“You’re here now.”
***
My legs have gone numb by the time a very apologetic voice interrupts us.
“Excuse me?”
I look up to see a barista in a Pinnacle Perk polo and visor. “Are you Scottie Quinn?”
“Yes?” I say, looking around to notice there are still eyes on me and my parents. Shoot. How did I forget that people would be paying extra attention to me? Is this woman even a real barista?
“Someone ordered this for you,” she says, gesturing behind her to a rolling cart I somehow missed. It’s stacked with to-go cups—dark roast, cold brew, caramel lattes, vanilla foam, and iced drinks sweating into cardboard trays. Steam curls up from the hot cups, and it’s only the fact that I’m a mess of tears that’s kept me from smelling the espresso and syrup that have filled the lobby.
“Oh, okay. Which one?”
“All of them.” She looks at the receipt and shows me. “See? Order saysone of every flavor for Scottie Quinn.”
Mom and I look at each other.
The laugh that comes out of me is genuine—surprised and, frankly, snotty—and Mom’s face goes from bewildered to delighted in the span of a second.
“I’m not in the mood for coffee,” I say, mostly to see what she does.
Her expression shifts to naked concern. “What?”
“I’m kidding,” I say, and we both laugh the way that only happens after crying—too loud, too wild, and completely necessary. “Let’s start with this dark roast with the kick of hazelnut. Mom? Dad?”
Mom laughs in relief while Dad reaches a hand to pull us both up.
Just then, the barista’s phone rings and she pauses to answer it. I hear frantic noise on the other end of the phone but can’t make it out. “Yes, sir. Right now,” she says. “Yes. In the lobby.”
Her eyes are wide as she looks at me. “Um, he’s saying ‘Don’t let her leave.’ So...”
I sniff, confused.
Then I hear a stairwell door open at the end of the hallway.
Five seconds later, Lucas Fischer is sprinting through the lobby, shirt damp with sweat, one shoelace undone, gulping in breath like he’s just run a marathon.
When he sees me, the relief on his face could flood the Grand Canyon.
“You’re still here! I’ve been lookingeverywherefor you,” he says.
He throws his sweaty arms around me and squeezes, and the feeling that moves through me is so enormous I almost can’t hold it—because an hour ago, I didn’t think anyone was coming. And then my mom came. And now him. Both of them, in the same morning.
I feel rooted to the spot, certain in my place for the first time in as long as I can remember.
Lucas’s chest rises and falls so fast against me, I’m almost worried for him when he takes a step back and doubles over, panting. Mom and Dad have stepped back to give us room, though neither of them stops staring.
“Why have you been looking for me? Doug told us to stay apart,” I say, staring at him, dumbfounded that he’s here at all.
“Doug was wrong,” he says.
“Fischer?”
The voice is like the crack of a broken bat. Doug is walking through the sliding lobby doors, his face the exact shade of the “Firebirds Red” on Lucas’s hoodie. He’s changed out of his joggers into jeans, but somehow he looks less like a GM and more like an executioner.
“I came here for meetings, and somehow, even when I’m trying to forget about the mess you made, you’re making another one,” Doug says, his voice low and vibrating with the kind of authority that makes rookies whimper. “I told you to stay in your rooms. I told you that you were liabilities. And here you are, making a spectacle in the middle of Scottsdale.”
