Page 88 of Fated

I didn’t think so before.

“You do,” Dee says, a satisfied smile on her face.

My chest pinches as I remember Aaron thanking me for coming into the water after him.Anytime,I promised.I’ll come after you anytime.

He stands then, and when he turns his gaze immediately lands on me, as if he knew I was here the entire time. As if he could feel my eyes on him.

And from fifty meters away I feel the heat of him. His dark eyes, the tilt of his head—they make my stomach flutter and my heart race.

For five seconds, ten, we stand separated by a sunlit street, looking into each other’s eyes.

And I decide, yes, I’m falling. It feels like sliding, tumbling, into a dream. As Aaron lifts his hand, holding it up to me, I know that when I fall into this dream, he’ll be here to catch me.

I’ll come into the water after him. And he’ll always come for me.

29

Grinders isa coffee shop owned by Robert, which shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. It isn’t like the coffee shops of Geneva, serious about espresso and cream and flaky pastries. Nor is it like the coffee shops of England, the uniformly eclectic chains of Costa or Nero.

Instead Grinders is on the first floor of a bright, butterscotch-yellow concrete house facing the sea. It’s across from the fish market gazebo, down from the “airport” and Junie’s shop. It’s probably the most lovely coffee shop I’ve been in in my entire life.

Outside there’s a line of blooming bougainvillea bushes, vibrant with coral and fuchsia flowers. The bushes shelter the deep wooden porch with its wide planks and lazily spinning ceiling fans. A band of sunlight crosses the worn planks and leads to the double front doors. They’re swung wide to let in the sea breeze and the salty, sandy smell of the water. In the back I have another door open so that the breeze rushes through, tugging at my hair and cooling my sweat-dappled skin.

The coffee shop is small—there are only four tables and a wooden counter with tall metal benches lining the windows overlooking the water. But the smallness is perfect. The tables and counter are made of sea-gray driftwood. The wooden floors are old, rubbed-down and smooth from years of sand-coated feet treading over them. The walls are painted a pale gray-blue, the exact color of the foam that caps the waves as they break against the reef.

There’s music, a collection of old jazz CDs playing on salt-battered speakers, currently tuned to the lyrics, “Never gonna die, baby, you know we’re gonna live forever.”

Behind the counter, at the espresso machine, with the perfume of Jamaican Blue Mountain beans rising around me and the crash of the waves filtering through the open doors, I can almost believe the lyrics.

Maybe the people here, in this world, do go on forever.

Robert leans his elbows on the counter, dropping his chin into his hands. The sun glints on his copper hair. He’s wearing his “I’m innocent and naïve” expression—one that must’ve fooled a large number of people for him to keep using it.

He watches me with a quizzical smile, waiting, I think, for something. Although I’m not sure what.

I washed up after the fish market and changed into a yellow cotton dress. Junie came by the cottage ready to gather Sean. This is apparently a long-established pattern—she chatted about doing warm-up runs for when her baby’s born while she gathered a baby bag and filled it with crackers, purees, sippy cups, and nappies.

Then Maranda walked me to the coffee shop, telling me again that I was “late.”

Robert was inside waiting for me. Maranda left right away. I wish she hadn’t.

“Would you like a coffee?” I ask, ignoring the question in his eyes.

He sighs then and straightens to his full height. He’s tall, long-distance-cyclist-thin. He’s handsome. Whether he’s my taste or not, it’s empirically true. He has a perfectly symmetrical face with high cheekbones and a sharp nose. He walks with a loose stride, that earnest easiness. The only thing that gives away his true nature is his close-cropped hair, his clothing—linen dress shirts, crisp pants—and the flicker of shadow that sometimes breaks through his smooth gaze.

“Your coffee?” he asks, the edge of his mouth twitching. “Are you trying to punish me?”

I turn on the espresso maker and send a stream of steaming water through, cleaning and sanitizing.

Apparently, just like people here think I can’t swim, they also think I can’t make coffee.

“How about a latte?” I ask, tamping down the espresso and then placing two shot glasses beneath the machine.

He smiles at that, tight lines forming around his mouth. “If that’s what I have to do. I’ll drink a thousand terrible lattes to get back in your good graces.”

“If my coffee is so bad, why did you hire me?”

As soon as I ask the question I know the answer. An energy crackles off Robert—the same one that shot from him when he spun me behind the cottage, caged me against the wood siding, and cursed, “It hurts when I want to touch you, knowing that I can’t.”

---