Page 27 of Reclaiming Love

Chapter 14

She felt free and knew that it was a definite sign of the chains she needed to break. If the idea of Matt being away for a week gave her a sense of freedom, then it was clearly proof that the relationship was toxic.

She and Heather had reached a truce over the weekend and had even made dinner together yesterday before talking about the coming week and work. She was going home next week for Christmas and Heather would be away too.

They had a week to make good on their recent disagreement and with Matt out of the picture, and all conversation about him forbidden, it was easy enough for their friendship to slowly revert back to normal.

For Melissa, this was the fourth day she had come to work early, taking her time as she hung around outside the coffee shop each morning in a bid to catch sight of Noah.

She wanted to see him again—and with Matt being away there would be no danger of getting caught. Not that she was doing anything she needed to feel guilty about. After all, she and Noah were nothing more than coffee buddies.

She wasn’t ending things with Matt to clear the way for Noah, because she didn’t know how Noah felt. She wasn’t entirely sure she knew how she felt. She knew only that each time she saw him she spent the rest of the day thinking about him.

But the week that could have afforded her more time to see him soon melted away. Monday melted into Tuesday, by Wednesday she was beginning to lose hope and by Thursday she’d given up the idea completely. She was also by now completely fed up of having a blueberry muffin three days in a row.

Her attempts to catch him, as casually as she could without making it so obvious she’d done nothing but lookout for him, had only resulted in her piling on the calories.

Picking up her skinny latte she started to walk towards the door.

“Hey, Melissa.” He was in the line, patiently waiting as she made her way out. He looked happy enough to see her too and her heart did that woozy, fluttering thing it always seemed to when Noah was around. But her hopes crashed down just as fast. Mr. Zimmerman had called a staff meeting first thing in the morning—she couldn’t stay any longer even if she wanted to.

“Noah,” she said, making his name sound like a disappointment. You turn up now?

“Where’ve you been?” he asked.

“Here, working as usual.” Where have you been?

“Here? I looked out for you.”

She fixed him with a puzzled expression. “I’ve been here every day, some days early, some days later.” Looking for you, I tried all different times.

“I’ve been at different times too.”

She almost laughed. It was comical, and yet so frustrating. “We must have missed one another.”

“So we meet today.”

“I can’t stay.” Her disappointment obvious at the missed opportunity.

He, too, looked as disappointed as she felt. Either she’d walk out of here and they’d go back to the random bumping into one another, or…

“I sometimes grab a sandwich from here around lunchtime.” He said.

“I could grab a sandwich for lunch.”

“So maybe I’ll see you here? Around one?”

“Maybe.” It was crazy, weird. But it was real. He had actually, in a roundabout way, asked her to meet him for a sandwich here at one o’clock. And she’d accepted.

It wasn’t a date. It was only lunch.

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