I cue her with, “And the name of the woman who spilled my coffee is…?”
“Savannah.”
“Savannah. It’s nice to meet you.” Instinctively, I want to shake her hand, but that’s too formal. I settle for a simple smile and nod.
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Rory.”
Setting my coffee down, I clasp my hands together in front of me to prevent myself from pulling her into my lap. “Tell me something about yourself, Dream Girl.”
Lift a brow, she questions teasingly, “Dream Girl? Use that one a lot?”
“It’s just for you,” I return with a wink, loving the way it makes her cheeks pinken. “Like it?”
“What is this? Twenty Questions?” Savannah grins.
“If that’s how you want to see it, sure. I call it getting to know the attractive woman who makes amazing coffee.”
She chuckles. “Well. I work in a café.”
My eyes wander up and down her body, and I don’t try to hide it. “I noticed.” The blush from earlier comes back tenfold. “What made you want to be a barista?”
“I needed a job,” she states plainly. “Your turn, Rory. What do you do for a living?”
Normally, I tell women my job title to impress them and to eventually get them to come home with me. But for some reason that I can’t pinpoint, I don’t want that to be the route with Savannah.
So instead, I say, “I work at a security company. Where did you grow up?”
“Brooklyn. You?” She fires back.
“Queens.”
“Oof. Knicks fan? I guess that means we can’t be friends,” Savannah surmises with mock disappointment.
I scoot closer to her and place my hand on her knee, and she lets out a small gasp. “I could be a Nets fan, you know.”
She tries to sound playful, but her words are breathy. “I highly doubt that.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions so quickly,” I chide. “My turn. What is one of your bucket list items?”
Savannah’s answer blurts from her mouth. “Visit the Empire State Building.”
My mouth twists. “You live in New York. You know that, right?”
“Ha ha. Ever the comedian,” she rags. “Yes, I know where I live. It’s just that I grew up here, but I’ve never gone to places like the Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, or ice skating at Rockefeller Center.” Savannah taps her fingers against her thigh. “I want to be able to say I did those things before I die.”
This woman. She’s a puzzle that I can’t solve. I can’t make the pieces fit.
But that’s how all people are, right? There is no “one size fits all” mold. We are too unique as individuals to be grouped into rigid categories.
Savannah is no different.
Savannah is a rare find—the most precious of gems.
Over the next hour, we bounce questions back and forth. I tell her all sorts of things about me, like the fact that I can’t sleep if there’s any light shining in my room, I have four siblings, I can’t skip breakfast, I am, in fact, a Nets fan, and I hate the idea of anything touching my eyes.
In turn, I learned that she’s an only child, her favorite color is green, she loves Italian and Japanese food, she hates the feeling of a sheet on top of her, and she enjoys reading and doingyoga. When I ask her about her parents, she clams up, quickly informing me that they’re both dead. I try to keep my questions light after that, not wanting to scare her away.
We get lost in our time together like nothing else around us matters or exists. It’s just Savannah and me.
