Chapter 10 #2
“Water,” she said, just to prove to Thomas she wasn’t hungry. She glanced at the sandwich again.
“Sure thing, hon.” Angela poured her a glass and moved on to the next table.
Nadia gulped down the water. Thomas nudged his glass across the table and she greedily drank his. “What are you working on?” she asked.
“College apps.”
“What did you decide on?”
“Schools or majors?”
“Both.”
“Stanford, Georgetown, Yale, and USC. Poli sci or international relations, depends on the school.”
“Stanford still your first choice?”
“Yep.”
“You’re smart. You’ll get into them all.”
“And you’re drooling on the table.” He pushed his plate between them. “Take half.”
“No, thanks.” She purposely didn’t look at the sandwich. She’d never admit how famished she was, or that her kitchen was bare, not even to Thomas. And he knew more than most people.
“Eat the sandwich,” Thomas pushed.
Hunger overruled her pride and she scooped up her half, biting into the crusty bread with a moan of satisfaction. She’d worked up a serious appetite riding around. With a slight frown, Thomas watched her eat.
“Only because you wouldn’t shut up about it,” she said through a mouthful.
“Whatever.” He continued working on his forms, intermittently glancing up at her with an expression somewhere between concern and careful distance.
It wasn’t the first time he looked at her that way, like when his friends made crude jokes about her and his jaw tightened.
Or the way his hand would hover near hers on the table before pulling back, as if there was an invisible boundary between them.
She was glad he was choosing the majors he wanted and not the econ and international business his dad had been pressing him to study.
“How’s your mom?” he asked.
She finished the sandwich and wiped crumbs from her chin. “The same.”
His mouth flattened. “Hear from your dad?”
She shook her head. Don wouldn’t return Nadia’s calls so she left scathing messages she wasn’t proud of begging for money.
Thomas stared at her. She squirmed in her chair. “What?”
“Nothing.” He filled in bubbles and Nadia’s stomach tightened. She blamed it on eating the sandwich too fast, but she felt a vague sense of unease that Thomas knew more about her situation than what she’d shared with him.
He put away his pencil and organized the forms before shoving them into a folder.
“Split a sundae?” he asked.
“You buying?”
He gave her a look. He always bought their food. One day, she’d pay him back.
He placed their order and a few minutes later, they dug into scoops of vanilla melting under hot fudge. Sharing a sundae with Thomas had become one of Nadia’s favorite highlights of the week. Joe’s had become a safe zone, and Thomas her safe place.
“Parents suck,” Thomas said. “But yours suck more than mine.”
Her head recoiled. It wasn’t the first time one of them mentioned that about their parents. But today, it set her off. Her mouth tightened so her bottom lip wouldn’t tremble. “You’re a dick.”
“What?” He acted surprised that he’d insulted her.
She grabbed her backpack and shoved back her chair.
“What did I say? Where are you going?”
She stormed from the diner.
“Nadia.” He followed her outside.
She quickly unlocked her bike.
“Nadia.”
She wrapped the lock around her handlebars and straddled the bike.
He grabbed her handlebars. “Why are you upset? I thought we agreed we had the worst parents.”
They did but he didn’t need to rub her face in it. Not today when she’d been feeling her lowest.
“Yours at least pay their bills so they won’t lose their house.”
The gold flecks in his eyes flared. “Are you going to lose your house?”
“Let go.” She yanked the bike from him. His hands snapped open and she stumbled back, catching her balance on the bike.
“Where are you going?”
“Home, jerk-off.”
“Don’t be mean.”
She didn’t know how to be anything else at the moment so she pedaled away as fast as she could. She didn’t look back. If she had, he would have seen that she’d started to cry.
The coffee started percolating and Nadia blinked, realizing she’d fallen down the rabbit hole of despair.
She collected her wayward thoughts and the coffee mugs, setting the ceramic cups on the countertop, the kitchen quiet under the coffeemaker’s spit and sputter.
Staring blankly at the brew dripping into the pot, she forced herself to focus on their present situation, wondering if there was any way out of this mess while Fernando Ruiz was out there.
She couldn’t see how, and that made her fret all the more.
She tapped the counter impatiently, willing the coffee to finish so she had something mundane to do. The pot beeped, signaling the brew session was complete, and Nadia snatched the pot. “Finally.”
She was pouring coffee into their mugs when Thomas joined her in the kitchen. “Still take it the same way you did those nights at Joe’s?”
“Guilty,” he said, coming to stand beside her.
She was acutely aware of his nearness, his arm nearly brushing hers.
She slid the mug of black coffee toward him, their fingers overlapping briefly on the ceramic, sending tiny electric pulses across her hand.
He thanked her for the coffee, adding some sugar and creamer, and turned to lean against the counter.
His brows shot up after his initial sip. “That’s strong.”
“It’ll keep us awake since it looks like we’re staying up for the night.”
“It’s good, thanks.”
Nadia snorted. “It’s crap, about as good as it was at Joe’s.
” The comment earned her a small laugh from Thomas and some of the tension left him.
She hadn’t seen him let his guard down since the first gunshot.
She’d also forgotten what his laugh did to his face.
The hard lines around his mouth softened until he looked like the person she used to know.
“Aimee’s though. Now that’s good coffee. ”
A sad smile touched his mouth. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Ah.” She pressed her mouth flat, sorry she’d brought up Aimee’s Café.
Thomas had kept his distance after she’d filed the restraining order against him.
She didn’t think he’d been to her coffee shop since Aimee had found James, and it wasn’t because he’d moved out of the area.
The restraining order expired years ago.
Thomas had just been giving her space, avoiding her after what he’d done.