Page 6 of Beg, Borrow, or Steal

The heavy weight of striving for perfection falls away when he gets near. It’s the only reprieve I ever get from it.

“Thisismytable, Jackson. Ask anyone in town and they’ll tell you. I come here nearly every Saturday to sit at this little table and sip my little coffee and type on my little laptop and enjoy my little day. So if you think I’m going to be sympathetic to the fact thatyou’re recently heartbroken and forgo my favorite table because of it, then you’re wrong.”

Jackson doesn’t so much as flinch. “I don’t, and I’m not.” When he sees my confusion he expounds, adjusting in his seat to somehow look even more comfortable and unfazed. “Idon’texpect your sympathy and I’mnotheartbroken.” His gaze drops to follow the water droplet from my hair as it splats against the table, an inch from his laptop. He looks at me again, but I feel his attention flitting across my bare face and soggy hair. “Seems like I should be, but I’m not—which tells me calling off the wedding and ending the relationship was the right choice.” There’s so much more here he’s not saying. “So now I have all the time in the world to come sit at the coffee shop you talked up so often at school.” He gestures lazily to something behind me. “There’s a table over there you can sit at.”

He opens his laptop once again, effectively dismissing me.

And there it goes: The hinges on my Treasure Chest of Doom fly off. He twists and burrows under my skin until I have no choice but to let those word-spears fly. Maybe it’s because some vicious part of me recognizes the vicious part of him—even if the rest of the world is too enamored with his charm to see it in him too. We’ve perfected and fine-tuned our hatred into an art form.

I snap the lid of his laptop shut so fast that he barely has time to remove his fingers before they’re guillotined. “I won’t be banished to the Arctic Circle in my own town.” I tip forward and point behind me. “There’s a vent directly above that table and the air never stops cranking. To sit at that table is to accept hypothermia. Plus I need an outlet, and this is the only table near one.”

He shrugs—that grin nearly giving way to a dimple under his smug satisfaction. “Well then, Emily, I guess you’re out of options and have to go home.”

“You’ve been here long enough—yougo home.”

“I only got here a minute before you.”

“And that’s plenty of time to inflict your presence on the world.” It was meant to cut but he’s clamping his lips together trying not to laugh. “This would have been my table right now if Shirley and the entire salon hadn’t been gossiping about your breakup.”

He sits back in his seat, loosely crossing his arms. “Ah—so you did already hear the news.”

“Yes, and I’ll have you know that I shut down all talk of you since you weren’t around to defend yourself, not that you deserve the respect.”

His lips curl almost cynically. “You have my undying gratitude.”

“So you’ll move?”

“No. You have my undying gratitude from this seat here in the corner while you freeze to death over there under the air vent.”

I grind my teeth. “Get your obnoxious ass out of my seat, Jackson. I mean it.”

There’s a moment of silence as he slowly unfolds himself from the table, but it’s evident by his smile that he’s not getting up to move. No, he takes one easy-breezy single step closer—hands dropping into his mustard pockets. His amber eyes are full of ruthless amusement when they lock with mine, standing closer than we’ve ever stood in the history of our feud. An unfamiliar tingle runs up my legs and settles somewhere in my thighs. “Emily Walker. You might be able to steamroll everyone else around here into submission. But not me. Never me. If you want something from me, you’ll have to ask politely.”

What I wouldn’t give for a steamroller at this very minute to flatten his ass to the floor. But I’d remove his glasses first, because for reasons beyond my mortal knowledge, I like them.

“Why? So you can bask in my politeness and then turn me down anyway? Forget it.”

“It’s scary how well you understand me sometimes.” His eyescrinkle. “Your only option now is to leave, sit in the morgue over there, or…”Or? I’ve never heard anorcome out of his mouth.“You can get your little coffee and sit in that little seat across from me.”

“Sit…with you?” My eyebrows are touching my hairline.

“Yes.”

“At the same table?”

“It would be difficult to achieve sitting together from a different table.”

I breathe in, staring at him for a beat. I really am out of options. (And that’s what I’m going to remind myself tonight when I replay this moment over and over again in my mind.)

“All right,” I say, breaking the number one rule of battle and turning my back on my enemy so I can move his bag to the floor beside the chair. My canvas tote bag takes its place. “When I come back, I’m going to sit right here. With you. We will share this table, but we’re not going to say a word to each other. I will work on my laptop, and you will work on yours, and as far as we’re both concerned the other does not exist. Understand?”

He tilts his head, and I again get the feeling he’s examining me. Searching for some private answer. “I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow you’re even meaner before coffee.”

It’s this little comment that has me hanging back after we’ve both ordered and tipping the barista fifteen bucks to make Jack’s coffee decaf.

FROM: Jack Bennett

TO: Emily Walker

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