Page 58 of Going All In

He shrugged. “I was in the mood for coffee.”

She laughed. “Like there aren’t a million coffee places closer to your condo.”

“Not with you in them,” he said.

“Laying on that charm, I see.” She played along, her head moving in a million directions because she hadn’t anticipated this ease after their last meeting.

“Of course. Can you take a break?” he asked.

It’d been steady, bordering on slow, for the last hour. “Shelby, I’m taking my fifteen.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” her coworker asked.

“Oh, sure. Shelby, this is Jake.”

“Her smitten boyfriend,” Jake added, holding out his hand to Shelby.

The girl looked a little dumbstruck as she shook his hand.

Darcy knew the feeling all too well.

“Nice to meet you.”

“So I’m taking that break now. What do you want to drink?” Darcy asked Jake.

“I’ll take a grande caramel soy latte, extra foam, extra espresso shot, with chocolate drizzle,” he said. Darcy and Shelby both gaped at him.

He laughed. “Kidding. I’ll take whatever your medium roast is with almond milk.”

Darcy made his drink and grabbed a cup for herself. Jake guided them to a small table in the corner. Only one of the other tables around them was occupied.

“How’d I do?” he asked. “Too over the top?”

“With the smitten stuff or that coffee order?” she asked, unable to fight her grin.

“The smitten stuff.”

“Excellent. And I wanted to apologize for how I reacted at my apartment the other night.” She took in a deep breath, unsure of what else to say.

He placed his hand over hers. The butterflies in her belly had apparently had their own extra espresso shots.

“Don’t worry about it. We got carried away; it happens. Back to the business of fake dating, I think we need to go out more. A few dates. Games. Swing by C&B. You know, play it up more.”

She swallowed hard. “Uh. Yeah. Of course. Makes sense.”

Was she spending too much time with him? She was starting to stress out about not having a much time to focus on school as she’d hoped she would when they put their plan in place.

“You okay?” he asked over the top of his coffee cup that he’d just brought to his lips.

“Yep. Never better. Just had a long week with classes.”

He kept hisgaze locked on hers as he sipped his coffee. She was twitchy, but she said she’d had a long week, so that’s probably all it was. He’d thought a lot about how to move past her freak-out, and he had decided it was best to play it off. They had their roles, and it was better for both of them if they stuck to it.

Or it could end up messy, and he definitely didn’t need messy right now.

“Tell me about your week,” he said.

“You don’t want to hear about it. Way too boring,” she said, brushing him off. “We can talk about that road trip. Sorry about that second game. It was really close.”

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