An hour passed, and in that time Rux checked his phone forty-seven times.
“It hasn’t been that long,” Mabon said from his chair, though he kept glancing at his own phone. “He’s probably still at work.”
“What if he threw the receipt away?” Urien paced near the window. “What if he thought you were mad? Six coffees, Rux.Six.”
“I was making conversation like you told me to.”
“You were making yourself ill.”
Another hour. Rux’s phone sat on the coffee table. All three of them stared at it.
“Maybe he lost the receipt,” Mabon offered.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to call,” Urien countered.
“He’ll call.” Rux grabbed his phone, checked again. Nothing. “He kept all our gifts. He was concerned about my caffeine intake. Those are positive signs.”
“Are they?”
“Yes!” Rux refused to think any differently. He’d reached out. Sam would respond.
The phone didn’t ring.
Chapter Seven
Sam
Did that just happen?Sam stood behind the counter, receipt in hand, staring at the door the red-haired giant had just fled through.
Someone gave him their number. An actual, genuine phone number.
“Rux.” It was an unusual name, yet it fit the man somehow – dramatic, bold, and slightly ridiculous – although Sam could be thinking that because he drank six coffees in twenty minutes.
Maya emerged from the back room where she’d been busy, carrying a tray of fresh muffins. “Did that guy just run out of here?”
“Yes.”
“The really tall one? Red hair?”
“Yes.”
“He ordered a lot of drinks.”
Sam looked down at the six empty cups still lined up on the counter. “Six of them.”
“Six drinks and then just...bolted?”
“He gave me his number first.” Sam held up the receipt. The handwriting slanted aggressively across the paper, and the phone number was underlined twice.
Maya’s eyes went wide. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Sam.” She set down the muffin tray. “Sam. Someone gave you their number. A gorgeous someone. Did you see his shoulders? He was huge.”
“I noticed.” It was hard not to notice when the man took up half the café just by existing. Sam’s cheeks warmed at the memory of green eyes watching him make coffee after coffee, that intense stare never wavering.
“Are you going to call him?”
