“That’s what I figured!”
Rolling my eyes, I tuck the phone back in my pocket and straighten my shoulders. From my reflection in the glass, I still look every bit as composed as I should. Bright-eyed, check, and bushy-tailed, check. Ready for the day.
Before security, I duck to the left side of the lobby to get a quick coffee at the kiosk. I had coffee at the apartment, but a little more never hurts.
“Hey, Clarissa,” Nayala smiles at me over the shoulder of one of my brawny workmates. “The usual?”
“Yes, please,” I nod.
My workmate turns around to raise an eyebrow at me, looking me up and down. He’s one of those fireplug-shaped guys with tufts of dirty-blond hair ringing his puffy ears and a permanently disgruntled disposition.
I just shrug almost imperceptibly under his gaze and keep my lips shut. I have found, working in an office of almost all men, that sometimes saying nothing is the only thing you can say without repercussions.
He turns back around, apparently as satisfied as he’s going to get, and takes the tall paper cup from the countertop then walks away. As soon as he is out of range, Nayala winks one of her enormous, cocoa-brown eyes at me.
“Gee, I’m sorry to scare Fred off for you,” I smirk. “I think you have a shot with him.”
“Oh, yeah, he’s quite the conversationalist,” she quips in her clipped, Middle Eastern/Londoner accent. “I’m a bit sorry to see him go.”
“I can retrieve him for you if you like?” I offer facetiously as she turns the steam wand on full blast and gives the stainless steel pitcher of milk a good jostle.
“If you do, I’ll tell him you’re secretly in love with him,” she singsongs threateningly.
With quick, precise moments, she pours the espresso into a paper cup and drips the frothy milk over the top, ending with a marshmallow-like dollop that makes my mouth water.
“You’d only break his heart,” I sigh. “It just isn’t meant to be between us.”
She scowls prettily as she sprinkles a bit of cinnamon on top of my cappuccino. “Not even for poor old Fred?”
She reaches for a lid and I raise my hands in protest. Understanding, she replaces the lid on its stack and slides the scrumptious beverage toward me: topless, steaming, and delicious.
“No time,” I answer vaguely as I reach out for the cappuccino. “Not even for poor old Fred.”
“Oh, one day you will make time,” she smirks as she swipes my debit card through the reader.
“You really think so? I’ve been able to resist, so far.”
Nayala shrugs wisely as though she has decades of experience, though I suspect she only has a few hundred hours of romantic comedy movies’ worth of experience. I have never known her to have a romance, a marriage, or even an ex to talk about. Then again, I guess we don’t know each other all that well.
“When it comes along, you w
on’t be able to help it,” she pouts. “Everything will shift. All your priorities. You will have to make time.”
I nod dramatically, playing my role of “eager listener” to the best of my ability.
“You’ll have to tell me more about this mysterious planetwide shift one day,” I smile.
She nods officiously. “Certainly,” she smiles, by way of goodbye, her eyes already on the customer behind me.
All I can say is that the cappuccino foam must have hypnotized me, because when I take the cup and napkin from the counter and pivot, my mouth already watering as the fluffy cloud of cinnamon-dusted goodness wobbles against the rolled paper lip, I completely forget that the other customer behind me. I lean forward into the space where he already is, jerking myself back in a panic only to slosh that perfect, frothy dollop over the side and watch it fall in horrific slow-motion. It practically leaps from the cup to splash over the wool-trousered crotch of a man I have never met.
Right. Across. The. Crotch.
Gasping, my arm shoots out with the napkin between my fingers, smearing and swiping the foam until I realize what I’m doing.
The crotch.
I can’t not know it anymore. I feel it—him—beneath the fabric. The thick, profound flesh that responds immediately to my touch, getting more rigid in moments.