Just Friends(17)

Does he want closure too? Is this an excuse to be near me?

And there it is. The thought I can’t help myself from wondering, no matter how naive it makes me feel. It was this exact type of thinking that got me into this mess in the first place.

“Okay,” my mom interrupts my flurry of thoughts, walking into the back room. “Work is done for the day! Let’s go home to Lottie,” she says with a smile.

I slam my laptop closed in haste and try to reorient my face to a neutral expression.

“Sounds good!” I force out.



* * *



On Friday morning, I steel myself and walk through the red French doors, waiting for someone to notice my arrival and intercept me. Peppy Teenager is nowhere to be found. Neither is Declan. I pretend to look busy at the lid and straw station before the front door is kicked open. Four cardboard boxes are stacked on each other, carried inside by carpenter-style pants and work boots. The legs and cardboard boxes come to a stop in front of me. My breath catches in my throat as the boxes are set at my feet, a disheveled-looking Declan appearing from behind them.

“Oh, hi, Blair,” he breathes, seeming to recalibrate at the sight of me. He drags his eyes from my shoes up to my face with a pained expression.

At least he’s upgraded from “Ms. Lang” to “Blair” again.

“Oh! Glasses?” I say, shocking myself with the comment.

Declan looks down at me, chest heaving slightly beneath his shirt as he recovers from the exertion. “What?”

His hair is damp at the ends, gathered over his forehead, grazing the tops of his glasses. I haven’t seen him wear them since middle school.

“Oh. Sorry, it’s just that… you’re wearing glasses,” I state like an idiot, standing with my finger pointed at them.

His eyes flick away for a moment, probably searching for an escape route. He presses his lips together before looking at me again. “I’m… sorry?”

“No. Sorry—I’m sorry. Never mind. I don’t know why I—” Someone please hit me over the head with an espresso machine.

“Um,” I try to recover. “I’m here for training?”

“Oh, yes. Harper will be training you,” he says, leaving the boxes and striding behind the counter.

“Harper!” he yells toward the back of the coffee shop. “One moment, let me find her.”

I nod and gesture with my hands that he is free to go searching. My gaze travels upward, snagging on a birdhouse hanging from the ceiling that was not here the last time I was. This one looks like a hand-carved, miniature version of the fairytale cottages downtown: a sloping roof, curved door, and circular window. There’s the faint sound of twinkling, and as I squint, I notice the silver metal wheels attached to the side are spinning. I’ve never seen decor like it in a coffee shop. I’ve never seen anything like it. I mentally pocket the image to analyze later.

Declan comes shuffling back, looking perturbed.

“So,” he starts, looking anywhere but me. “Harper just got a call that her cat has been throwing up since she left for work this morning. She’s rushing home to take him to the hospital right now.”

“Oh no, okay, uhh,” I stammer. “Should I just come back tomorrow or?”

“No,” he interrupts. “No. That won’t be necessary. I’ll just train you.” Declan presses his lips together again.

“Okay, sounds good.” I nod.

It doesn’t look like he wants to train me, I think to myself. In fact, he’s avoiding eye contact with me like I’m the source of a disgusting sewage problem. Too disgusting to face head-on or you might just get a whiff.

Finally, at my silence, he looks at me.

I look at him.

“Do we start out here or…”

“Yeah. But not looking like that.” His eyes dart around my face, skimming over my body and up again so quickly I almost chalk it up to my imagination. And then he spins on his heel and walks to the back room. Is my outfit inappropriate for training?

My mouth is agape as I try to reconcile what just happened. But after a second, Declan explodes from the back again, brushing through the double doors with an apron in his hand, a stern look coating his face. I would pay someone money to paint the expression I must be wearing right now.

“Put this on.” He sticks his arm out to me, a white apron fisted in his tanned hand. My gaze momentarily snags on the new veins and muscles in his forearm before I snatch the apron from his grasp. Four years has done great things for this man’s forearms.

“Oh. Thank you,” I mumble.

As I fit my head through the top and start tying a knot behind my back, I look up to find Declan studying me like I’m a puzzle he needs to solve. Making eye contact is an improvement, at least, but I hate the way I physically feel the difference in how he looks at me now. What was once intimate is now replaced by something cold, hard, with the tiniest hint of inquisitiveness. Like he doesn’t understand me anymore, but he wants to. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

“Come over here.” He spins around, gesturing with his arm to follow. “We’ll start on the basics.”

Something about this feels like a skit. I’m the one who taught him how to drink coffee in the first place. I messed with every coffee gadget great-aunt Lottie would order to the house. I taught myself how to make Frappuccinos, which graduated to cappuccinos, and then became an obsession with experimenting with weird flavors in my lattes.