She just rolls her eyes, which is the right thing to do. Jackson pivots back in my direction, suddenly smiling.
“Let’s walk and talk after this,” he suggests.
“About what?” I ask.
Jackson holds up his finger, almost ominously.
“Just you wait,” he answers.
This shit is absolutely getting to be too much—especially after he already insisted on getting a fucking coffee.
“We could have done that at my fucking office,” I say.
The barista plops two large paper cups on the counter before Jackson can say some brilliant fucking response swimming in his head.
Jackson throws a random folded bill on the counter and picks up the cups.
“Keep the change,” he instructs before handing me my coffee.
He’s still smirking, and it’s kind of fucking nauseating.
“Can we just sit and talk instead of walk and talk?” I look to see if there are any empty spots while taking my coffee.
“No tables, no chairs.” Jackson’s completely fucking right, sadly. “Come on, let’s walk to Broadway, maybe go to church, you know…”
Jackson’s making some weird fucking joke about the historic cathedral on the west end of Wall Street at Broadway. I immediately walk out onto Wall, and start in that direction, making Jackson have to speed up a bit to catch up with me.
“Ready to talk?” I ask as we stroll into the middle of the blocked-off cobblestone street.
“That fucking barista,” Jackson complains.
“What about her?”
“Can you believe she didn’t ask about size or anything about how I wanted it? I still fucking smiled and laid out a tip, too—you saw it.”
“You think you’re noble for that?” I hear myself ask while looking straight ahead, past the Stock Exchange, all the way to the church on Broadway.
I sip my coffee. Jackson has until we get to Broadway to talk. Luckily, he starts right away.
“Who needs nobility when there are no consequences?”
“No consequences for what?” I ask.
“There’ll be consequences for her, anyway.” Jackson says, ignoring me. “The barista—she won’t go anywhere with that attitude.”
“Why should you be immune to consequences while she’s not?”
“Because I already earned my fucking way.” Jackson glances with ire at the statue of George Washington as we walk past Federal Hall. “That shit no longer applies, not at this point.”
As much as I want Jackson to get to his fucking point already, I can’t help but argue.
“What makes you think the barista won’t go anywhere? Down here, I don’t think attitude matters as much as you think.”
“This street would fucking break her, and you know it.” Jackson takes a self-satisfied sip from his latte. “The only way she’s going anywhere is if someone does it for her, and she’d still end up floundering.”
We’re getting close to Broadway, but I?
?m giving up on this conversation ending there.