“I’m working on a book,” I tell him.
His head tips to the side. “A book about…?”
“A romance novel. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“It toes the line of women’s fiction. Possibly.”
“Should I pretend to know what that is?” His tone is light, and slightly apologetic. “I mostly read science fiction.”
“Women’s fiction is when the journey is about the woman. Romance is when the journey is about, well, the romance.”
“Ahh.” He nods. “I’m intrigued. Tell me more?”
The tele-doc starts up again, as if she’s not in a quiet coffee shop. He scoots closer on the bench, and now we’re only a couple feet apart. Flecks of ocean blue are interspersed in his emerald green eyes, topped off with unfairly long eyelashes. He waits for my response.
I shake my head. “I’m not telling. I don’t even know your name.”
He smiles. A full, real, all-tooth, giving the sun a run for its money type of beatific grin. “Hudson. Like the river. But my mom calls me Huddy.”
“What do you prefer to be called? Hudson or Huddy?”
