“I tasted it after you. It was awful.” She set her phone on the table and sipped her own coffee. “So, why do you want to have coffee with me?”
“Because I like talking to you.” He liked every crumb of time she gave to him.
“Really?”
“Yeah, Tink. And I’m sorry about last night.”
Her lips parted, like she was surprised he’d bring it up.
“I dumped all my shit on you, and that wasn’t fair.” He never spoke about that mission. Hell, he kept that part of himself as locked away from others as possible, but last night, he’d told CodyandElle.
“I’m glad you told me,” she said quietly. “The more you talk about it, the easier it will be.”
A part of him knew that, but the other part, the part that was scared shitless of reliving that day over and over again, preferred to bury his head in the sand and make the people around him believe he didn’t have a care in the world.
She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Talk to me about it whenever you want, as often as you want.”
He stared at her, his chest feeling unbearably tight before he nodded. “Thanks, Tink.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “Still a heavy sleeper, I see.”
Her cheeks tinged pink. “I can’t believe you got me to bed without me waking up.”
He scoffed. “You once fell asleep at a house party where the music was so loud it could be heard on the next block.”
“Hey, I was tired. I’d spent the entire week cramming for tests.”
“That was not an isolated event.”
She sighed and was just opening her mouth to say something when Molly called to her from behind the counter.
“Elle, could you give me a hand with the register? It’s sticking again.”
Elle’s brows rose. “Sure.”
She’d just left the table when the screen of her phone lit up with a text. He glanced at it, about to look away…when he saw it was a message from a guy.
Art. What the fuck kind of name was Art? And why was the word “date” in the text?
He should leave it. A voice in his head shouted at him to mind his own fucking business. But hadn’t Molly mentioned that Elle was doing some online dating?
His fingers tapped the table, and he looked away…but at the image of Elle on a date with another guy, he snapped.
Fuck it.
He reached across and unlocked her phone. It wasn’t hard. She’d had the same number password since she was a kid.
Art: Did you really just say maybe to a date with me? How can I turn that into a yes?
Hell no.
Jace ground his back teeth together. Not caring that it was immature or stupid or an invasion of her privacy, he lost what was left of his mind and responded as if he were Elle.
You can’t. I was just being nice. It’s not gonna happen. You’re not my type. Don’t message again.
An entire freakinghour had passed since Jace had walked in here, made her smile and laugh a dozen times, and she still couldn’t get the guy out of her head. And that was after spending the entire morning thinking about how she’d fallen asleep against him last night.
Oh God, last night. It was the entire reason she’d told the guy from the dating app that she might be interested in a date. What was his name? Art?
Her feelings for Jace had resurfaced with force, and they scared the hell out of her. She couldn’t go back to being the same person she was in high school. The girl who pined after a boy—now a man—who only wanted her friendship. A man who made her feel everything and yearn for even more, when in reality, all they were ever going to be was friends.
