Sam traced the name with his thumb. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? Sam, when was the last time anyone gave you their number?”
Three years ago, at a bookshop in Cheltenham. The guy had seemed interested until Sam mentioned working at a café, then suddenly remembered he had somewhere to be.
“He was really nervous,” Sam said instead. “He kept making weird small talk and even complimented the floor.”
“The floor?”
“The laminate flooring. He said it was good craftsmanship.”
Maya started laughing. “Oh, my god. He sounds like a disaster.”
Sam smiled and nodded. “A disaster who drank enough caffeine to give an elephant palpitations.”
“But a hot disaster.”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? The man was absurdly attractive. Tall, built, and handsome in a way that made Sam’s fingers itch to write him into a story - except no editor would believe someone who looked like that would nervously gulp down six drinks just to talk to a barista.
“What if he’s weird?” Sam folded the receipt carefully. “Like, stalker weird?”
Maya’s expression shifted. “You think he left the gifts?”
Sam considered it - red hair, green eyes, clearly wealthy enough to afford six overpriced lattes without blinking. The timing matched - the gifts started appearing last Monday, and now it was Monday again, and Sam had a phone number in his hand.
“Maybe?”
“That’s either really romantic or really creepy.”
“Exactly.”
“So, are you going to call him?”
Sam slipped the receipt into his apron pocket. His heart did that stupid flutter again, the one he’d trained himself to ignore years ago. Nobody gave him their numbers. Nobody fled coffee shops after intense staring sessions. Nobody in real life acted like characters in his novels.
“I don’t know,” he said again. But he didn’t throw the receipt away.
/~/~/~/~/
“Yes, hello. I know I’m late.” Sam scooped up the cat and headed for the kitchen. “Maya wanted to discuss my love life. Or lack thereof.”
Basil meowed his opinion on that. Sam fed him - wet food, because apparently dry food was an insult to Basil’s sensibilities - and made himself a cheese toastie. He ate standing at the counter, the receipt burning a hole in his pocket.
He pulled it out and stared at the number.
“He was probably just being friendly,” he told Basil, who’d finished his dinner and now sat on the counter watching Sam with unblinking green eyes – much like Rux’s. “Right? New to town, maybe. Looking for friends.”
That made absolute sense. Far more sense than the alternative, which was that a man who looked likethat -all six-foot-six of gorgeous, well-dressed, clearly wealthy disaster -would be interested in Sam Brown. “Too nice and soft to attract romantic interest,” Sam, according to Emma’s well-meaning assessment.
“He probably saw my name tag and thought I looked approachable.” Sam traced the underlined phone number again. “Easy target for friendship. Someone who wouldn’t say no to chatting with a stranger.”
Basil’s tail twitched.
“I’m being logical.” Sam folded the receipt and set it on the counter. “People don’t give out their numbers because they’re romantically interested - not to me - and definitely not people who look like they stepped out of a fantasy novel.”
Red hair tied back… green eyes...that build. The way he’d gripped the counter when Sam handed him the first latte, knuckles white, like he was restraining himself from…from what?
Sam shook his head. “This is why I write fiction. My brain makes up stories where there aren’t any.”
