Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

HIM — BEFORE

The coffee shop is buzzing with students milling about, chatting over their laptops and mugs of fancy drinks. On average days, I avoid this place like the plague. My spot is across town. They play normal music, offer sizes in plain English, with flavors and varieties that sound like words you might’ve heard before, and have lights that actually work and aren’t strangely dim for inexplicable reasons.

Today, I’m here. For her.

She’s here because why the hell wouldn’t she be? It’s where the cool kids go, where they hang or chill or whatever they do these days. It doesn’t take long for me to scan the crowd and find her sitting at a table with two other girls her age.

I cross the coffee shop slowly, the plan still coming together in my head. When I reach the table where she’s sitting, my hip bumps it. The move is gentle enough it could be an honest accident.

If I were an honest man.

So I stop, like any gentleman would do. “ Oh. Oops. Sorry about that.” I smile at the girls as they grab their drinks, careful they don’t spill on their laptops. I place my hands on the table, steadying it. “Everyone okay?”

They nod in unison, uttering various versions of niceties to let me know there’s no lasting damage. I take my time studying each of them. They’re lovely, truly. In that way that screams youth.

I’m not exactly decrepit, okay? Just a decade-ish older than they are, but there is something vast that separates us. A lifetime of lived experiences. They still think they have all the time in the world, but I know I no longer do.

I smile at the three women—each one pretty, but not as pretty as the one. My eyes find her last, landing on her lazily as if I’m not really paying attention and can’t be bothered to care about her.

When I do, she’s staring at me. Hard.

As if she’s just been waiting for me to find her. As if she’s been waiting for this exact moment, where our paths would cross again outside of the classroom. Outside of the university.

As if…

As if she doesn’t recognize me at all, but she wants to.

“Hi,” she says, breathless. Has she been thinking about me as much as I’ve been thinking about her? Or is it possible she doesn’t realize who I am? It’s hard to be offended when the opportunities this provides just became so clear.

“Hi.” I hold out my hand toward her. “I don’t think we’ve met, but I’m sorry for the spill. May I buy you a new drink?”

She takes my hand slowly, and I wait for her to correct me, to ruin everything by telling me she knows exactly who I am, but she doesn’t. Instead, her perfect lips press together with a grin just before she says, “Actually…” She glances at the tiny spill on the table—not nearly enough to warrant a new drink—and returns her gaze to mine. “That sounds perfect.”