I abandon the coffee disaster and head toward the door, trying to time it perfectly.
Not too obvious.
Just a natural intersection of paths.
Two people in the same place at the same time.
Totally coincidental.
Totally unplanned.
I’m almost there when she turns, drink in hand, and walks straight toward me.
This is it.
I step slightly to the left, she steps to the right—the same direction—and like magic, we collide.
Not hard.
Just enough that her shoulder bumps into my chest, and her coffee sloshes dangerously in its cup. My hands come up automatically, steadying her by her elbows, and the warmth of her through that cardigan sends electricity straight up my damn arms.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she says, looking up, and then recognition hits her like a freight train. Her eyes go wide behind those glasses, and her mouth falls open in the most adorable way. “Nitro?”
The way she says my name, surprised, delighted, and a little bit breathless, makes me feel as though I am free-falling.
“Hey,” I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I intended. “Marley. Holy shit.”
We both let out that awkward, surprised kind of laughter that happens when the universe decides to throw you a bone you weren’t expecting, knowing I totally was.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, her eyes sparkle in a way that wasn’t there four nights ago.
“Getting coffee.” I gesture vaguely toward my abandoned table. “You?”
“Same.” She holds up her cup as evidence, her hand trembling just slightly.
She’s nervous, too, and that knowledge settles something in my chest.
“This is so weird. What are the odds?” Her voice shows evident bewilderment.
Pretty good when you’ve got a tech genius for a club brother.I internally laugh at the thought.
“Vegas is smaller than people think,” I say instead.
“Right.” She’s studying me, really looking at me in the daylight, and I realize she’s never seen me without the darkness of night, and her tears are blurring everything. “You look… different without the car.”
“Good different or bad different?” I ask, raising my brow in question. The words are out before I can stop them, and I want to kick myself for being such a pussy.
What am I, fifteen?
But she smiles, really smiles. “Good different.Reallygood different.”
The air between us changes. It charges. That same electric crackle I felt in the car that night is back, buzzing and alive, and I know by her eyes that she feels it too.
“So,” I say, because I need to keep her here, need to find any excuse to extend this moment. “You heading to work?”
Her expression shifts, something painful flickering across her face. “Yeah… unfortunately.”
The ex-boyfriend boss.
