“I appreciate that you didn’t want to spend a month texting,” she started. “I’m back online after a while and that’s the one thing that I was dreading the most.”
“Oh no. At our age, we have no time to play games, am I right?”
“Right,” Kareena said. Wait, was he calling her old? “Uh, are you local?”
Dave spread his knees and leaned back against his chair. “No, but my parents still live here in Edison. I’m trying to get them out of New Jersey, though. Maybe Delaware. The property taxes in this area are just too difficult to manage, especially since my father is going to retire next year. It’s such a burden, you know?”
“I know,” Kareena said. “I’m a Jersey girl through and through, though.”
“Yeah?” he said. “I can see that.”
Now what in the hell did that mean?
“Where do you live?” Kareena asked.
“I’m in Guttenberg. Awesome apartment. Right across the river. I even have a little balcony. I do scotch tastings on my balcony with some of my friends. It’s classy.”
That sounds like the most boring thing in the world, Kareena thought. Was that in his profile? No, his profile basically said he liked movies and hanging out with friends.
“Sounds like a lot of fun.”
“Oh, it is,” he said. “In fact, my roommate and I are thinking of going into business together and starting our own premium liquor brand.”
“Roommate?” Kareena couldn’t tell quite yet if that was a red flag. At their age, tons of people still had roommates. The tristate area was expensive, after all. But he’d said he lived alone when they texted.
Dave leaned back in his armchair, legs spread. “She’s working in publishing, but she has the best tongue for tasting ever. Tasting scotch, I mean.” He laughed at his own joke. “She’s never tasted anything else of mine, if you know what I mean.”
Kareena looked up at Prem who was now watching her like a TV show. He had to have heard Dave’s comment. Judging by the smug smile on his face, he was enjoying every minute of it. There was nothing for him to be smug about, though. She’d give Dave the benefit of the doubt that he had a platonic, healthy relationship with his co-ed roommate. They probably only shared utilities and a common area . . . right?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Dave said with a laugh.
“You do?”
“I do. How do my Indian parents let me live with a straight, single woman? Well, I’ll be honest. They don’t know. They think my roommate is a guy. But I’m not worried. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
“Oh,” she said.
She looked at this too-cocky, legs-spread-wide finance guy who lied to his parents about his roommate, who lied to her, and realized that he wasn’t attractive at all.
Kareena wanted to speak to the manager. She wanted to return this model. It was not the right fit for her.
As Dave continued to ramble about the justifications for lying to his parents, Kareena couldn’t help but wonder why she second-guessed herself, when she was usually so decisive. She needed to sharpen her intuition if she was going to start dating again like this.
Kareena began mentally drafting her text message to her friends in her head. She took a sip of her drink and was instantly hit with a ton of milky air.
“There’s a lot of foam on this,” she said, interrupting Dave’s monologue.
“Oh,” Dave said. “Yeah.” He grinned at her like she’d just discovered his brilliance. “Foam is totally the best part of the drink.”
“I am not a foam fan,” she said. “I’m just going to have them scoop it out. One second, I’ll be right back.”
“Wow,” he said, his smile slipping from his face. “Okay, well, what if you try it again? Maybe it’ll change your mind? It really is the most delicious part of a latte, feel me?”
There was absolutely nothing delicious about foam, she thought. It was literally air. And she really wanted to tell him how much she absolutely did not want to feel him at all.
“Come on! Try it again.”
Because she knew that Prem was watching, she lifted the cup to her mouth and drank deeply hoping that some of the milk would come through the froth.
The hot liquid practically scalded her tongue, and it definitely didn’t taste like a plain latte. It had been so long since she’d had cinnamon that it took her a moment to identify it. By then, she’d already swallowed a huge gulp. Kareena put the cup down as far away from her as she could.
“Is there cinnamon in that?” she blurted out.
He nodded, his white teeth flashing again like shiny pieces of Dentyne gum. “Yes! It’s the flavor syrup. I know you said no cinnamon, but what normal person doesn’t like cinnamon? I knew if you tried it again, you’d change your mind. Flavor can change your life, Kareena. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I do mind,” she said. “I absolutely do mind.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Because of some concentrated cinnamon syrup? I didn’t think you’d be that kind of person.”
She had no idea what that meant, nor did she exactly care.
“When a person tells you what they want, don’t ever think that you know better.” Achoo!
“Oh. Uh, bless you.”
Achoo!
And here came the itchiness, she thought. She pushed up the sleeves of her button-down and saw small red bumps forming on her arms. Damn it, she’d jinxed herself by forgetting her EpiPen and Benadryl. The last time she had to use either was a decade ago, so she had no idea how she was going to react now. A little bit of cinnamon in Indian food gave her some rashes, but the concentrated stuff? It could send her into anaphylaxis.
“Whoa, uh, your face is looking a little red, and that’s something with our skin tone.”
“I’m allergic to cinnamon.”
“Shit.”
Before she could get out of her chair, Prem was crouching next to her. “Where is your EpiPen?” he said.
“I don’t have it on me. Achoo!”
“You came to a coffee shop with an allergy to cinnamon and forgot your EpiPen? That’s great.”
He remembered.
“Open up,” he snapped.
“What?”
He held her head in his palms. “Open your damn mouth, Kareena.”
There was something in his tone that had her snapping to attention. Prem used his cell-phone light to check her throat.
Seconds later, he was pulling her to her feet. “Come on. Where is your car?”
“I don’t have one here,” she said. Achoo!
Kareena barely had a second to grab her bag before she was pulled across the café and through the front door. She registered Dave’s shocked expression as Prem dragged her to his pretentious Audi A7 toward the back of the lot. He shoved her in the passenger seat, ran around the front, and got behind the wheel.
“I need you to tell me if you start to have a hard time breathing. We don’t want anaphylaxis.”
“What will you do, celebrate? Achoo! God, I’m so itchy. I told him I didn’t want cinnamon!”
“He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who cared,” Prem said as he sped out of the parking lot. “Any allergies to latex or other medication?”