First sip: confusing.
Second sip: still confused.
Third sip:Oh no. I love it.
The sweetness hit just at the end, like a little smirk. The tartness from the passionfruit balanced the bitterness of the coffee so perfectly that it made her eyes flutter shut for a second too long. She accidentally let out a noise.
Just a little one. A very soft, very real, “Mmmph.”
She looked around. No one cared.
A woman in a cloud-pink blouse winked at her. Like she knew. Like they were in a secret citrus-latte cult now.
Bea sat with her tiny cup of enlightenment and opened the UR Countdown Coffee List on her Notes app.
Foamy Finish – piccolo with passionfruit foam
Feels illicit to enjoy something this ridiculous. Foam was flirty. Coffee was intense. I think I might have just cheated on Gage.
The knock came just after ten.
Bea frowned, half asleep on the couch, her laptop open beside her and a tea gone cold on the coffee table. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Just rest her eyes.
She wasn’t expecting anyone; Georgina was away with Hunter, and Gage wasn’t due back until tomorrow.
She padded to the door in bare feet. Checked the peephole. Gage stood on the other side of her door.
Her breath caught. Like something in her chest had misfired.
She pulled the door open. “You’re early,” she breathed.
He looked at her like he’d been starving for something only she could give. “Couldn’t wait,” he said simply.
Six weeks. That’s how long it’d been. Four, that had stretched into six. They’d talked when they could. He’d sent food deliveries during her study break when he knew she would forget to eat.
She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his collar. His arms closed around her.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi.” His voice was low. Rougher than usual.
“You’re here,” she murmured.
“I’m here.”
She tugged him inside. The door closed behind him. “You’re not sleeping on a plane tonight.”
“No,” he said, mouth at her ear. “I’m not sleeping at all.”
He kissed her like he was reclaiming something.
His palm curved around her jaw, tipping her chin just so, deepening it the way only Gage could manage so clear-headedly after twenty hours in transit. The heat hit hard and fast. She felt herself melt into him, like her body had just been waiting for him to switch her from idle to on.
But even as her hands found his chest, even as her mouth parted under his, a thought slipped through the static.
I survived without him.
It hadn’t been brave. Just a quiet she’d learned to live within. She’d still missed him, but she didn’t need him to steady her. She knew how to stand.
