“Thanks.”
The second floor of the coffeeshop was empty. Dillon picked a booth by a window and spread out his stuff. By the time Daniel brought his order, Dillon was already up to his eyeballs in Noelle’s notes on her portion of the presentation. It was gonna be a long day.
~*~
Avery Cahill parked her faithful Toyota beside the town green and resisted the urge to wipe her
damp palms on the legs of her capris. Stupid to be nervous, she thought. It was just coffee. And a more or less blind date with a guy she’d been matched up with on Perfect Chemistry. A guy with no profile picture.
He’d said he was camera shy—which could mean…anything. Actually shy. Physically deformed. Homely. Axe murderer. Her friends hadn’t even thought she should talk to a guy not willing to put his picture up, but he’d seemed nice in their admittedly non-personal conversations. Respectful, which was something in astoundingly short supply in online dating. The things some guys thought they could get away with—insults, asking directly for booty calls, texting naked pictures of themselves—it had almost made her give up on online dating entirely.
But Ross had done none of those things. He’d been friendly and made no assumptions. They’d talked movies and TV and SEC football, steering clear of pretty much all things personal and identifying owing to that whole could-be-an-axe-murderer thing. She could get over the fact that he was a lifelong Bulldog fan. Probably. He was an architecture grad student at Mississippi State, after all. She could get through a conversation with a guy who thought “Hail State!” was a more inventive battle cry than “Hotty Toddy!” It was worth a try, anyway. It wasn’t as if the post-college dating scene in Wishful was exactly jumping. So when he’d said he was coming to town for the afternoon and suggested they meet for coffee, she’d said yes. Public place. Daytime. She’d get a better feel for him in person than from online anyway.
It wasn’t a big deal.
So she’d changed her outfit. Twice. And gnawed off her lipstick and had to reapply. Avery had known that if she stayed home and thought about it any more, she’d end up over thinking and canceling on him. Or worse, standing him up because he’d already left Starkville and didn’t get the message. So, she’d arrived early and decided to walk to The Daily Grind so there’d be time to get her nerves under control.
Sunlight filtered through the enormous oak trees that peppered the green, dappling the spotty grass. Summer had baked the ground in places, and the green hadn’t quite recovered. In another month or two, the leaves would turn brown and fall—Mississippi rarely saw much in the way of autumn color—but for now, the green was as she liked it best. Bright and breezy.
Out of long ingrained habit, Avery stopped by the huge central fountain that dated back to the town’s founding, just after the Civil War. She was pretty sure it hadn’t run since she was little bitty, but her granddaddy had trained her to make a wish every time she walked by, and today was no exception. Clutching a coin in her hand, she thought, I wish for this date to be something special. Then she tossed it into the basin, where it plunked into the few inches of rainwater that hadn’t evaporated over the summer. It was both tradition and comfort, and Avery felt some of the nerves smooth out.
Thus fortified by local ritual, Avery strode purposefully to The Grind. The date might be a disaster, but at least if the whole thing tanked, she’d have an entertaining story to tell around the water cooler at City Hall when she got to work on Monday.
“Well hey there, Sugarplum!”
The tension in Avery’s shoulders immediately bled out at Daniel’s cheery greeting.
“You’re dressed up awful cute for an afternoon read-a-thon,” he remarked, already turning to put together her current favorite Black Irish mocha.
“What?” She glanced down at the novel sticking out of her purse. “Oh…no. Actually, I’m here to meet somebody.” She pulled out the book and the Gerbera daisy, clutching both to her chest.
Daniel arched both perfectly manicured brows. “Oh!” He drew the exclamation out to three syllables. “You’re pulling a You’ve Got Mail. That’s just adorable. Anybody I know?”
“Nobody I know. We got matched up on Perfect Chemistry. He’s a grad student at the university.”
Daniel brightened. “He’s already here! Upstairs.” He dropped his voice and leaned across the counter, offering her Black Irish. “A real hottie, too.”
“Thank goodness,” Avery sighed. “He didn’t have a picture on his profile. Jessie was positive he had a third ear or weird mole or something. And Brooke was convinced he was a creeper.”
“No strange growths or creepy vibes. Scout’s honor,” Daniel swore. “He’s been working on a midterm project of some kind for a while now. Could probably do with a refill on his coffee. You want to take one up?”
“Sure.” It would be a nice ice breaker.
Daniel made it up and handed over the second cup. “Good luck, cupcake. If he turns out to be a stinker, just text me an SOS and I’ll create a diversion to get you loose.”
“You’re an angel.”
Avery took the stairs slowly. With her luck, she’d step wrong in her wedge sandals and slosh coffee on her pale khaki capri pants in a highly embarrassing location. But she made it to the top with her outfit unmarred.
He was the only patron up here. Hunched over a laptop, with a stack of books and notes scattered on the table around him, she could just make out the strong edge of his jaw and the serious set to his mouth. Maybe he’d come early planning to get some homework out of the way before their date? Avery considered turning around and going back downstairs until the appointed time, just to give him a chance to finish what he was working on. Then he looked up and she almost bobbled the coffee.
Daniel hadn’t exaggerated. This guy was a certifiable hottie with all that dark hair mussed by frustrated or nervous hands and those clear gray eyes that seemed to pierce her from across the room. His brows winged up in question.
Aware she was staring, Avery mustered a smile and crossed over, setting the cup of coffee in the few inches of free space beside the empty cup already there. “Daniel said you could do with a refill.” She slid into the booth across from him and laid her book and flower next to her own coffee. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
~*~
As the brunette slid into the seat across the table, Dillon realized three things. One, she wasn’t a waitress getting her flirt on. Two, it was really hard to be annoyed at being interrupted by a beautiful girl. Three, she completely thought he was somebody else.