Chapter Fourteen Taryn
Danny sat in his car with the window down, the engine running. I thanked him again for hanging out, tapped on the roof, and turned to walk away. But he called me back.
“Hey, T.”
Stopping mid-step, I turned toward him. “What?”
“A secret. Come here.”
When I leaned down, he slipped his hand around the nape of my neck beneath my ponytail and drew me closer.
The kiss should have been awkward, strange. Instead, it was a soft, lingering touch that melted my insides like ice cream on a hot August afternoon. My body shifted, atoms rearranging themselves to align with his. Though it only lasted for a few seconds, the kiss spanned years of longing. His full lips pressed to mine, a dream come true. Danny Chambers was kissing me.
When he let me go, I was too dazed to move. “Wh-what—”
“Have a great year, T.”
His smile lit up the dark December night. Then he put his car in gear and drove away.
Whether it was his invitation to get ice cream or driving around in his Mustang or maybe the promise of spending time together studying once classes started in the fall, something had triggered the dream again. I hadn’t had it in almost a year—not since I’d started dating Aaron last fall. Yet the night he introduced me to the best ice cream in town, it had filled my head again.
During Christmas of my sophomore year of college, Danny had come home on leave. We’d gone sledding, we’d gone to the theater to watch a couple of movies, and we’d played board games and card games with my family. He’d spent nearly all his time on leave at our house, which was understandable since the captain wasn’t big on celebrating holidays. Near the end of his time off, Danny went to North Carolina to visit his mom for a couple of days then returned for a day before reporting back for duty. On his way to the airport, he’d stopped by the house to say goodbye.
I’d thought he’d kissed me that day, but when he returned to duty and I returned to MSC, neither of us said anything about it whenever we texted or emailed or Facetimed. I didn’t ask why he’d kissed me, and he didn’t act like he’d kissed me at all. In fact, absolutely zero had changed in the way we talked to each other or treated each other. We were friends. Nothing more. Eventually, I came to the conclusion I’d made up the experience—had some kind of waking-fantasy version of that goodbye. It didn’t actually happen.
Yet whenever I dreamed this dream, I could feel Danny’s lips on mine—warm, soft, sure. The dream was inconvenient and a damned nuisance when I had a full load my senior year of college. It would have been so much better if he’d chosen a different school. Then the chance of seeing him regularly—or obsessing when I didn’t see him regularly—or seeing him with other women wouldn’t be messing with my head.
Throwing my covers off, I stomped into my en-suite bathroom and turned the shower on, determined to wash visions of Danny Chambers from my thoughts. As I stood beneath the spray, I forced myself to think about market trends and statistics and algorithms. By the time I’d slathered peanut butter on a toasted bagel and grabbed my backpack from its spot beside the front door, I’d managed to shift my focus to what mattered: my business class and setting myself up for success on my final.
Zoe slid in beside me in our usual spot in the far left corner of the second row in the lecture hall. We weren’t the nerdy kids sitting front and center, but we sat close enough to the dais to fit the profile. The heavenly aroma of Zoe’s Americano wafted past my nostrils, reminding me I had to wait until I’d clocked in at work to enjoy a coffee. Since I worked in a coffee shop, it would be ridiculous for me to stop somewhere on the way to class to pick up a morning brew. But I’d learned the hard way not to drop by the Coffee Kiosk for my “freebie” on the way to class—at least not if I didn’t want to work an extra twenty or thirty minutes to pay for it and earn the added bonus of being late to class.
Laughing at the way I mooned over her coffee, my friend said, “You poor thing. A desperate barista in search of her own coffee.”
Wrinkling my nose at her, I turned away and went to work unloading my iPad from my backpack.
“Don’t pout. Here.” She handed me her coffee. “Have a sip.” When I raised a brow at her generosity, she said, “It mellows you out so you’re bearable to sit with.”
I seriously contemplated shoving my elbow into her ribs, except I couldn’t chance spilling even a drop of the heavenly morning elixir. Instead, I tipped back a healthy swig of hot coffee and closed my eyes as the caffeine made contact with my nervous system. After taking a second—tiny—sip, I handed my friend’s drink back to her.
A mischievous grin tugged at the corner of her lips. “Better now?”
“Thanks. I needed that after the way I didn’t sleep last night.”
“Let me guess. Danny came around again.”
I shrugged.
“I’m starting to think he’s developing a thing for you.” Her grin turned positively wicked.
“It’s only because he doesn’t know many people yet. You could help by giving him a call—let him know I’m not the only one from Central Valley living here.”
With a long-suffering shake of her head, Zoe said, “We’ve discussed this before, Taryn. I have zero interest in him. Zilch. Nada. It’s not my problem if he’s a sad little Wildcats player with no friends.” She smirked. “Which won’t be the case for long once fall classes start.”
Our professor stepping up to the podium ended our conversation. Mercifully. I didn’t need to defend Danny. Especially not with Zoe. Especially because I didn’t want to expose more of my feelings than I feared I already had. I’d tried to pawn him off on her, give myself some breathing space with someone I trusted, but I should have known she’d see right through me.
For the next hour, the professor went over the major tenets of the class, reaffirming my smart decision to take the course during the summer. I doubted we’d receive such a thorough review during a regular fall or spring course. If I didn’t ace this class, I should probably just quit school and take on a permanent position at the Coffee Kiosk.
Directly after class let out, I practiced my only exercise of the day: jogging across campus to work. Early in the summer, I’d figured out the only way I’d do any sort of workout was if I parked at work, jogged to class, and jogged back to work afterward. It all came down to time management—something I hadn’t done as well since Danny’s arrival on campus.
I tossed my backpack into the trunk of my car and locked up before heading inside to start my long day working a double to close. I arrived to another madhouse with customers lined up to the door.
“What is going on? Is there a convention in town no one told us about, or did every Starbucks in the area suddenly lock its doors?” I asked Dash as I joined him and Sophie behind the counter.
“Hailey was supposed to cover for Natalie this morning, but I think she forgot,” Sophie said as she manned the espresso machine.
“Hailey is allergic to mornings,” Dash said, his tone disparaging.
Not for the first time did I think our boss had made the wrong choice by promoting Hailey over Dash. He might have had less experience, but he worked harder and was more reliable. At least he didn’t know he’d been up for consideration. I couldn’t imagine his attitude toward the other assistant manager if he’d known.
Wasting no time, I stepped into the rhythm of making smoothies and toasting pastries while Dash took orders and Sophie made coffees. An hour later, we finally snagged a second to breathe. I fixed myself my first coffee of the day—a double espresso—and leaned against the counter to savor it.
The chime over the door sounded, and there was Danny. In an old T-shirt and a ratty pair of jeans, he looked far too gorgeous and relaxed for someone who’d spent the entire morning working out.
“Hi, T!” His smile lit up the shop like a spotlight. He ordered his usual grasshopper latte and stood opposite me as I made his drink. “Guess who’s moved up the depth chart?”
Excitement shimmered around him like a halo.
“How far up?” I asked.
“Second-string slot receiver. I’d rather play wideout, but I’m not complaining. I’ll be on the field in the first game of the season.” The triumph in his eyes could make a believer of any skeptic.
After I slid his drink across the counter to him, I held out my fist for him to bump. “Nice work, Slick. I never doubted you for a second.” I meant it too. When it came to football, he would always be in the game.
My gaze zeroed in on his mouth as he sipped his drink and ran his tongue along his Cupid’s bow. For a second the move sent me directly back to last night’s dream. As though he could see into my head, a tiny grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He lifted his cup to it again but didn’t take a drink. My cheeks heated at him catching me staring at the sculpted perfection of his lips, and I turned to the back counter to hide—I mean, to grab my own drink and take a fortifying sip.
“This calls for a celebration. What time do you get off tonight?”
“The usual, but my final is tomorrow, so I’m afraid I can’t help you celebrate—at least not tonight.”
The disappointment on his face gave me the mother of all guilt complexes.
“But we could do something fun tomorrow night.”
“Yeah? What did you have in mind?”
I snorted a laugh at the cheesy suggestiveness in his tone. “I’ll come up with something.”
Right then, Hailey blew through the back door, breathlessly tying her apron on. “I’m so sorry I’m late. You have no idea what kind of morning I’ve had.”
“We had kind of a morning too, Hailey,” Dash said, his sardonic tone sailing right over her head as she spied Danny.
“Hi, Danny,” she said, her hand going immediately to her hair. She tugged her long braid over her shoulder where she could pet it over the top of her breast.
He tipped his chin in her direction and returned his attention to me. “You can keep it a little”—he held up his thumb and forefinger, leaving a speck of space between them—“low-key. But I’m counting on something good.”
Lucky for me, the shop’s air-conditioning kept the place somewhere just south of freezing or else the grin he flashed me would have melted my panties on the spot. And what was up with that anyway? With him? He’d tossed me a grin like that while completely ignoring my pretty coworker’s come-on? His antics made zero sense.
“Gotta go sling some tires around, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Is that a threat?” I teased.
He leaned a bit over the counter, his silver-gray eyes steely as he lowered his voice. “It’s a date.”
My eyes took an around-my-brain tour and came back to him. “If you’re not careful, you’ll hurt yourself with your ridiculousness.”
Laughing, he headed for the door. “Bye, T.”
“Bye, Danny.”
Hailey echoed me, and I slid my eyes from ogling his taut ass in his old jeans to catching the puzzled expression on her face.
“He hardly even looked at me.” Her tone hovered somewhere between pouty and stunned.
“That’s cuz he’s Taryn’s guy,” Sophie said. I thought she’d tuned out as she restocked cups and lids after the morning rush, but apparently not.
“He’s my friend, yeah.”
I wanted to shove the words back in and smack my hand over my mouth when Hailey’s face lit up at my admission. The woman didn’t need even that much encouragement.
On cue she said, “Then you won’t mind if I go after him.”
I minded. It kind of shocked me how much I minded. But I’d never once been in the game for Danny’s romantic interest, so in the end it didn’t matter what I thought.
“You don’t care whether I mind or not.” Grabbing the clipboard from beneath the register, I headed to the back room to “take inventory.” Read: escape Hailey and the barrage of questions about Danny I could sense she wanted to ask.
I didn’t know why her interest in him bothered me so much. It wasn’t like I hadn’t predicted it, or been steeling myself for the massive feminine interest Danny always drew. The way the two women in the ice cream shop—women old enough to be his mom—had openly eyed him when we were there only proved his universal effect on women.
Over the years I’d known him, he’d never hidden how tuned in he was to the way he affected most of the women he met. On the contrary, Danny relished his effect on all the girls. While he didn’t show off directly around me, I’d seen him in action at parties, after games, and in the hallways in high school. The man was the walking definition of chick magnet.
I managed to stay busy in the storeroom until the lunch rush. By then, Hailey was too busy filling orders and flirting with all the hot guys who stopped by the shop to grill me about my friend. Being located a couple of blocks off-campus meant loads of traffic from the men’s and coed dorms came through the Coffee Kiosk, giving my coworker her pick of men interested in spending time with her when she got off work. Perhaps their attention would be enough to take her mind off a certain blond receiver with a killer smile and a propensity for ignoring what was directly in front of him.
I nursed my morose thoughts as I blended smoothies at the back counter. Right when I turned around to call out the orders, the door chimed, and in walked a pair of massive Black guys. The one guy’s head barely cleared the top of the doorframe, while the much shorter guy’s shoulders completely filled one side of it. If the two of them didn’t play for the Wildcats, I’d eat my apron.
The second she set her eyes on them, Hailey dialed up the flirt to eleven. “What can we get you?” she asked. The wattage of her smile rivaled a beacon.
The tall one smirked when she dragged that braid over her shoulder, while the short, stocky one shot her a matching grin. The tall guy ordered a large Americano and his friend asked for a berry smoothie.
While Hailey rang up their order, I went to work making the smoothie and Sophie took care of the coffee. It was only when I was handing the smoothie across the end of the counter that I caught the name on the cup.
“Tarvarius,” I called to draw his attention away from Hailey and over to his drink. When he picked it up, I asked, “Out of curiosity, are you the same Tarvarius who plays for the ’Cats?”
His chest puffed up. “Seen my awesome play on the field, huh?”
“Uh, I’m here working most Saturdays.”
His smile faltered for a second before he rallied. “Yet you know who I am.”
The tall guy standing behind him rolled his eyes over the rim of his cup as Tarvarius showed off.
“I’ve heard your name. A friend of mine walked on the Wildcats this year. He was telling me about some of the characters on the team and mentioned your name.”
The tall guy smirked. ‘“Character’ doesn’t come close.” His deep voice was a dead ringer for James Earl Jones. “Who’s your friend?”
“Danny Chambers. He plays wide receiver.” Narrowing my eyes, I asked, “Do you dress up as Darth Vader every year for Halloween? ’Cause your voice could pass for his.”
The tall guy’s smirk morphed into a chuckle. “I get that a lot, but no.” Turning to his friend, he said, “It never takes long for people to get your number, does it, Tarvi?”
“Shut up, Fitz. Not everyone has to be the dad.”
“Fitz. Danny’s mentioned you too. Says smart people don’t mess with you.” The corner of my mouth inched up. “I can see why.”
“You hear that, Tarvarius? Smart people don’t mess with me.” Having about a foot of height on his friend, he bumped his elbow against Tarvarius’s shoulder.
“It’s too bad Danny plays on my side of the ball. I wouldn’t mind making him look silly in practice.” Tarvarius pouted.
“I don’t work many Saturdays,” Hailey said, horning in on the conversation. “I love watching Wildcats football.”
I wanted to gag at her breathy delivery, but both guys ate it up, especially after she came out from behind the counter to stand near them. From the way she divided her attention between them, it was sort of hard to tell which one she hoped would ask for her social media handle or her number. Watching her with them, I finally figured out her interest in Danny had as much or more to do with him playing for the ’Cats than it did with getting to know him as a person.
“Will you be at the opening game next Saturday?” Tarvarius asked.
She glanced over her shoulder at me, and I subtly shook my head in the negative. It was my Saturday off, and I was thinking about attending a football game.
“Unfortunately”—she shot me a dirty look, and I crossed my arms over my chest in defiance—“I have to work that particular Saturday.”
“That sucks.” Tarvarius sounded genuinely put out. Then he rallied. It seemed the guy was good at rallying. “The party celebrating our first win of the season will be at our place after the game. You should come. Big yellow house on Jock Street.”
When Hailey simpered a thank-you for the invite, I suddenly remembered I had a pitcher to wash. How men who otherwise came across as intelligent could fall for such a transparent come-on drove me bananas.
“You should come too, Danny’s friend,” Tarvarius said. His teasing smile was infectious, and I grinned back.
“I’ll think about it.”
When I went back to cleaning up utensils, I heard the three of them murmuring as they moved away from the counter. Didn’t take a genius to know someone was getting someone else’s number.
After the two football players left the shop, Hailey’s step had an extra bounce in it, confirming what I already suspected: the shameless flirt had made another conquest or two. At least it was Tarvarius and Fitz and not Danny.