“What you doing early in the morning?”
“I run before work,” she informed me.
“I like to run.”
“I’m sure you do, but I run alone.”
“What about dinner then?”
“I skip dinner.”
“Then coffee. Damn, girl, I know you gotta stop and get coffee before work.”
“Fine. I stop at PJs every morning around eight o’clock. If I see you there, we can have coffee together.”
“It’s a date.”
“No, it’s not. I don’t date my kids’ parents.”
“Good thing Sakani is not one of yours anymore.” I opened her door for her to slide in. “See you in the morning, beautiful.”
I felt kind ofsilly walking into the coffee shop. I was a little overdressed for a normal day of work, but today wasn’t a normal day. Today, I was meeting Stone for coffee, a meeting that had completely consumed my thoughts for the whole thirty-six minutes of my run this morning.
I was usually a slow runner. I could maybe clock an eleven-thirty mile on a good day, but today I’d run four miles in under forty minutes. That was well under ten minutes a mile.
A coffee date with Stone must have had a little crack in it, but I wasn’t complaining. I’d been trying to get faster at running for over six months now, and if the idea of Stone did the trick, then so be it. I had to take my wins wherever I could get them.
“You look nice.”
Stone spoke more to the back of my neck than to me. He’d come up behind me as I stood not even two steps from the door. I hadn’t made up my mind whether I was going to sit down or leave as fast as I had come. That was until I felt his body standing so close to mine.
“You smell nice too,” he added.
Stone came around so that we were standing face-to-face. His eyes were heavily focused on mine, and he smiled as I struggled to hold his gaze. I was a very confident woman until I was in his presence. Then I completely became someone else.
“Thank you.”
“You weren’t thinking about leaving, were you?”
“No, I just made it.”
“Cool. Come on. I got us a booth in the back. I just got up to use the bathroom.”
Stone grabbed my hand and led me toward our seats. My hand felt so tiny inside his. His hand felt so warm against mine. Without thinking, I squeezed it tighter.
Once we made it to the booth, he motioned for me to slide in first before he slid in on the same side. Stone was not a small man, so there wasn’t much space between the two of us. The waitress must’ve seen us sit down because she walked over just as we got settled.
“What can I get you guys this morning?”
“I’ll take a white mocha latte.” I spoke first because I definitely needed a distraction. The feel of his body against mine made my temperature rise. Stone, sliding into the same side of the booth with me, had to be some kind of tactic to throw me off my game, and it was working.
“And for you, sir? Can I get you anything?”
“Nah, I have everything I need.”
Stone looked directly at me instead of the waitress when he answered. He was coming on strong, and I couldn’t say that Iminded at all. It had been a long time since any man caught my attention. The fact that the man holding it captive was one I met at Renewed was shocking.
“Do you really?”
