Page 21 of The Five Stages of Courting Dalisay Ramos

Here’s to stories worth telling. —Evan

It feels appropriate. This is definitely a story he’ll be telling at dinner parties in the future.

This time when Dalisay sees his gift, she reads the note, taking a beat longer than usual, and Evan’s chest swells with hope.

She lifts the scented candle to her nose and takes a sniff. Her eyelids flutter and her shoulders drop. She sets the candle back down on her desk.

Evan grins.Finally.

When five o’clock rolls around that Friday, Evan is wiped from having written three articles this week, and his brain feels like mush. He’s just about ready to text JM asking what they want to eat during D&D tonight, when Maggie the intern appears, balancing several trays of coffee in her outstretched arms that teeter dangerously as she delivers to-go cups down the row of desks. She’d gone on an early-afternoon Starbucks run for the whole office.

Maggie is barely out of high school, a college freshman with mousy brown hair, big glasses, and a soft voice. She’s big into crochet, and she makes most of her clothes, including the messenger bag she wears at her side to keep all her notebooks and pens for work. All week, Maggie’s been helping Evan and Dalisay with their big project from Naomi. It’s a full analysis comparing cities in Europe and Asia with aif you like this, then you’ll like thatangle that Naomi hopes can spin out lots of content, and it requires a ton of cross-references and contact information for hotels and tour guides. And caffeine. Lots of caffeine.

He can see the looming disaster playing out in slow motion.

Before Evan can jump up to help her, Maggie lets out a squeak as the trays get unbalanced and topple sideways. A dozen to-go cups spill over, emptying their contents down the front of Evan’s shirt.

He stands frozen, arms up, coffee plastering his button-down to his chest and dripping down his elbows. The coffee’s so hot but he doesn’t notice.

“Ah! Sorry, Evan!” Maggie cries.

Evan blinks coffee out of his eyes, still frozen in place. “It’s okay! I’m okay!” Evan says, assuring her. She looks like she’son the verge of tears and the whole office is staring at them, but he addresses everyone with a smile. “Can’t get enough of the stuff.”

His lame joke brings everyone’s attention away from Maggie. He’s been an intern before, he knows how it goes; she’s doing her best. Riggs offers to call the custodian and Evan picks up the coffee cups while Maggie rushes to the kitchen for paper towels. When she comes back, she’s red-cheeked and on the verge of a panic attack.

“You don’t have to help!” she says to Evan, her voice thick. “It’s my mess.”

“Please, let me. It’s the least I can do.” He takes one of the paper towels and wipes his face before using it on the floor. “You didn’t have to carry all this. You could have made a few trips.”

“I’m so sorry!” she says again. Maggie’s blush is bright.

“It’s okay, really. Next time you can take it slower. I promise, coffee isn’t that important.” He smiles at her, and she blushes even more furiously. Something in her purse on the floor catches his attention. It’s a Heliotrope candle.

A lump forms in Evan’s throat. “Um, Maggie. Where did you get that candle?”

Maggie looks at him, wide-eyed, then looks in her crocheted bag. “Oh! I didn’t steal it, I swear!”

Evan lets out a breathy laugh. “I didn’t think you did. I was just wondering.”

“I-I-It’s from Dalisay,” she stammers. “She wanted to thank me for all my hard work this week. I don’t think she knows how much I love these candles.”

“Yeah, me too,” he says, a little crestfallen. He had really hoped this gift would be the one she loved.

Once they’ve cleaned up what they could, and Maggie thanks him again profusely, he grabs his travel bag, the one he usually keeps under his desk for short-notice trips, and takes out a fresh shirt.

Before he goes to the bathroom to change, he makes a stop in the kitchen for some table salt, a hack he picked up when he spilled coffee all over his pants in the middle of a transatlantic flight, so he knows what to do before the stain sets.

But, as luck would have it, Dalisay is tidying up in the kitchen, reorganizing the tea bags. Of course, this day is getting better and better. He bites back a curse, but she hears him come in, and her eyes nearly bug out of her head when she looks at him. That’s when he realizes how transparent his thin, white button-down is when it’s wet. He might as well be shirtless. Her mouth drops open, gaze flicking to his torso briefly before returning to his face with a stupefied expression.

Exposed, Evan shields himself with his arms, but it’s not hiding a lot. Something about being perceived by her is doing something to him he can’t quite articulate.

Heat burns through him, almost as hot as the coffee did. “Salt,” he says, as if that would make sense to her.

But without question, she opens the cupboard and holds out the salt canister. Evan has to shuffle over to take it, because she’s averting her gaze, her jaw muscles clenched tight.

“Thanks,” he says.

She nods stiffly. “Baking soda.”

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