“Me too. Have you ordered yet?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Nope. I was waiting for you.”
She nods. But her sunny expression grows serious for a moment, and she draws her lower lip in between her teeth as if she’s mulling over how to say something.
“Okay, I don’t know how to ask this, so I just will,” she says, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I can’t wait to get to know you tonight, Scarlett. I had a really good feeling about you when you were so nice and funny about my endcap disaster.”
I smile back at her. “I felt the same way.”
“I promise, I’m a very open person, but there’s one thing I want to get out of the way before we even order drinks. I’ll talk about anything tonight except for Xavier Williams, okay? I don’t want to talk about him again.Ever.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Fear begins to creep through my body as I stare at Hadleigh. Before I even know what I’m doing, I reach out and put my hand on her arm in a comforting manner.
“Hadleigh, did Xavier hurt you?” I ask urgently. “Did he … get aggressive with you? Put something in your drink? Not take no for an answer?”
She immediately looks horrified. “What?Oh my God! NO! Nothing like that! Xavier was a perfect gentleman!”
From the embarrassed and mortified expression on her face, I know she’s telling me the truth. I exhale in relief. “Thank God.”
She pauses for a moment, closes her eyes briefly, then looks at me. “It’s something I did. Whenever I think of Xavier, I kind of want to pry loose a floorboard somewhere, crawl down below it, have someone nail it shut over me, and forget my existence.”
I can’t help but smile at that. Even when she’s embarrassed, she’s funny. “Okay, we won’t talk about him,” I say breezily. “So should we get our drinks?”
Now she’s the one exhaling. “Thank you. I’m so glad you don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, that’s not exactly true,” I tease. “Would I like to know what happened? Of course. I’m invested in the ‘Hadleigh meets Xavier’ journey. But it’s your story to tell. Or not.”
“Not. Definitelynot,” Hadleigh says, looking as if she’s getting nauseous reliving whatever happened in Las Vegas. Then she brightens. “Have you ever been here? The coffee is so good!”
Damn it. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is definitely true for Hadleigh and Xavier.
As she chats about coffee, my brain sifts through what I know. She’s super embarrassed, but Xavier was a gentleman. So what on earth happened that has her acting like this?
I decide I’ll never figure it out, so I focus on what flavor matcha I want tonight instead. As soon as I see they have peppermint, I place my order. Hadleigh decides on a gingerbread chai latte. We go back to the same table I was at before and take a seat while we wait for our drinks.
Hadleigh smiles at me. “Why do I feel like I’m speed dating?”
“Have you done that?” I ask, curious.
“Once.”
I look over my shoulder and back at her. “When are your next speed-dating friends arriving?” I tease. “Are you about to set the timer on your phone, and then your next potential friend candidate is going to take my seat?”
She bursts out laughing, looking so much more at ease than she did a few minutes earlier when she brought up Xavier Williams.
“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” she says.
“So what was speed dating like?”
“Oh my God, it was an event for my sorority. It was great. I eliminated an entire roster of fraternity boys in one hour!”
We easily fall into conversation, only taking a break to get our drinks. I discover that Hadleigh has lived in Miami her entire life, and that Isla Foley—the F1 reporter—has been her best friend since high school. We talk about our experiences in college, and what it’s like to navigate this post-graduation world.I can tell she’s incredibly smart—she works in data analysis for a shipping company—and very, very funny.
“So working at Real Miami must be fun,” Hadleigh begins, pausing to take another sip of her chai. “What’s it like?”
I tuck my feet up underneath me in my chair. “It’s a job a lot of people want. I’m still learning it, to be honest. Let me preface what I’m about to say next. I know I’m lucky to work in sports media. It’s interesting. But I think my heart lies elsewhere. No. I know it does.”
