"What do you want?" she asks, folding her arms over her chest.
"Nothing. I just remembered you from last night and wanted to say hi."
She gives me a strange look. "Um, okay. Hi back." She continues down the street.
I walk beside her but a few feet away because she still seems wary of me. "I just moved here and I'm trying to learn more about the city. Are you from Denver?"
"No," she says, still walking.
"Where are you from?"
"None of your business."
Wow. She really doesn't want to talk. And yet when I caught her eye from down the street, I could've sworn she smiled at me. Or maybe she was smiling at someone else. Or just smiling about whatever she was thinking about.
I should leave her alone but I can't just let her go. Not yet. I've been thinking about her nonstop since I saw her last night. If she goes, I may never see her again.
"Can I get you a coffee?" I ask. "I'm heading to the coffee shop to do some work but I'd love some company before I dig into reading files."
She notices my laptop bag. "Where do you work?"
"At a law firm down the street."
"I don't like lawyers," she says, picking up her pace.
"You don't even know me. And I'm barely a lawyer. I just got out of law school. I've only been on the job two days. I'm more like half a lawyer. Maybe not even that. Would you be willing to have coffee with not quite half a lawyer?"
She laughs, which makes me smile. I made her laugh. I like her laugh. It's soft and gentle, not at all like the harsh persona she's trying to pull off. I don't think she's really like that. I think under the harsh exterior is a good person. Someone who's kind and generous. I know it's strange to say that since I just met her but sometimes you can feel what someone's like without really knowing them. I feel it even more so after being around someone like Lisa. The contrast between Lisa and this girl is like night and day.
"You like brownies?" I ask, still walking beside her.
"Yeah. Why?" she asks, not looking at me.
"The coffee shop has great brownies. If you'll sit with me a few minutes, I'll get you coffee AND a brownie. That's how desperate I am for company."
She glances at me. "I prefer donuts, specifically apple fritters. They're my favorite. But the coffee shop runs out of them by noon."
"If they had one, would you agree to sit with me while I have my coffee?"
"Didn't you hear me? They don't have them this late. They run out by noon."
"But what if they didn't?" I ask, getting an idea. "How about this? If we get to the coffee shop and they still have an apple fritter, will you have coffee with me?"
She smiles. "Sure, but I guarantee they won't have any."
"Then you'll be off the hook. You can continue on with your evening."
"Fine," she says as we arrive at the coffee shop.
I open the door for her. "Ladies, first."
"I'll just wait out here. They're not going to have any so it's not even worth going in there."
I sigh. "Really? You won't even go in?"
She stands there, which I guess is her answer.
"Don't leave," I tell her. I race inside, not at all confident she'll be there when I go back out to the street. And from what she said, I'm not confident the place will have any fritters left. I should've made a different deal. One that would ensure we'd get a chance to talk.
"Excuse me," I say to the girl behind the counter. She has her back to me, putting something away.
"Hi!" she says, turning toward me. "What can I get you?"
"Do you happen to have any apple fritters?"
She smiles. "It's your lucky day! We have one left. We almost never have them this late in the day." She reaches into the bakery case and pulls out the fritter, placing it in a bag. "Anything else?"
Not sure what kind of coffee to get, I say, "That's it for now. I'll be back in a minute to get the coffee."
She scrunches up her nose. "Are you sure you don't want to just order it now?"
"Just the fritter for now."
She nods and rings it up. I pay her, then race back outside. The girl is gone. What the hell? Did she really leave?
I look right and left. I don't see her anywhere. Then suddenly she appears from the side of the building. What was she doing there? Hiding from me? If so, she shouldn't hide in an alley. It's not safe.
"Hey," I say, getting her attention. "You said you'd wait for me."
"Actually, I didn't." She walks toward me. "You told me to and I decided not to."
"It was part of the deal."
"The deal was over before you even went in there. They don't have fritters this late so there was no need for me to stick around."
"You shouldn't make assumptions."
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning you were wrong." I smile.
"I wasn't wrong," she says defiantly. "I go to this place all the time and I know for a fact they sell out of fritters by noon."
"Hmm." I take the sack I had hiding behind my back and hand it to her. "Then what's this?"
She slowly opens the sack. Her eyes widen and her lips part but she doesn't say anything.
"The girl inside said it was my lucky day." I smile. "She was right. Now how about that coffee?"
4
Raine
I can't believe this. There are never fritters in the case past noon and now it's after seven and they had one left? How is that possible? Did the guy go somewhere else to get it? He couldn't have. He didn't have time. I left him alone for a minute, maybe two. Definitely not enough time to find one somewhere else. And there's nowhere else he could go. Everything around here closes at five except for the coffee shop.
"After you," he says, holding the door for me.
I can't go in there. If I do, Shelly, the girl who works the counter, might say something to let this guy know I'm homeless. But who cares if he knows? It shouldn't matter.
But it does. Because I don't want to be known as the homeless girl. It's not who I am. Not who I want to be. It's only temporary and I'm trying to fix it but until I do, I don't want people like this guy judging me, or worse, running off when he finds out.
Maybe I wouldn't care so much if it were anyone else, but THIS guy? I don't want him to know I’m homeless. I might have a small, tiny, minuscule crush on him. It's purely physical. I don't even know him so obviously what I'm feeling is simply a physical attraction but it's strong enough that I haven't been able to stop thinking about him since I saw him last night.
It was his body that first caught my attention. He's tall with big shoulders and muscular arms. Last night he had on a t-shirt that fit close to his body and my eyes immediately went to his muscular chest, then his biceps. Then I glanced up at his face and saw those blue eyes and that dark hair against his tan gorgeous face and had to look away so I wouldn't stare. When I glanced at him again, he smiled and I felt this strange flutter in my stomach. I thought maybe it was from something I ate. When you eat from the trash, you never know what will happen. Food poisoning is always a possibility. But this didn't feel like that. It was more like the excited flutter you feel when you're at the top of the roller coaster, or when you're opening a birthday gift as a kid and you know it's the one you really, really wanted.