The Relationship Clause

Chapter 3

Today,before Mr. TDC comes into the shop, I triple check my teeth in a little hand mirror I borrowed from Kiera late last night.

The prognosis? Squeaky clean, pearly white, non-embarrassing chompers.

But because I’m now super paranoid, I text a picture of my teeth to Kiera as well.

Junie:Make sure you zoom in close. I do NOT want a repeat of yesterday.

Kiera:I zoomed in, and your teeth look great. But you know, the chances of the same embarrassing thing happening two days in a row are slim. It’s more likely you’ll do something completely different this time.

Junie: Gee, thanks. You’re a regular cheerleader.

Kiera:GIF of Snoopy waving pom poms.

Junie:Are you coming to see me this morning?

Keira:Briefly. I’ve got a big meeting I need to be at. See you soon!

“You know what they say about people who drink black coffee, don’t you?”

I jump and almost drop my phone. Stuffing it back into my pocket, I send a glare at my coworker, Marlee, who snuck up behind me. She nearly scared the crazy out of me. Nearly.

I roll my eyes at her statement but still take the bait.

“No, Marlee, what do they say about people who drink black coffee?”

She moves swiftly beside me, handing a customer their order and flicking her pink ponytail behind her flirtatiously. The early morning, before-work crowd rush is in full swing, which means an influx of members of the Marlee Fanclub; all of them young guys with no hope. “People who drink black coffee are more likely to be psychopaths.”

She’s referring, of course, to Mr. TDC’s order. His drink, along with about two dozen others, are currently being arranged in a couple of boxes along with four dozen raspberry pastries. It’s the first Friday of the month which is when someone from Mr. TDC’s work calls in an order for the whole office. Mr. TDC himself should be in soon to pick it up, and my nerves are all jumbled thanks to the embarrassing fiasco from yesterday.

Previous four months notwithstanding, I now have an unmitigated need to prove to him that I do, in fact, know how to brush my teeth like a normal human.

Marlee knows I’ve been crushing on him since the moment I laid eyes on him and is now probably trying to get under my skin.

Probably.

“You’re lying,” I snap.

“No, it’s true. Look it up. People who drink dark coffee tend to display more sadistic personality traits such as selfishness, vanity, and manipulation. They did a study on it.”

I turn my back on her to clean up a creamer spill on the counter. Pete is once again confining me to the stool, but I find I can still get little things like this done when he’s in the back with his wife like he is now.

I want to ignore her, but Marlee happens to be studying psychology at Clemson University, and I’ve been proved wrong by her on more than one occasion.

“Or,” I say, trying to remain positive, “maybe he doesn’t want the extra calories of cream or sugar in his coffee.”

Not that he needs to worry. The man is fit. In the summertime, he sometimes comes into the coffee shop having already taken off his suit coat, and boy, do those shoulders scream “broad” under his button ups. It’s the shoulders that always get me. Some women like abs or chests or veiny forearms, and don’t get me wrong, those things are nice, but it’s the shoulders for me.

Marlee shrugs and lifts one of her pierced eyebrows. “Whatever you want to tell yourself.”

I’m about to make a retort when my favorite person walks into Pete’s Perk Up.

“Kiera!” I say, singing her name.

She smiles and waves, then dashes over to the counter. A couple of people in line give her the stink eye, but she throws them one of her patented disarming smiles.

“Don”t worry, y’all, I”m not here to order,” she says. “Just saying hi to my best friend here.” Then she leans over the counter and pulls me into a fierce hug. She’s careful not to pull me too tightly though because she knows I’m still in some pain.

Normally, public displays of affection like this would mortify me—I’m not much into PDA—but I’ve come to accept them from Kiera. She exudes sunshine and kitties and all the happy things, and the sooner you accept the fact that she will love you harder than a two-year-old loves ice cream, the better off you’ll be.

“Has he come in yet?” she whispers before she pulls away.

“Not yet.” I go back to stocking the cups. “But stick around another three minutes and you’ll finally see him.”

Kiera winces. “I can’t. I only stopped by for literally ten seconds. If I’m late to this big meeting, my boss will have my neck.”

“Come on, what’s your brother going to do? Fire you?” I scoff.

Kiera gives me a serious look. “That option is definitely on the table.”

For the past six months, she’s been working at some up-and-coming tech company with her older brother as her boss. It was touch and go at the beginning. According to her, their personalities are like night and day. Working for him was the last thing she wanted to do, but after her own business venture failed, she was left with few options. Recently, they managed to come to a cautious understanding, so things have been a little smoother, but she still tiptoes around him in order to keep the peace.

“Anyway, I’ve got to go,” she says, already walking away. “Call me later and we’ll do dinner together.”

“Will do. Bye!”

I finish getting Mr. TDC’s order ready when not twenty seconds later, the man himself walks through the door. I swear I hear the kind of music that would be playing on a cologne commercial. Any second now, he’s going to shrug off that wool coat, loosen his navy tie, and—

“Careful, Junie, you’re drooling.”

I snap my jaw shut. Pete is beside me now, smirking and arranging another large order. “I was not drooling,” I say, but we both know I’m lying. Metaphorically speaking, at least.

“Ask him out.”

“Ha. Nope. Not going to happen.” I smile as I take the woman’s card in front of me. There are now two people between me and Mr. TDC.

“Come on,” Pete murmurs. “Isn’t it the twenty-first century? Aren’t you one of those liberated women or whatever?”

“I am, but…” I trail off, unable to have this conversation with Pete right here and now.

I’m totally not against asking a guy out. Yes, it terrifies me, but I’ve done it before. The thing is, I don’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to sticking around in most of my relationships.

Truth be told, not counting my Dad, Kiera is the longest-running relationship I have, and that’s only because she latched on with her Care Bear-like claws and wouldn’t let go. Even when I sorta kinda did my typical ghosting of her after we were no longer roommates, she drove over to my house and pounded on the door until I came out, head hanging. She then proceeded to hug my brains out while she told me very firmly and very loudly that she would not let our friendship slip away as if it meant nothing just because I tend to shy away from commitment in all forms…

But that’s not the point. The point is, although I may dream of what my babies would look like with Mr. TDC, the actual follow-through it would take to make said babies happen is kind of…lacking.

So I should probably be thankful the teeth fiasco happened yesterday. Nothing is ever going to happen between us, and that’s a good thing. Instead, I’ll continue to admire him from afar and dream.

Speaking of afar, Mr. TDC is next, and suddenly, he is front and center in my line of sight. I’m vaguely aware of the motion beside me as Pete and Marlee bring everything for his order to the counter, but other than that, a train could roll through the front window and I wouldn’t notice.

“Good morning, Junie,” he says, eyes burning into my soul.

He used my name. Has he ever done that before? No. If he had, I definitely would have ingrained it into my memory forever. My name sounds almost sensual coming from his lips.

He hands over a card and I take it, glancing down, hoping it has his name on the front, but no. It’s a company card, and I lose interest in it quickly because—hello!—he’s still looking at me like I could be the answer to all his problems.

Or maybe I’m projecting a bit.

I break eye contact and run his card through, then hand it and the receipt back. Our fingers brush, and it’s like the sweetest torture.

“Do you, um, need any help with all that?” I ask. Dang, guess I’m feeling brave this morning.

He gives a small smile as he starts gathering boxes in his arms. “Thanks, but I’ve got it. My building isn’t too far from here.”

It’s not???

But before I can say anything else, he’s gone again, like a freaking genie in a bottle.

“Oooh, shoot,” Marlee says behind me.

Both Pete and I turn to her. She’s standing there with a cup of coffee in her hands, a suspicious look on her face. “Did Owen leave already?”

Owen?! Why the heck is she on a first name basis with Owen? How long has she known his name? Why didn’t I ever think to ask her what it was???

“Yeah, he just left. Why?” Pete asks.

“I forgot one of his drinks.” Marlee hits herself comically on the side of her head. “Silly me. Oh well. I guess someone will have to take him this coffee in person.”

Then she looks at me.

And I look at her.

And now she’s staring at me. Hard.

And I’m staring back at her.

Pete sighs super long and loud. “Junie, will you take that man his poor, forgotten coffee?”

OH!

I practically rip my apron and nametag off and invade all of Marlee’s personal space. “You are a mad genius, and I will never forget what you did here today.” Then, forgetting my non-PDA self, I give her a tight, quick hug and pluck the coffee from her hand.

“Hey, you think she’s the mastermind behind this plan?” Pete says, holding his hands out.

I grin and give him a quick one-armed hug as well. “Thank you! But, um, I don’t know where his office is.”

“I’ve already texted you the address,” Marlee says.

I have so many questions, but asking them would be the equivalent of looking a gift horse in the mouth, so I zip my lips shut.

“Also, here.” Marlee hands me something and I take it, realizing too late what it is: a minty stick of gum. “Just in case,” she whispers, winking at me. I can feel the blood rush to my cheeks and practically run out the door. Still, I pop the gum in my mouth because…well, I don’t know why, okay? I just do.

Mr. TDC’s—ahem, I mean, Owen’s—office happens to be two blocks down the road. It’s in a building I’ve passed at least a hundred times before. It looks big, expensive, and impressive, though actually not the biggest building in downtown Greenville by comparison.

I enter the building, and my pulse immediately spikes. I find the elevator and press the button for the sixth floor—because, yes, Marlee’s text even included what floor his office is on.

As soon as the shiny doors close, I immediately start to panic.

What the heck am I doing? Bringing Mr. TDC his forgotten—no, stolen—coffee, yes, but WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING?

What do I think is going to happen? This isn’t a fairy tale. He’s not going to see me bringing his coffee to him like some upside-down version of Cinderella and drop down on one knee. I’m clearly the pauper in this story, not the prince—er, princess.

And anyway, I don’t want him to drop down on one knee. I don’t even know what I want. One thing’s for sure, he does not want me. Or he won’t, once he realizes what I am: a runner with a capital R.

Ding!

The elevator doors open, and I suck my panic back inside me. It’s still there, believe me, but I’m containing it. I’m good at containing my freak-outs.

Now, I’m just a girl in an elevator, holding a coffee that isn’t mine in an office that I so clearly don’t belong in. This place is intense. I can feel the buzz and the energy the second I step into the room. People are running around, talking to each other, gathering in a conference room, rushing for papers and computers and probably the launch codes to some top-secret, nuclear weapons, who knows? It literally feels like anything could be possible in a place like this.

My panic is at an all-time high, and I’m about to turn my butt back around and run back to Pete’s with my tail between my legs when a familiar voice calls my name.

“Junie?”