"I know." I squeeze her hand. "I'm not falling for anything. I promise."
I leave before they can argue further, heading back to my room with Ivy's warning echoing in my head.
Guys like Sebastian Thornhill are dangerous.
She's not wrong. But not for the reasons she thinks.
He's dangerous because every time I see a crack in his armor, I want to look deeper. I want to understand what made him this way. I want to know if the person who wrote that text, grateful, almost vulnerable, is real.
And that wanting is the most dangerous thing of all.
Friday morning, I'm at the café by six for the opening shift. The coffee machine hates me, the first customer is rude, and I spill an entire pot of dark roast on myself before seven.
"Rough morning?" Lennox asks, appearing for her seven-thirty shift.
"Rough life." I'm trying to scrub coffee out of my shirt with a wet towel. It's not working. "I'm going to smell like espresso all day."
"Could be worse. You could smell like the dumpster I had to take out yesterday."
Fair point.
We work in comfortable silence for a while, the morning rush building. Students desperate for caffeine before their eight AMs. Professors who haven't learned that nothing good happens before nine. The occasional townie who wanders in looking confused by all the Thornhill merch.
At 8:15, the door opens and my entire body tenses.
Sebastian walks in.
He never comes to this café. Never. There are three coffee places on campus, and this is the furthest from his usual route. Which means he came here deliberately.
To see me.
He gets in line, and I try very hard to look busy with the espresso machine. But there are only two people ahead of him.
"Hi. Can I get a black coffee and—" He pauses, reading my name tag like he doesn't know who I am. "Isla. Didn't realize you worked here."
"Every morning. Six to ten." Why am I telling him this? Why am I engaging?
"Early start."
"Some of us have to work for a living."
The words come out sharper than I intend. A couple customers glance over. Lennox is watching from the register with undisguised interest.
Sebastian's jaw tightens, but his voice stays level. "Black coffee. Large. And whatever she wants."
He gestures at me.
"I don't want anything."
"The coffee's on me. Consider it payment for yesterday's skating lesson."
"I don't need?—"
"Isla." He says my name quietly, and there's something in his expression that stops my protest. "Please. Let me buy you coffee."
It's the please that does it. Sebastian Thornhill doesn't say please. Doesn't ask for anything. He demands, expects, takes.
"Fine. Small latte." I'm already regretting this.
