Chapter Nine Taryn
As I worked my way through the end-of-day protocols for cleaning up and closing down the Coffee Kiosk, I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or disappointed Danny hadn’t made good on his threat to catch up with me today. Since it was his first day of practice on a team he was trying to walk on to, his attention would be on his goals. I couldn’t fault him for that. In fact I should be happy he had something better to do than show up at my workplace.
The bell above the door jingled a last-minute straggler, and an involuntary sigh of resignation escaped me. Did people truly need coffee at ten minutes to eight on a Monday night? Especially on a day when my feet were having attitude about me working a double?
I glanced up from where I was washing the pitchers we made smoothies in and caught Danny’s eye. My hands stopped mid-scrub as his smile slammed me right in the chest. Hastily returning my attention to my task, I finished rinsing soap from the pitchers and set them in the rack to dry. When I turned toward the counter, drying my hands on the towel hanging from a bar below the coffee machine, he was already there. That grin said he was happy to see me, which of course he was. Next to some guys he’d probably met in practice today, I was one of the few people in town that he knew.
I couldn’t help but let loose a tiny smile in response to his killer one. “Hey, Slick. Are you sure you want coffee this late when you’re facing early-morning practice?”
“If I order a grasshopper steamer, will you talk to me?”
My brows came together. “Um, I talk to you all the time.” A voice coming from the peanut gallery in the back of my head reminded me I’d been avoiding him since he came home, but I ruthlessly ignored it. “In answer to your weird question, no. You don’t have to order anything if all you want to do is talk. But I’m in the middle of cleaning up and closing, so don’t take offense if I get distracted.”
His eyes took a tour of the otherwise empty shop and came back to me. “Am I adding to your work if I get that steamer?”
I relaxed a fraction. “Nope. I haven’t cleaned the steamer wand yet.” Reaching for the cups, I asked, “What size?”
“Whatever your fancy name is for medium.” A smirk played over his lips as he leaned a hip against the counter.
Shaking my head at his ridiculousness, I grabbed a cup, pumped some chocolate syrup into it, added a shot of mint, filled it the rest of the way up with whole milk, and held it to the steam wand. After two years of practice, I could tell by feel of the cup and a certain faint scent of warm milk when the drink was perfect. I slid the cup away from the wand, ran my clean washcloth over it, popped a lid on the top of the cup, and handed it to him.
“On the house.”
“You don’t have—”
Waving a hand at him, I cut him off. “It’s your first week on campus. Consider it a welcome to Mountain State present.” I grinned and went back to work wiping down the counters.
I could feel his eyes on me as he sipped his steamer, but since he was the one who wanted to talk, I decided to wait for him to initiate. It helped that I had something to do to keep my hands busy. Sliding my eyes to the clock above the menu board, I noted it was straight-up closing time. I tossed my rag into the sink and stepped out from behind the counter and over to the front door, turning the lock and switching the “open” sign to “closed.” Then I grabbed a broom from the closet behind the counter and started sweeping the floors.
All the while, he sipped his drink and watched me until finally, I caved.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“Why you’ve been avoiding me since I came back.” Was it me, or had his voice deepened at some point over the past year?
I stopped working to face him, one hand on the broom, the other on my hip. “Are you serious with that ego? In case you missed it, I don’t live at Mark and Ginny’s place anymore. I pop in when I can, but I live, work, and go to school here.”
The floor took the brunt of my tirade as I all but attacked it with the broom for a minute or two before a snort alerted me I might have given myself away with my snark.
“Kind of defensive there, T.”
“Whatever,” I mumbled as I finished my chore and went to work refilling the condiments station. After I completed that task, I moved on to restocking cups and lids. Only when I accidentally caught his eye over the mountain of cups did I catch that I’d gone on autopilot. Everything I needed to do to close up, except for emptying the till, was done.
“Look, we can’t talk in here, or someone might come along and think I’m still open.” Nodding for him to follow me to the office, I cut the lights in the front of the store, leaving only one strip glowing above the work area. “Wait here,” I said when he stepped through the office door.
I grabbed the bag for the till and wasted no time cashing out and filling the cash bag with the evening’s receipts. It was the part of the job that never failed to make me nervous.
Now that I was an assistant manager, I was often in charge at the end of the evening. Usually I had a co-worker with me, but Gwen had had to leave an hour before close tonight for some reason she didn’t fully articulate, and I’d foolishly let her go. Obviously, I had some things to learn in my new position.
“Face the door, please,” I instructed Danny when I returned to the office.
He shot me a knowing smirk but didn’t argue. I hustled to shove the bag into the safe and close it up. Then I untied my apron, tossed it into the dirty apron basket, and grabbed my wallet and keys from my locker.
“We’ll head out the back, okay?”
His eyes danced above his cup as he took another pull from his steamer. “Lead the way.”
Once we were outside with the shop safely locked up, I led the way right back around to a bench located at the front of the Coffee Kiosk.
“How was your first day of practice?”
He chuckled as he sat next to me.
What was up with him sitting so close? Danny never crowded me. If anything he made sure to keep his distance.
“This is really good. You want a taste before I finish it off?” he asked, offering me his cup.
“Thanks, but I’ve had my quota for the day. You go ahead and enjoy that.”
He leaned back and sipped more flavored steamed milk.
“Practice was that bad, huh?” I asked when he remained silent.
“Practice was great, actually. I moved from the sixth row to the third.” He finished his drink and walked the empty cup to a nearby trash can. When he returned, he sat a touch closer.
Why was he sitting so close? Damn, he smelled good—clean and something uniquely Danny. It was all I could do to keep myself from closing the miniscule distance between us, stuffing my nose into his skin, and sucking in a lungful of his scent.
“What does that mean, you ‘moved from sixth row to third?’”
“In the meeting room, I started at the back with all the freshmen, transfers, and other walk-ons. By the end of the first practice, the coaches had moved me into the second string, one row behind the starters.” The pride in his voice brought a smile to my mouth.
“So you made an impression right out of the gate. Nice work.” I held up my fist for him to bump. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, T.” His smile dropped along with his voice. “So why have you been avoiding me?”
My whole head rolled with my eyes. “I was in town when you came home after your discharge. We had dinner, remember?” I shot him a side-eye. “I asked for time off on the Fourth and got one day off, which I spent with my family and you. You arrived on campus yesterday, yeah?”
He nodded.
“Kinda short notice for me to ask for time off, so you’ll have to get over it that I wasn’t standing in front of your dorm to welcome you to Mountain State.” Yes, I hid behind snark. No, I wasn’t apologizing. Why was he trying to back me into a corner?
“Taryn.” Something in the way he drew out my name had me looking into his eyes at last. “You’re avoiding me right now.”
“Danny.” I mimicked his intonation. “You’re making zero sense. I was exactly where I told you I’d be, and now I’m sitting right here with you.”
Clasping his hands between his knees, he cleared his throat and seemed to think about what he wanted to say. “Are you dating someone? Someone you don’t want to tell me about?”
As a serial dater himself, of course he’d go there.
“Are you asking if I’ve gone back to Aaron?”
“Yeah.” He put his hands up. “I saw the devastation on your face when you FaceTimed me after he walked out. If you’re back with him, we’re having words.” His eyes narrowed. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me—because you’re back with that dickhead and don’t want to hear about it?”
He thought I was avoiding him because of Aaron. At least my ability to keep my feelings to myself hadn’t let me down.
“I’m not dating anyone right now.” I caught myself picking at a tiny hole in my jeans and slid my hands beneath my thighs.
That tidbit seemed to relax him, yet he kept coming. “What’s the problem then?”
I shook my head and attempted a grin. “ We don’t have a problem. I have a job and school. Once classes begin for you in the fall, you’ll see. Tack on football, and I’ll be the one bugging you about avoiding me.” For good measure, I bumped his shoulder with mine and fisted my hand under my thigh as a tingle of awareness shot down my arm.
“Not gonna happen.” He turned those arresting silver-gray eyes full force on me. “I’ll always have time for you.”
I blinked. “Ouch.”
His brow shot up in a kind of “if the shoe fits” expression, and I didn’t think, just reacted.
“We aren’t in high school anymore. While you were off doing your thing in the Air Force, I was finding my own way here at Mountain State. I have goals too, you know. And I’m not seventeen anymore.”
“What does that mean?” he growled.
“I can’t drop everything I have going on so my calendar is clear for whenever you want someone to hang out with. Occasionally, you’re going to have to find other ways to entertain yourself.” A vision of him surrounded by football groupies seared my brain, and I faked a cough at the sudden pain that erupted in a gasp.
Patting my back, he said, “Easy there, sport.”
“Sorry.” I swallowed. “That came out of nowhere.”
His hand lingered between my shoulder blades for long enough to make goose bumps pebble my skin and for my nipples to stupidly tighten. Crossing my arms to cover the evidence of how his impersonal touch had affected me, I angled away from his hand.
“Tell me about football. Are you sore after your first day of practice?”
A weird expression flared in his eyes before he dropped his hand to his thigh and glanced out toward the quiet street in front of us where the streetlights were coming on. Somewhere over by the dorms a couple blocks away, loud laughter echoed off the buildings, carrying through the still twilight.
“I had a blast in practice. It felt right to be back out on the field. The guys are cool.” He smirked. “A few of them invited me to play Call of Duty after the morning session.”
Knowing his competitive nature, the corner of my mouth tipped up. “I can imagine how that went.”
Snorting a laugh, he said, “Yep. I reminded ’em what I’ve been doing for the past four years, but they insisted. So I kicked the shit out of them.” He shrugged, his tone nonchalant. “It had to be done.” The real side of him he never hid from me came out on a self-deprecating grin. “Lucky for me, we don’t scrimmage for a while. Two of those boys are defensive starters. I’m pretty sure they’d have let me know all about what they thought of me kicking their asses in a video game if we’d have met on the field afterward.”
“Eh,” I scoffed. “They’re probably all your pals already. Bet you’re all hanging out and drinking beer together by the weekend if not before.”
“Nah. After four years of living among people who take their partying as seriously as they take defending their country, I’m kind of tapped out on that whole hard-drinking scene.”
As he stretched his arms over his head, I shuddered at the sound of his vertebrae popping and realigning. Then he did something truly disturbing—he dropped his arm across the back of the bench. It was such a manspread thing to do, but not something he’d ever done around me.
The nearness of his body to mine was wreaking all kinds of havoc on my emotional well-being. My instinct was to take advantage, snuggle up close to all that sculpted muscle and delicious-smelling skin. But this was my friend. The guy who’d never shown one second of interest in me. Seriously, I needed to get a grip.
A nebulous fantasy of an incident at Christmas during sophomore year of college niggled at the back of my brain, but I couldn’t chase after it while simultaneously admonishing my body to quiet the hell down. This was Danny, for crying out loud, not some hot guy who might reciprocate my romantic interest.
I slid a little forward on the seat. “Well, dude, I have homework waiting for me back at my place. No doubt you have to wake up at dark-thirty for practice.”
“Sleep is an illusion on that excuse of a bed they give you in the dorms.” He groaned. “Trust me, no matter what time I go to bed, I’ll be awake in time to practice.”
Giving his knee an affectionate pat, I commiserated. “Let me guess. You don’t fit on a single.”
“The springs left marks on my back last night, I’m sure,” he complained.
“Maybe once classes start, you can ask for a new mattress. Some of the dorms have extras they keep for overflow housing. If they’re not using them, you can probably talk your RA into trading you out.”
“Coach said my nontraditional status will make it easy to skip the whole dorm living experience. I’ve let some of the guys on the team know I’m looking for a place.”
I shot him a side-eye. “Lucky you.” A passing car briefly drew my attention. “I met some fun people when I lived in the dorms. But I can see how it might be a pain to live among guys who are all so much younger than you.”
“My roommate for camp is this monster of a guard whose feet almost touch the floor while his head rests on the opposite end of the bed.” He chuckled. “He’s already lined up a place to live off-campus.”
“Does he have room for you?”
“Nah, but I’ll figure something out.”
Twilight was quickly darkening to night, and while I’d mentioned I had classes, my heart was dragging its feet to catch up with my head. But talking about beds and living arrangements wasn’t the best idea for my new resolve.
Giving him a little smile, I said, “You always figure something out.”
Standing, I tossed my keys in my hand. Danny snagged them out of midair. “You really have to go?”
Planting one hand on my hip, I extended the other palm up, wiggling my fingers for the keys’ return. “My homework isn’t going to read itself.”
“I could read it to you.” Now he was one-handed tossing my keys.
I snapped my hand out to intercept them, but he was faster. “Come on. Stop horsing around. I need to study, and you need to rest up or whatever.”
He held my keys above his head out of my reach. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
“I have the same schedule tomorrow as today—class followed by a double shift here.” I nodded toward the shop behind me.
“It’s getting pretty dark out. Let me walk you to your car.”
“Danny—” I shot him a look from beneath my brows. “I walk to my car every night.” Holding my hand out again, I said, “Keys, please.”
“I’ll give them to you at your car.”
I may have let out a growl at his pigheadedness, but secretly, I had to admit I liked how he wanted to watch out for me. We’d prolonged “good night” for a good fifteen minutes after I’d said I had to go, so maybe he didn’t want me to leave. Since he didn’t know many people yet and he didn’t have classes to keep him busy after practice, he was probably bored, and I was here.
He fell into step beside me as we walked back around the building to where my car was waiting in the six-car employee lot. When we were standing beside the driver’s door, I extended my hand for my keys again.
“Do you live nearby?” he asked.
“I live on the north end of town.” I stared pointedly at the hand still holding my keys from me. “Which is why I need my keys, please.”
“Address first.”
“Did the military teach you how to be such a big pain?”
A funny expression—something that almost looked like hurt—flashed over his features before he smirked at me. “I see. You don’t want me to drop by and catch you dancing to your collection of boy bands, huh?”
I rolled my eyes hard enough to pull a muscle. “You’re ridiculous.” Holding my hand out, I said, “Give me your phone.”
His brow shot up.
“So I can give you my address.”
He thumbed open his screen and handed me the device. After finding myself in his contacts under “T” I added my address then held back his phone.
“Hey!” he protested.
Slowly turning my head from side to side, I said, “Fair trade. You give me my keys, I give you your phone.”
Grinning at each other, we did a silly crossed-arms handoff—though he tried to cheat by tugging at my keys before relinquishing them to me.
“Have a nice night, Danny.”
“See you tomorrow, T.”