AS LUNCHTIME APPROACHED, more of the red-cushioned chairs in the café became occupied by locals, students, and tourists. Occasionally Katrina glanced up to people-watch. Since so much of her brain was occupied with her crush, she couldn’t help but notice the couples in the room. The two giggling college girls who walked in holding hands, wearing goofy smiles. The older couple at the counter, familiarity in the way the two men stood and chatted with each other. The newlyweds in the corner, rubbing noses and cooing. The young parents who sat nearby, harried and yawning while they passed their chubby baby back and forth so they each could eat.
It was almost too much to bear. She tried to get lost in her book and nearly succeeded until she heard footsteps pause next to her table.
“Excuse me?”
She used her finger to hold her place and casually glanced up.
Her finger slid out of the book. The thriller was no longer the most thrilling thing around.
The man looming above her was so breathtakingly attractive she had to battle a sudden urge to scrub her eyes like a cartoon character of old.
The stranger had the jaw of a Disney prince, with a cleft in his chin to match. His unzipped red sweatshirt revealed a soft blue-gray shirt that matched his eyes, and his auburn hair was artfully tousled.
He held an absurdly tiny espresso cup in his big hands. “Hi. It’s so crowded in here today.”
Her back was against the wall, so he must be talking to her? “Um. It is,” Katrina agreed.
He gestured to the seat across from her. “Is this taken? Do you mind if we share a table?”
“Oh.” She glanced around. The young woman sitting at the table next to her, a leggy blonde in yoga pants and a sweatshirt, gave her a curious look before leaning forward to whisper something to the dark-haired man she was with.
Katrina’s gaze skipped over them to meet Jas’s. He’d placed his book facedown on the table, and he was making no secret of the fact he was watching carefully, his face hard and suspicious.
When Katrina had first started coming here, she hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone other than Mona and her employees. It had taken her a while to get to a point where she hadn’t felt nervous about a stranger sharing her table, especially when it was crowded.
Having panic disorder meant she could have an attack at any time. Sometimes anxiety or her PTSD triggered it. Sometimes she couldn’t tell exactly what pushed her body into it. Between years of therapy and meds, she’d learned how to occasionally catch a warning.
Katrina often felt like she had a perpetual scanner checking her vital signs. Heart rate, breathing, headache, adrenaline surges. It ran in the background like a sleeping computer program.
Jas started to rise, and she gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. He paused, then sat down, though he kept his attention on them. “Sure, no problem,” she said to the man.
She continued her internal check as the man sat down, the same way another person might check their pulse.
No alarms going off. Was there anything else, though?
She searched for anything other than appreciation of his beauty, but there was . . . nothing. No interest, no zing. Only the same detached interest she felt when she swiped through hundreds of men’s profiles on her app.
This could be your meet-cute, though. Give it a chance.
Her romantic side perked up a little as she envisioned this story playing out on a movie screen, like it was happening to someone else. Sharing a table in a crowded café was the cutest of meet-cutes! Maybe only matched by bumping into a man in a grocery store and having him pick up the peaches knocked out of her basket.
Or the croissant knocked into his lap.
Nope, she was not thinking about the croissant.
The man gave her a smile so perfect, even she, a smile expert, was impressed. “Hey, new seatmate,” he said.
“Um, hello.”
He scooted his seat closer to the table. “I’m Ross.”
She angled her baseball cap down. “Hi,” she repeated.
“What’s your name?” he prompted, which was an utterly reasonable thing to ask.
“Kat.” Only her inner circle of friends and staff knew her full name.
“Pretty name.” His grin widened. He produced a paperback from his sweatshirt pocket. A sci-fi novel, if the cover was anything to go by.
“Thanks.” She tugged on her T-shirt. If this was a meet-cute, she wished she’d worn something a little more attractive and form-fitting today.
“Thank you for letting me share your table.” He shifted, and before their knees could bump under the small table, she pulled her legs back instinctively.
Fool! You were supposed to let them bump.
“No big deal.” Since she’d lost the bump opportunity—the bumportunity—she ought to say something clever. Damn it. She shouldn’t have gone down the meet-cute alley in her brain. She was feeling too much pressure now.
You’re good at talking to people, at evaluating them. She’d never been a shy person, even if life had made her wary.
She slid her hand into her pocket and caressed her fidget stone. “Do you live around here?”
Ross put his book on the table. The spine was cracked.
That’s not a deal-breaker for a meet-cute. Still, she protectively cupped her own carefully intact book spine.
“No, it’s my first time in Santa Barbara.”
“Oh, you’re a tourist.” Her shoulders lowered, some of the pressure relieved. Meet-cutes didn’t happen when someone was on vacation.
Her inner romantic, that bitch, squinted at her, and quickly filled her brain with the fifty-seven and a half romantic comedies that started exactly that way.
“Kind of. My mom just moved here. Thought I would make sure she and her golden retriever are settling in well.”
Most people might be more touched at the man’s care for his mom, but she perked up for another reason. “Golden retriever?”
“Yeah.” He unlocked his phone, scrolled, and turned it around to face her. “That’s her. Well, my mom and Sandy.”
She ignored the mom, and zeroed in on the dog. “Oh my God. She’s so cute.”
“She knows.” He swiped right, and a helpless noise of adoration escaped Katrina’s mouth. “Yeah, she’s even cuter dressed up.”
She grinned at the pup in a tutu. “What a beautiful creature.”
“Inside and out. Her sister was my dog, actually. She passed away last year.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged, though sadness tinged his eyes, turning them a darker gray. She swayed toward him, eager to ease the upset. Katrina pulled her phone out of her pocket and turned it on. “Here’s my cat. Her name’s Zeus.”
He visibly cheered as she showed him a few pictures of her tuxedo cat. Jas had found the cat for her at the humane society, so she wasn’t actually sure what breed she was, but Zeus had a nice hold on her heart. “Gorgeous.”
“She is. Very cuddly. A dog is next on my list.”
“I got Sandy and her sister at a shelter a few years back. You can find the sweetest dogs there.”
“That’s my plan. Sometimes I scroll through the adoption websites.”
“I heard someone say that pet adoption websites and real estate sites are like dating apps for married people.” His gaze dipped to her left hand.