7
Bronte’s favorite time of year was fall. She loved the cool nip in the air, the reds and oranges of the trees, and the ever-present smell of pumpkin spice everything. She only lived ten minutes from her parents and had a ritual of going to her favorite hole-in-the-wall coffee shop a few blocks from their house on her way to the park, where she’d find her favorite bench to read or get some work done while soaking up vitamin D with a view.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, and the place was relatively quiet, with a handful of people scattered among the mismatched tables and chairs. Bronte stepped up to the counter, greeted Kira, the surly barista, and perused the blackboard menu above her head, as if she didn’t already know what she was going to get.
“What’d you like?” Kira asked, as if she didn’t already know the answer.
“Medium cinnamon pumpkin latte with skim milk, please. To go.”
As usual, Kira rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath about how basic Bronte was as she made the drink. This was the game they played—Kira pretending she didn’t kind of like Bronte, and Bronte continually leaving a big tip until Kira gave in. She laughed to herself, shaking her head. She—
Chris?
There was Chris.
She’d know that beard anywhere. And hands, for that matter. Golden skin with blunt fingertips, the slightly crooked pinkie finger on his right hand.
He was hidden in the corner with a rumpled beanie over his head, and with his attention focused on a book, she could blatantly watch him. He was turned slightly in his chair, kind of curled up into himself. His brow furrowed in concentration as his lips moved ever so slightly, reading to himself, while his fingers absently played with the upper corner of the page.
She was tempted to take a picture. A hot guy reading in public was like spotting a wolf in the wild.
Instead of reaching for her phone, she loosened the scarf around her neck, a tad overheated. It’d been a few days since he’d been sprung on her at her parents’ home, but she hadn’t forgotten what it was like to see him sitting next to her dad, talking like they’d known each other for years.
That was the thing with Chris. It was like he’d been around for years. Though unsettling, that thought wasn’t completely unwelcome. Especially when he pulled at his bottom lip with his thumb and index finger.
“Bronte!” Kira called out, even though Bronte stood only two feet to the left. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chris’s head snap up, and her plans for studying him from a distance were dashed. She had to say something now. But what? What did you say to the guy who knocked your world off its axis?
She grabbed her coffee, took a deep breath, and started in Chris’s direction, greeting him with a small wave. “Hey.”
He tilted his head to the side, his eyes briefly drifting down her body. “Fancy meeting you here.”
There was a definite pattern forming between them, and she nodded. “Yeah, coincidental.”
“Is it, though?” he asked after three long seconds and then kicked out the chair in front of her with his foot. When she didn’t move, he raised his eyebrows in a dare.
Possessed by those eyebrows, she sat down and lifted the lid of her drink. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He leaned over, leveling her with a playful gaze that had her momentarily stunned. “We keep having these ‘coincidences.’ It makes me think they aren’t so coincidental after all.”
She cleared her throat and shifted in her seat, keenly aware of how close they were as she pursed her lips and blew across the top of her coffee. His eyes dropped to her mouth while steam curled between them and didn’t move until she sipped her coffee and placed it back down on the table. When his eyes finally found their way back up to hers, they were heated with something much more than a friendly gaze.
“I have a boyfriend.”
“So you’ve said.”
Yes, and here she sat across from Chris, watching as he scratched his head through the beanie then repositioned his arms so they were folded on top of each other on the table. Her left brain had trouble analyzing why she found that very normal action so attractive, while the right side screamed at her to simply go with it.
“What’s with this?” He pointed to the spot between her eyes.
“What?”
He pressed his thumb lightly against the inside of her left eyebrow. “This little crease. What are you thinking about?”
Unwrapping her scarf completely from around her neck, she sat all the way back in her chair, putting much-needed space between them to clear her head and cool off. Avoiding the truth of what she was really thinking—that she’d like to feel the press of his thumb on other places of her body—she yanked a book from her purse to show it to him. It was a thin textbook on classroom behavior strategies. “Homework.”
He swiped a hand over his dubious smile. “Sure.”
“What are you reading?” she asked, and he held up the book. “Slaughterhouse-Five. Really?”