Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Despite the friendly smile I’m trying to keep on my face, my hackles start to rise beneath the surface. Sure, I don’t know jack shit about coffee or making coffee or drinking coffee or practically anything in this entire building, but he doesn’t know that yet, so I haven’t earned this kind of incredulity.
“Yep. I work here,” I eventually answer, pleasant smile impossible to keep intact, and nod toward the counter between us. “Hence the green apron and the fact that I’m standing on this side of the counter. Usually, those are telltale signs of someone’s employment.” I don’t know if it’s the fact that Josie left me here by my-freaking-self or if it’s just this guy in general, but something lights a fire in my belly. A sarcastic-as-hell fire that has me adding, “And I know this might be a hard thing for you to grasp, but I’m standing right here, behind this register, to take your order.”
For the briefest of moments, I swear his lips almost twitch into a smile. But before it’s there, it’s gone and in its place a frown the size of Texas.
Gaze to gaze, my brown eyes to his blue, I hold his stare and try not to get distracted inside the tempting swirls of gold and green and azure within his irises.
But the longer the quiet stretches between us, the more my mouth wants to move.
Just say something! I mentally shout at him. Anything. You’re the one who came in here, so you need to do the talking. Not me. I refuse.
“I’ll take a latte,” he finally says, and I want to fist-pump my victory into the air.
But I don’t. Understandably. Because that would be weird.
Also, I don’t know how to make lattes or what a latte even contains, so I’m in serious trouble here and should not, in any way, be celebrating.
Way to go, Bravado. Way to go.
“A latte?” I ask, my voice completely accusatory, as though he’s the problem.
“Yes,” he responds, doing that gruff-I’m-about-to-lose-it-on-you voice he did right before I snapped and got kicked out of his truck. “A latte. A drink generally offered at coffee places.”
I blow out a begrudging breath that makes a few curls move away from my face. “So…funny story, but I just started here this morning, and I haven’t quite learned the art of lattes yet. Is there something else I can get you that’s not a latte?”
“Oh yeah. You work here, all right.”
“Excuse me, what’s that supposed to mean?”
He shakes his sharp-cut jaw with something that looks awfully close to derision. “I’ll take an Americano instead.”
“An Ameri-what-o?”
“An Americano,” he repeats, and it still might as well be in another language. “Two shots of espresso in hot water…?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure. An Americano. A drink that requires the espresso machine.” I nod like I understand but frown a little when I have to tell him the truth. “Another funny story for you, but I haven’t quite mastered the espresso machine yet.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
My cheeks heat with a rush of rose-colored embarrassment.
He narrows his eyes. At me. “What can you make?”
“Um…hot tea? Cocoa?”
“Just give me black coffee. Or kill me if that’s easier, but for shit’s sake, please release me from this misery.”
“Look, I’m sorry! I told Josie not to leave me here alone, but she didn’t listen!”
He sighs, audibly tiring of the hysterical girl with no business barista-ing.
“Look, do you want a cookie or something? We’ve obviously gotten off on the wrong foot, and you can consider it a peace offering, so I’ll throw it in for free.”
“Just the coffee. I don’t like cookies.”
“Of course you don’t like cookies,” I mutter to myself. He probably doesn’t like rainbows and puppies either.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” I ring up his order and keep a big-ass friendly smile intact on my lips. “That’ll be $1.85.”
I take the five-dollar bill from his outstretched hand, and as I start to cash him out, I become downright tickled over the next step in the coffee-buying process—his name.
Our interactions the other day were both too fast and too one-sided for me to learn it, and with the way he’s looking at me this morning, I’m not sure he would give it to me now if he didn’t have to. It shouldn’t matter, but I feel like a lone reed dancing in the wind out here in small-town Vermont, and nonsensical or not, I have a yearning, burning need to know.
“Thanks. And I just need your name for the cup.”
He glances around the shop with just his eyes. “Why do you need to write my name on my cup? I’m the only one in here.”
“Yeah, well, anyone could come in at any moment, and as you’ve seen, I’m still learning the ropes. I’d hate to get yours confused with someone else’s.”
“Oh yeah. It’d be tragic if my black coffee got mixed up with someone else’s black coffee.”