Page 15 of An Engagement Pact

Peering through the glass, I see Dan grinning at me.

Not the thing I need to see right now.

I can hardly ignore him, however. We’re supposed to be dating. I stretch my mouth into a bright smile and divert my path to go inside the coffee shop.

I’m not going to buy anything. I can’t afford an expensive coffee every morning when there’s a perfectly good pot waiting at Jim and Esther’s. Instead, I walk over to Dan’s table like I’m ecstatic to see him.

He’s as cute as ever dressed for work in khakis, shirt, and sweater vest. He’s got a laptop on the table in front of him with a large coffee beside it. At his table is the dark-haired woman I’ve identified as his friend Paige.

She smiles as he introduces us and gestures toward the chair beside her. “Please sit. Dan is doing nothing but working this morning.”

He huffs. “You’re one to talk.”

“He’s right,” Paige tells me in a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s only us type As who are here working before work even starts.”

“Do you want coffee, Vicky?” Dan asks.

“Oh, I’m fine.”

He gives me a look that tells me exactly what he thinks of my refusal of his offer. He’s wondering why I’m acting like I don’t want to hang out with him when we’re supposed to be falling in love.

“Just regular coffee with cream, thanks,” I tell him, relenting immediately.

He gets up and strolls over to the counter to order, so I turn back to Paige. “Do you have to do a lot of overtime with your work?”

“Oh no. I don’t have to get there until eight, and I always leave right at five. I get things done pretty quick, so I never have to work extra hours.” She glances at her laptop. “I also have my own business, so that’s what I work on in the off hours.”

“Wow, that’s got to be a lot. What is your side business?”

Paige shows me the website on her laptop that’s a centralized place for local artists and crafters to sell their products. I’m genuinely interested, so it’s not hard to convey enthusiasm for her project, which she’s obviously very proud of.

“Chase, my boyfriend,” she says, “is always trying to get me to work less, so I’ve started working in the mornings when he’s not here yet.”

I remember Chase well. That cute, relaxed guy who works in this coffee shop in the evenings.

“I guess you’re an early riser too,” she says, “since you have to get started on dog-walking at the crack of dawn.”

“Yeah. But that’s mostly because I have this job. I’m not naturally a crack-of-dawn person. I don’t know that I’m really a type A. I just do what I need to do for the job I’m given.”

“That makes sense. A lot of times, I wish I was more like that. But some of us like to keep the whole world in order.”

I laugh since she’s obviously making light of her nature. “Well, it needs to be put into order, so someone’s got to do it. And at least it’s something you do naturally.”

“Exactly right. And what do you do naturally?” She appears to really want to know.

I normally wouldn’t open up to a near stranger like this, but I’m supposed to be getting close to Dan, which means I can’t slam a door in the face of his friend. So I say, “I was raised by a single mom who taught me to be independent and self-reliant and not depend on other people, so I think that’s what I do naturally.”

“Really?” She cocks her head, peering at me closely. “You come across so bright and sunny. I’d never have known you were like that.” She’s not insulting me. If anything, she seems to like me better now than she did before.

I shrug. “I don’t know. It’s not like I don’t like people or anything like that, but in some way that’s just the way I’ve found to get through life. I don’t feel... soft.”

I feel someone moving behind me. Dan. He sets my coffee on the table. I have no idea how much of our conversation he heard.

Paige continues as if his presence isn’t an interruption. “I never really felt like a soft person either. Or rather, I kept all my softness hidden deep inside. It wasn’t until Chase came along and coaxed it out of me that I was comfortable showing it to anyone else.” She glances over at Dan like she’s thinking something she doesn’t say out loud.

The look makes me grow hot. Not because what she’s thinking is true but because it’s not. Dan’s not going to be coaxing any softness out of me.

I’m going to have to make sure he doesn’t.

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