“Cameron, is that you?”
“Hey, Marcus,” Cameron says, with a touch of sheepishness.
“What are you doing in the drive-through?”
“I am just passing through. I’ll stop in next time, I promise.”
“You better,” Marcus says. “I’ll see you at the window.”
Their exchange makes me wonder if I misread his signals just a minute ago. Maybe he wanted to go inside to see his friends, and it had nothing to do with spending more time with me.
Cameron pulls forward before I have the chance to correct my order to a plain mocha latte, but it feels rude to keep him from seeing his friendsandasking them to remake my drink at the window, so I keep quiet. When we pull up, Marcus is wearing a name tag and a black long-sleeve shirt with Eagle Lake Coffee Co. printed across the chest. He greets us both, then gives Cameron the side eye when he tries to hand over his credit card.
Cameron concedes and tucks the card back in his wallet. “How’s business been?”
“Really busy. You came at a good time.” He leans out the window to hand over our drinks. “And you’re lucky, because today is the last day we are serving the chocolate-covered strawberry latte. It’s been a hit, but it takes too long to make when we get slammed.”
I smile at the fact that Marcus is the first person to ever associate me with the word lucky, as he and Cameron launch into a debate about switching to hazelnut syrup in place of the Nutella hearts to speed up the process.
“Nah, the hearts are a big part of the draw,” Marcus argues. “I don’t think the syrup would cut it.”
They both defer to me as I survey the layer of chocolate-sweetened espresso topped with strawberry milk, surrounded by carefully drawn Nutella hearts on the sides of the plastic cup. “I think I’m with Marcus on this one,” I admit.
He nods his approval. “We’re thinking that we’ll make it a Valentine’s Day special, and we want to create something new for spring that is less time intensive.”
“I can’t wait to see what you come up with,” Cameron says while glancing in the rear-view mirror. “We’ll let you get back to work. Thanks for the drinks.”
“Of course. Come inside next time, and we’ll have you sample a couple of other things that we’re trying out.”
“I will.”
I wave to Marcus as we pull away, then take a sip of my drink.
“Oh my gosh!” I practically yell at the exact same moment that Cameron’s car moves out from under the awning and is pelted by heavy rainfall.
He slams on the brakes so hard that we both jerk forward.
“Sorry!” I use my free hand to brace on the dashboard to keep from smacking my head on it.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I hold up the drink. “This is incredible.”
He looks at it, then at me, and visibly relaxes. “You like it?”
I nod and immediately go back for another sip. The drink lights up every pleasure receptor in my brain like a tree on Christmas morning. “I love it. I think it’s the best thing I have ever tasted in my entire life.”
Cameron beams and takes a sip of his own coffee before putting it in the cupholder. “And to think, you almost settled for Dunkin’ Donuts.”
We grin at each other, but this time he looks away first.
“I don’t know whether to thank you or be mad at you for introducing me to this, since I’ll never be able to have it again.”
He shrugs. “I guess you’ll just have to come back for another visit, then.”
With that, the tension from before melts away, allowing us to settle back into easy conversation, with just enough of the flirty banter from earlier to make it fun. The last ten minutes of the drive to the retreat go by quickly, and too soon we are turning off the road and onto a private street.
“The house is just up ahead.”
