Page 16 of Latte Girl
“Oh, shit.” He looks embarrassed. “Guess I shouldn’t have skippedbreakfast.”
“Do you want a cupca— I mean, uh, a muffin?” I offer, trying to keep my eyes from wandering the length ofhissuit.
“If I say yes are you going to magically produce one out ofthinair?”
“Well I wouldn’t want you to betooimpressed with me.” My insides are doing cartwheels over the fact that we aredefinitelyflirting right now. “I have some extra ones in themeetingroom.”
He looks over both his shoulders before starting to walk down the hall with me, and I figure he’s probably supposed to be workingrightnow.
How illicit, thinks my innertemptress.
We get into the meeting room and I put one of the muffins from the tray on a plateforhim.
Then we standthere.
“I guess I’ll eat this here,” he says finally. “Wouldn’t want to steal yourplate.”
I grab a muffin for myself to make things less awkward and we sit down beside each other at thetable.
“This is good,” he tells me after a few bites. “Did youmakethem?”
“Nah, I don’t usually do the baking.” I swallowanotherbite.
Then he’s leaning in towards me and the muffin falls out of my hands and onto my plate. I hear myself draw in a breath as my body turns to face him, watching as he reaches a hand towardsmyknee.
He leans back, holding up a small grey hair. “Did you get in a fight with a cat on yourwayhere?”
My heart is thrumming against my chest and I stare blankly at him as my brain catches up with the past few seconds. I look down at my knee and see that half my pant leg is coveredinhair.
“Oh, shitting hell. That must havebeenNemo.”
I duck down and start plucking some of the hairs off, hiding my burning facefromview.
Of course he wasn’t going tokissyou.
“As in...the fish?” I hearhimask.
“Actually yes,” I say, straightening up after getting myself back under control. “My sister really wanted a fish, but we got a dog instead. It’s funny; usually it’s the other way around, you know, kids wanting an exciting pet and getting stuck with a fish. She was so upset she named him Nemo anyways. She used to force him into these cardboard fish costumes she made. Once we caught her trying to take him in the bathwithher.”
I’d forgotten all about Amanda doing that. Jordanlaughs.
“So you live with yourfamily,then?”
I pick up my muffin again, embarrassed. “Yeah. Pathetic, isn’t it? It’s just my mom and my sister and me, so I help out a lot, cooking and babysitting. That kind of stuff. Also I’m saving up forschool.”
“That’s not pathetic,Hailey.”
The sincerity in his voice is enough to make me turn and look him in the eyes. He’s staring at me with an intensity that has me wondering if I really was wrong in thinking he was going tokissme.
Then ithitsme.
“How do you knowmyname?”
Now it’s his turn to drop his eyes and pick at hismuffin.
“At the cafe,” he explains, “I heard one of your coworkers talking to you.” He looks back up at me. “Sorry, that’s pretty weird,isn’tit?”
“Just a little...Jordan.”
