Chapter 14
Idon’t know who I’m looking at until I tilt my head up slightly, completely forgetting I’m in the middle of paying for my drink, when I find those emerald eyes watching me with amusement. The same ones from the bar, coming from the person walking me home from the bar. How in the hell have we managed to be in the same place not once but twice in a row on the same weekend? Gia and Sam are going to lose their minds when I text the group chat later.
“You must be stalking me,” I say. “There’s no way we can be in the same place at once two days in a row.”
Tanner’s lips twitch, and he dips his head slightly. “Is it stalking if we’re in the same public place without knowing the other will be there? As far as I’m concerned,” he says, taking a step forward and pulling his phone from his pocket to grab the card attached to his phone wallet. “You’re the one stalking me.”
I’m about to protest when he steps around me to hand the barista his card. “Can you add a large Americano to her order? Room for cream, please.”
“I can pay for my own drink,” I snap, causing the barista to pause her movements.
“You absolutely can,” he agrees, nodding at the woman to swipe his card. “But not today.”
The irritation quickly rises, and my body is completely in defense mode over the gesture. I can’t decide whether it’s because he’s the one paying for my drink or because I feel embarrassed that I’m not picking a bigger fight and allowing him to cover me.
Just say thank you and move on with your day, I think to myself, but accepting a kind gesture from an almost stranger makes my skin crawl. He takes his card back and walks over to the waiting area with me hot on his heels. I won’t lie and say I don’t take the opportunity to check out the plains of his back or his glorious ass in semi-tight gym shorts.
Glorious ass? Stalker, remember?
“Like the view?” Tanner asks with a twinkle in his eye. My face flushes hot and I look away, suddenly more interested in the barista making our drinks than the man standing next to me. His near proximity is enough to make my pulse race in my throat and my gut fill with nerves, but I try ignoring them. He won’t be bothering me for long. I hope.
Do I actually want him to leave me alone?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, feeling brave enough to look back in his general direction. “Just curious why you’re wearing shorts when it’s almost twenty degrees outside.”
He smiles softly, and for the first time, I notice the dimple in his cheek, the mussed hair, and the sweat-dried face. I’m assuming he came here after a workout, but how he looks so good after that is beyond me.
“Aw, are you worried about me?” He grins wider, which makes me roll my eyes.
“I don’t care enough about you to worry,” I say.
He puts a hand on his chest and feigns hurt. “You wound me, Daisy. So you were just checking me out, then?”
“I—God, no.” My face flushes hotter, and my skin crawls. I’m tempted to ditch my drink, but I’ve been looking forward to this Chai since I woke up this morning. “I’m curious.”
Amusement fills his eyes, the grin nearly splitting across his face. “I’m meeting up with a friend and just came from a run since you’re so curious,” he replies with a playful tone.
For some reason, that makes me glance over my shoulder as if I’d be able to tell who he’d be meeting here anyway. Is it the guy from last night? Declan, I wonder. But a quick look doesn’t tell me anything. There’s not very many people here besides a few college kids studying and a girl tucked away in the corner. Her dark hair hits just below her shoulders, her eyes trained on the two of us with a smile on her face. She waves when our eyes lock, and I nod my head and smile awkwardly because I don’t know if she means to wave at me, Tanner, or somebody else entirely. I don’t want to look like an idiot if I wave back and am not the person the greeting was for, so I quickly turn my attention back to Tanner. I can’t help but notice that she looks vaguely familiar, although I can’t place my finger on when I would’ve seen her.
And now, standing here next to him, the word that kept me up the majority of the night lingers between us. Friend. If the waving girl is who he’s here with, are they friends? And what does friends even mean?
Why am I so fixated on this?
“I’m pretty sure friends are people that hang out on occasion, might send funny memes or GIFs to me every so often, you know. That kind of thing,” he says, stepping forward to claim his drink.
“It’s pronounced JIF,” I mumble absentmindedly. Tanner turns around and shoots me a look that’s a mixture of terror and disgust. If people were looking close enough, it would’ve appeared like I deeply offended him. But because of the context of the conversation, I know that he’s not serious about the debate.
“Don’t tell me you’re one of the people who actually believe that?”
Irritation rises as I reach for my drink, but he’s faster and reaches for it once it’s placed on the counter. He hands it to me, and when our fingers touch, a spark shoots up my arm. I quickly pull my hand away. “Nobody says GIF.”
“Everybody says GIF,“ he replies, taking a quick sip of his coffee after blowing on the top to cool it down. I try with everything in my power not to watch his throat bob, but fail miserably. He grins, catching me in the act.
My face flushes and I glance away. “Well, whatever.”
I barely have time to register that he answered a question I said out loud, and I don’t have time to be embarrassed because the same nerves that tend to appear whenever I’m in Tanner’s near vicinity swarm in my stomach. I blow out a shaky breath, refusing to look at him even though I can feel his gaze boring into the side of my head. I shift nervously on my feet.
“Anyway,” I drawl, unable to handle the tension between us, forcing myself to look at him. “Thanks, by the way, for not only paying for my drink but grabbing it for me,” I mutter.
“That’s what friends do,” he grins. I make a face.
“And if you’re curious about Naomi,” he adds, shifting on both feet like he has all the time in the world to have a conversation with me despite being here with a friend. “She’s one of my best friends.”
My neck heats. “I didn’t need to know that.”
“No, you didn’t,” he agrees with a nod. “But I wanted to tell you.”
“Why?” I challenge.
“Because you and I are friends,” he grins. “And friends don’t lie to each other.”
I make a face. “Did you kind of quote Stranger Things?”
“Kind of,” he smirks.
I sigh, already hating to be this person. “You know we can’t…right? Be friends?”
The smile slowly falls from his lips, and as much as I hate seeing it there, I kind of wish it was back. “Work, right?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Ah.” His tongue traces over his bottom lip as he contemplates for a moment. “Good thing I’m the boss, and what I say goes.”
I furrow my brows. “But…us being friends isn’t allowed.”
He shrugs. “Like I said, I’m the boss.”
“But…” I pause, hating how cringey this sounds coming from my mouth. “Why do you want to be friends with me?”
He tilts his head curiously. “Why wouldn’t I?”
I nearly roll my eyes, already becoming annoyed. I know he’s asking to genuinely understand. I can tell by the way he patiently waits for me to answer his question, although I don’t want to. I’d have to admit some deep truths about myself, but I’m not entirely ready to confront them when it comes to the man standing in front of me. “I’m…I don’t know. You could be friends with anybody else. We don’t have each other’s numbers or anything, and it feels—“
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and hands it to me unlocked. “Add your number, I’ll text you.”
I stare at him in horror. “I’m not adding my number to that thing. What if you confuse me with somebody else?”
He raises an eyebrow, the amusement still twinkling in his eyes. “Who would I confuse you with?”
“I—I don’t know. Your date, or another—“
His eyebrows snap to his hairline, visibly confused. “What date?”
He looks back over at the table with the girl, understanding washing over his face. For some reason, I expect him to laugh at me, but he doesn’t. “Naomi isn’t my date, or anything romantic, in case you were curious. Although, I guess this could be considered a coffee date…” he contemplates but quickly shakes his head. “Her boyfriend was out with us last night, and there aren’t any other girls in my life besides my mom and sister. Do you think you’re so unnoticeable that I’d mistake you for somebody else?”
I don’t reply. In fact, I’m holding my breath because I don’t want to know his answer to that. He shakes his head.
“You’re the furthest thing from unnoticeable, Daisy.”
Now I’m stunned silent. I wasn’t expecting him to say something like that, but he’s so assured in his wording, and the pure confidence on his face is almost enough to make me believe him.
“Okay,” I say, not entirely convinced. He frowns but holds his phone out towards me.
“Just friends?” I ask unconvincingly, eyes darting between him and his phone. He nods.
“Just friends.”
I don’t know who, or what, convinces me to take his phone and add my number, but I do it so quickly that I don’t have time to register that I’m probably making a huge mistake doing this. He only smiles in response.
“I’ll text you my number later.”
I stare at him incredulously. “You aren’t going to text me now?”
He slowly begins walking past me, stopping when he’s standing by my side. “Now, where would the fun be in all that?”
I turn my head to look at him, and don’t fail to notice him glancing back and forth from my lips back to my face. “Have a good Saturday, Daisy.”
He saunters off, and I can’t help but watch him leave. He does have a great ass. I hate that I’ve admitted that to myself.
I’m about to head back to my seat when he finally reaches his, except he turns to find me staring again. He winks, which nearly makes me drop my drink, but I quickly avert my gaze and head back to my chair while trying to ignore him, but it’s proving to be impossible.
I snuck out of the coffee shop before Tanner was done hanging out with his friend in hopes he wouldn’t offer to walk me home. Not that I would’ve denied him as vehemently as I’d done last night, but because I nearly passed out programming my number in his phone, and I didn’t know if I could handle trying to maintain a conversation with him any longer than what I’d done today. I’m at my max capacity for conversations with new people, and my nervous system is already shot after giving my number to somebody who barely knows me. Let alone my boss.
He probably won’t text me, and that’s fine. Really, it is, regardless of how many times I’ve already checked my phone in the two hours I’ve been at home. I stress-cleaned, called Gia, who proceeded to laugh at my nerves, and texted Sam frantically. He only sent back laughing and crying emojis, which didn’t help the cause, and now I’m sitting with my hands in my lap on my couch, wondering if I was stupid to give my number to somebody who most likely won’t use it.
Embarrassment and disappointment filter through me. I know there’s a high possibility I’m working myself up over nothing. He’ll text me if he wants to when he has time. Besides, Tanner seems like the kind of guy who has a social life and would rather be doing things with his friends on the weekends than text his coworker. Employee. Whatever the fuck I am.
His words from earlier have rung through my head back and forth, though, giving me a small sliver of hope that just maybe he’d reach out if he wanted to.
To get my mind off my own anxiety, I FaceTime Gia. She answers almost immediately with nothing but a towel wrapped around her body and her hair.
“What’s up, sugar plum?”
“First off,” I groan. “Never call me sugar plum again.”
“Aw,” she pouts. “Is pumpkin better?”
“That’s worse,” I grumble, laying down on my side with my head resting on my arm. “What’re you doing?”
“Oh, you know. Getting ready for a date with Beckett,” she says casually as she unwraps the towel from her hair before running her fingers through it.
I perk up. “A date? Like an actual one?”
She makes a face. “No, of course not. He’s beckoning me on a Saturday to come into the office to help him prepare for a presentation on Monday. He’s been stressing about it all week.”
I wiggle my eyebrows. “And by preparing, do you mean…”
Her face contorts into disgust. “Fuck no, Daisy! Literally preparing for it.”
I frown. “That’s not as fun.”
“It’s too bad he’s Satan reincarnated,” she grumbles. “I’d bang him.”
“The fact that you just used bang in a sentence like that…” I tease, which prompts her to flip me off.
“I think he has a lot of anxiety about the presentation,” she says absentmindedly as she plugs in her blow dryer. “Hold on while I dry my hair.”
She takes a few minutes to finish in the bathroom and I wait patiently. A lot of our FaceTime calls are waiting for the other to finish a task they were already doing, but not wanting to hang up. She unplugs her blow dryer and slips into a robe before angling the phone upright in her bathroom. “So, what’s up? Tanner hasn’t texted you yet?”
I groan again. “Am I being dumb about this?”
“Um, no?” Her gaze flicks to the screen before back to her mirror. “If I gave my number to the hottest man on the planet, I’d be freaking out, too.”
“Well, I didn’t say all of that…”
“You didn’t have to,” she shrugs. “It’s just facts.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m hanging up now.”
“No! Don’t!” She exclaims, digging through her makeup bag. “I’m just giving you shit. He’s probably busy! Didn’t you get his number, too?”
“Why would I do that?”
She stares at me deadpan. “To text him…?”
“That sounds like my worst nightmare.”
Gia rolls her eyes and goes back to digging in her makeup bag. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”
“Yes,” I say confidently. She laughs and shakes her head.
“He’ll text you.”
“Yeah, but what if he doesn’t?”
She stops sifting through her bag to look into the camera, her brown eyes sparkling. “Daisy Mae Adams. Do you want him to text you?”
My face reddens for the millionth time today. “I think it’s dumb that I gave him my number if he isn’t going to use it.”
“You want him to text you!” she exclaims excitedly, forgetting about her bag entirely. “Wow. I can’t say I saw this coming.”
“Saw what coming?” I ask, sitting up fully on my couch again and folding my legs underneath me.
“The day you wanted to talk to a man that isn’t Sam!”
I drop my head back on the couch. The surprise is warranted, considering how often I avoid the male population, but I feel a bit…ashamed for some reason. Like it’s stupid to get this worked up over a man and that I’m only setting myself up for failure.
“He’ll text you, Daisy,” Gia says, face softening as if she knows what I’m thinking about. “He wouldn’t have asked for your number otherwise.”
I’m about to reply when a notification pops up on the screen which causes me to nearly fly off the couch.
Unknown Number:Hey