“Coffee. Black,” I repeat to the server. “Like her heart.”
The server starts to laugh but when he realizes Maggie isn’t joining in, he quickly stifles it, rings in the order, and I pay him.
We move to the side to wait. “So can I borrow your notes. Please?”
“Yeah. I guess,” Maggie mutters and crosses her arms. She’s rocking ever so slightly at her hips, like she’s antsy or nervous or something. “I’ll print them off and give them to you tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” I say. “But can you maybe just email them to me?”
She shakes her head, no, without even thinking about it. “You want my notes, you can have them, but printed out only. When I find the time to do it. It’s called punishment for not getting your lazy ass out of bed like the rest of us.”
“I was up at the crack of dawn to go to work,” I say. “And it ran late, so that’s why I missed it.”
“You worked the farm this morning?” Maggie says, shocked.
“No. The other job,” I lower my voice an octave and watch as she makes a face like she just gargled lemon juice with a mouth full of paper cuts. “That’s a pretty judgy face for a woman who was once a client.”
“Daisy hired you, not me.”
“No you just ogled my ass while I worked,” I remind her and I can literally see her struggle to keep a blush from hitting her face. She turns away as someone calls out our order and I walk over to collect it.
“So,” I say as I hand her coffee. “Any chance we could run over to the student center and print those notes now? I’m going to need them before class tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you are. We have a quiz tomorrow,” Maggie replies and opens the door, not bothering to hold it open for me and leaves. I have to wedge my foot in it to keep it from slamming closed in my face.
“Magnolia, seriously. Please,” I say, and I’m getting annoyed—not just with how she won’t give me her damn notes but also because the windchill she’s blowing my way is brutal. “Or maybe I should just ask someone else.”
I start to break off from her and veer left as she veers right but then suddenly, she reaches out and grabs my hand. I turn to face her and she stands perfectly still and stares at me. “I said I’d give you the notes. When’s your next class?”
“In about forty-five minutes,” I reply as I take a bite out of my bagel.
“My next one is in an hour and a half,” Maggie replies and plucks the bagel from my hand. I watch as she takes a dainty bite. “So I can head home and print the notes and get them back to you before your next class.”
I watch her mouth while she chews. It’s a pretty mouth—and I know she knows how to use it…for more than just being sassy. I’ve imagined what that perfect mouth might look like wrapped around something other than a bagel. But I won’t ever find out because one and done. She said it and she clearly means business.
“Okay…” I take the bagel back and tear off a big piece, chewing out my frustration. It’s not that I like her, it’s just that it was good sex. And so now I feel like we should have done more, and done it for longer, if it was only going to happen once. She’s watching my mouth the same way I’ve been watching hers. Huh. That’s not the sign of a girl who wants nothing to do with me, is it? So I throw out an idea. “Wouldn’t it be easier if I just go with you to your place and grab the notes?”
Maggie looks at me, pauses, and then kind of lifts her shoulder and tilts her head in a one-sided shrug. “Well…yeah, I guess that could work.”
She smiles.
I smile.
We make our way off campus to her apartment sipping our coffees, eating what has now turned into a communal bagel and not speaking a word. The streets around campus are peppered with students and cars zipping by. Leaves dance their way off the trees with the slightest breeze making a blanket on the sidewalk and crunching under our feet. If we were involved, I would reach for her hand and this would be a fairly romantic fall walk. But we aren’t and it isn’t.
When we’re standing in front of the main door to her apartment building and she’s pulling out her keys I say, “Are your roommates home?”
“No. You wouldn’t be here if they were.”
“Right.” I take a step closer. The wind blows and the hem of her dress rustles against my jeans. The door swings open. “Wouldn’t want them to know you’re sleeping with the enemy.”
“Ha. Ha,” she says but her voice wobbles a little bit. Maggie steps over the threshold and starts up the long staircase to her third floor unit. “We promised that could never happen again, remember?”
“I remember.” I watch her climbs the stairs, the bottom of her skirt swinging around her toned thighs. “Problem is I remember everything else before the promise too.”
We reach the top of the staircase and she starts to unlock the door that leads into the apartment. She glances over her shoulder as she steps into the front hall and I flash her a devious grin. “Like I remember how hot it was when you went off like a firecracker, Firecracker.”
Maggie freezes. She doesn’t speak, she doesn’t turn to face me as I close the door behind us and I’m not even sure she’s breathing. “You did not just say that.”
