I blinked. “What? Sorry, I got distracted. What were you saying?”
He gave me a skeptical look before shaking his head. “Coffee cake. That cinnamon scent is driving me wild. I’m getting the coffee cake.”
You’re driving me wild.
“That sounds good, but I think I’m going for the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. Need the protein, you know?” I said with a wink.
Alex chuckled as a customer in front of us shifted down the counter toward the order pick-up sign. He stepped up to the counter before me because my brain was still admiring the mark I’d left on his neck.
“Good morning, gentlemen.” A curly-haired barista with an ear full of diamond studs and a tiny septum ring beneath her nose smiled at us. She wore a navy-blue apron with an embroidered coffee mug in the center of her chest. “Welcome to Brewed Awakening. What can I get for you two today?”
I opened my mouth to order, but Alex beat me to it. “Can we get a large Americano with two shots, a large regular black coffee, one slice of coffee cake, and a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich?”
Whatever the barista said next was lost on me as I scraped my jaw off the floor. How on earth did Alex know my coffee order? Not just know it, but know it perfectly. He glanced my way with a shit-eating grin.
“How?”
He snickered. “Remember that time Parker bought coffee for everyone?”
“Yeah.”
Shrugging, he said, “I remembered.” Then his cheeks turned pink, and he glanced down as though suddenly realizing it might be strange that he memorized my coffee order after hearing it once.
Strange or not, the gesture made it hard for me to swallow. I liked that he knew that about me. Something so simple yet personal.
“Okay, gentlemen, that’ll be twenty-six dollars and forty-three cents. And is that for here or to go?”
“Here,” I answered, tapping my credit card against the reader before Alex had the chance to wiggle cash out of his wallet. He frowned, and I shot him a wink while the machine charged my card.
“And a name for the order?”
“Ryder.”
“All righty, here is your receipt. Enjoy your meal, guys.” She handed over the short slip of paper with hands adorned by two-inch-long neon green nails.
“Thank you.” I nodded at the barista, then turned to my scowling date. “Stop pouting and move down to get our food.” Smiling what I hoped was my most charming grin, I ushered him down to the end of the counter, where a few others mingled around waiting for their food.
“Ryder, I could have paid for that.”
“I know.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know,” I said again, bumping my shoulder to his. “I see how much you make in tips. You know, if you hold that grumpy facial expression for too long, your face might freeze that way.”
Finally, he snorted a laugh. “Who are you, my mom from fifteen years ago?”
“You were even grumpy as a kid?”
He nodded. “I prefer to think of it as serious.”
“Maybe, but you can be serious with a smile.”
“Ryder!” Another barista, a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a manager tag, stood by a tray with our food.
Alex lurched forward to grab the tray before I could, as though he thought it would compensate for not paying. There wasn’t anything to make up for, though we should probably talk about it once we sat.
We had a number of things we needed to talk about.
