Not alone, an annoyingly superior voice whispered in the back of her mind.
Max held the door open for her, and she felt her arm brush up against his as she stepped through. She snatched it back firmly. Who made doorways so damn narrow, anyway? It wasn’t practical.
The café inside was intimate and classy—wooden flooring, lighting that managed to feel almost bar-like in quality, with a blackboard at the back of the room. The smell of coffee was gorgeous, with something else mixed in there too—something sweeter yet distinct, like ginger—and the sound of grinding coffee beans made Josie relax slightly. It was just coffee. Coffee in a well-lit, comfortably warm room. She slipped off her jacket, let Max get the drinks as she found a table—one of the round ones with little bar stools around it.
“Thanks,” Josie said as Max set down a fancy-looking coffee in front of her—in a tall glass like a latte, the milky brown of the top part merging with the almost russet brown of the coffee below.
“I didn’t know what you wanted,” Max said almost apologetically as he sat down on the stool next to her—a healthy, safe distance apart, she was happy to see. And if the space between their knees seemed to hum, that was nothing, it was only the warmth of the air in here, that was all.
Josie took a sip and tasted the ginger she smelled in the air. “It’s delicious.”
“The house specialty,” Max said, his voice carrying more of that teasing tone she’d gotten used to. They both went quiet again, taking sips of their coffee. Josie made a show of looking around the café, noting that it was getting fuller by the minute, in an attempt to distract from the cringeworthy awkwardness. God, it hadn’t been like this last night, out in the castle grounds. But then, she hadn’t had those helpful glasses of wine today, and unlike a moment stolen in the shadows, here in the daylight, in a room full of people, it was all too easy to remember that he had left her—that he had left her, and that he was now with someone else, so nothing could happen between them again.
“So, what do you think?” Max asked. “Will you drop Geoff a line?”
Josie winced as she took a too large swallow of her drink, the top of her mouth burning slightly. She looked away as she coughed. Nice, Josie. “Yes,” she said. And saying it out loud made her realize the truth of it. She nodded, tilting her chin up a little. “Yes,” she said again, more decisively. “I will. Who knows what’ll happen, but it’s worth a try, right?”
He nodded. “Couldn’t agree more.”
She hesitated, then said, quietly, “Thank you.” She looked him right in the eye, those gorgeous, two-toned eyes. “Really. Even if nothing comes of it…Thank you. For thinking of me.”
His gaze lingered on her face in a way that made her nerves tingle. “I do, you know,” he murmured.
Her breath hitched. “What?”
“Think of you.”
What a thing to say. She wanted to be mad, to hate him for it. But their gazes met and held for a beat too long. And in that moment, Josie was back in the bar at Christmas, sipping cocktails in the corner, feeling his skin pressed against hers, hearing his voice as he whispered to her over the din of the music. The memory of it—of what happened later that night—flooded through her in a hot wave. She blinked, and was back in the coffee shop, a toddler crying in the corner, the coffee machine whirring. Taking a slow breath, she looked down at her coffee, wishing then that she’d asked for an iced tea instead.
“So,” she said, still not looking at him. “You and Erin.” A way to remind herself, as well as him. There was no point in ignoring it, anyway, and better to get it out in the open.
Max rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah, look, Josie, about that—”
“I’m not asking for an explanation,” Josie said quickly. She didn’t want him to think she needed one, not after so long. “I just meant…She seems nice.”
“She is,” Max said, and for some reason, even though she’d said it first, Josie’s stomach dropped a little. “But it’s just…Erin, she’s…”
But what exactly Erin was Josie didn’t get the chance to find out, because at that moment two ladies, one wearing a tartan skirt, the other a tartan cap pushed to one side like a fashion statement, came up to their table.
“Do you mind if we share your table?” the woman in the skirt asked. American, Josie noted. “It’s just, there’s nowhere else to sit right now.”