Page 19 of How To Not Need You

“Fine. If he asks me, maybe I won’t say no.”

They cheer as though I just announced that I was getting married.

"I hate all of you."

“No, you don’t.” Harper smiles over the rim of her wine.

"We're not asking you to marry him." Elsie adds. "We're asking you to have coffee."

When she put it like that, it sounds ridiculously simple.

Dammit.

Maybe they have a point.

Chapter

Four

Jake

"Page & Grounds is on the way."

Ben looks up from the passenger seat when I speak. "It absolutely isn't, it adds fifteen minutes."

I glance at him. "Who's driving?"

"You are."

"Exactly."

Ben snorts before looking over his shoulder at a few of the crew in the truck. "Told you."

A chorus of groans answers him. "We've got coffee at the station."

"We've got brown water pretending to be coffee at the station," I correct.

"It has caffeine."

"It has disappointment." A couple of the boys laugh.

“Besides,” I continue, pulling into the main street, “after that MVA this morning, I reckon we’ve earned a decent coffee. We’ve got another hour before we need to be back.”

The callout had started just after three. A young bloke had fallen asleep behind the wheel and crossed onto the wrong side of the road. He'd been lucky. His car hadn't been. Neither had the poor woman he'd collected. Everyone walked away. Barely.

By the time we'd finished helping paramedics, cleared the scene and headed back to the station, nobody felt much like drinking burnt instant coffee from a communal tin that had probably expired sometime during the last federal government.

"So…” Ben says casually. I already know that tone.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit."

He grins. "I just think it's interesting that you've suddenly become passionate about café coffee."

"I've always liked café coffee."