Page 30 of Love in Focus

I barely manage to finish the transcription and hit save.

The café had almost been empty when I came in, but by the time Celeste comes back with her drink, it’s almost full, probably because it’s now pouring outside. Every table around us is taken with people either hanging out or just taking refuge from the rain. Friends catch up over lattes, and various individuals read books with their steaming mugs of coffee. There are even a few other people on theirlaptops, which makes me feel better about working on a Sunday.

Celeste sits back down, and I look up from my computer again. She’s gotten herself a hot Americano in a cute turquoise mug. Yup, Celeste is definitely staring at me, her eyes lingering on my currently pink-painted lips.

I clear my throat and push my laptop in her direction. “So, what do you think? I’m going to add more text to introduce and conclude the piece when we have all the interviews, and the design team is going to make the layout look more polished, but this is basically what I have right now.”

She slowly scrolls through what I have so far. From the way her eyes are moving, I can tell she’s going from the pictures she took to the text I wrote and vice versa.

“It looks amazing, so far,” she says. “I like the pictures you picked out. Great choices, Gem. I can tell you put a lot of care in selecting the ones you did.”

“Thanks. And yeah, I did my best.”

Celeste sent me a folder of all the photos she’d taken during the interviews, and it’d been up to me to choose which ones to use. It was hard to only select a few, but I tried to choose pictures that I thought best portrayed the subjects’ personalities, based on the time we spent with them.

“I love this picture of Case laughing,” Celeste says with a smile. “Their entire face is lighting up.”

I grin, too. “Yup, that’s why I chose it.”

Our eyes meet. Celeste’s gaze flickers down to my lips again before she looks away.

I go over some more logistical things with Celeste, explaining to her what Evelyn told me about the timeline for the project. Overall, compared to our previous encounters, it’s a very productive meeting. By the time I finish, the din of the coffee shop is so loud that I have to practically shout to be heard. “Do you have any questions or concerns?”

Celeste flashes a quick, professional smile. “No,” she says, also loudly. “Thanks for showing me everything. It’s nice to see how it all looks put together!”

She gets up quickly, bumping right into a college student rushing to meet her friends at the door. Books and papers fly from the student’s hands, along with her iced latte, which splashes all over the place. The girl’s friends gasp.

“Shit,” says Celeste.

I bend down to help the girl pick up her stuff. When I glance up again, Celeste is dabbing her chest with napkins from our table. My eyes automatically follow her hand andholy crap… her white shirt has gone sheer with the icy liquid, exposing the lacy bra she has underneath. I’m instantly turned on but also mortified for her. Neither of us has anything to cover her up. Since we’re so close to my friends’ place, I didn’t bother bringing a jacket.

“Hurry up!” says one of the other students at the door. “We’re going to miss the bus!”

“I’m so sorry,” the girl says. “But I have to go, bye!”

The student runs to her friends, leaving Celeste and me to stare at each other. Celeste has gotten as much of the stain out as she can, which unfortunately isn’t much. She wraps her arms around herself and shivers.

I don’t have to look out the window to know it’s still pouring outside. The rain is a steady drum that accompanies the café music, like it’s part of the track.

“Did you drive here?” I try.

She shakes her head. “No. I took public transportation. Didn’t want to deal with all the traffic and parking.”

A quick glance tells me Celeste didn’t bring an umbrella, like I did. I would just walk her to the train stop with mine, but she’s already shivering now from the iced coffee. And she lives on the other side of the peninsula, so a rideshare car will not only be expensive but also take forever because of the rain and afternoon traffic.

We look at each other for a long moment, and I want to groan in frustration. This is what I get for not picking somewhere that’s more in between the two of us.

“Do you want to come over to my place?” I finally ask. “It’s a five minutes’ walk away. I’ll lend you a shirt. And maybe an umbrella, too, if it keeps raining.”

Celeste raises her eyebrows. “Are you sure you’d be okay with that?”

“I can’t in good conscience let you go across the city like this,” I say. “Besides, I live with my friends, and they’ll be home. It’ll be fine.”

The truth is, I have no idea whether Kiara and Val are home or not. Knowing how late they went to sleep last night after playingBaldur’s Gate 3, I’m pretty certain they are, though.

Celeste bites her lip. “If you’re sure. Thank you. I appreciate it.”

When we step outside the coffeehouse, it’s raining so consistently that it feels like there wasn’t a time when it didn’t rain.

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