Chapter 12 Coffee O’clock
Coffee O’clock
Paisley
The red leather creaks as I plop down. Kate peeps over her shoulder at me while pouring coffee into the blue-dotted mug of a stocky man with a mustache and a lumberjack’s shirt. From the jukebox come the raw sounds of James Arthur’s heartache.
“Paisley!” she calls out with a warm smile. With her free hand she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and walks over. “How nice to see you. Coffee?”
“Absolutely,” I nod, and blow into my hands to wake up my still-numb fingers. “Are you sure that we’re in Aspen and not somewhere in…I don’t know, Siberia?”
Kate laughs. Her flower-covered apron swells as she spins around to grab a colorful mug from behind the counter.
“You need thicker gloves,” she says and offers a meaningful glance at the thin woolen ones I bought last year at a ninety-nine-cent store.
Back then, they were red, but now the material is so faded that they could pass for pale pink at best. “With those things on, I give you one week before you show up here without any hands.”
“I bet you’re right…” With a thankful smile I take the now full coffee cup.
My nerve endings immediately begin to tingle as I’m filled with warmth.
After taking a sip, a pleasant sigh crosses my lips.
“I was hoping to run into Gwen,” I say. In the meantime, Kate has begun to arrange donuts and muffins in the display case.
“Since training yesterday, I haven’t been able to get in touch with her.
” I lift my phone up and frown. “Her phone’s off. ”
For a moment Kate glances at the ceiling before turning back to her muffins.
Suddenly her jaw looks tense, her lips a narrow line.
“I don’t know if she’ll be coming down,” she says.
She pauses a moment then sighs, closes the display case, and smooths out the lines on her forehead with her thumb and index finger. “Gwen is…”
She doesn’t manage to complete her sentence.
Gwen rushes through the back door. “Morning!” Her thick, wavy hair flies through the air, and the right side of her wide-cut woolen sweater almost slips off her shoulders as she reaches for a muffin.
She kisses her mother on the cheek, then sees me.
“Paisley, hey!” Gwen beams. Her gloomy mood from yesterday has obviously disappeared.
She sits down across from me cheerfully, takes a bite of muffin, and washes it down with a gulp of my coffee.
“How cool that you’re here! Should we go over to the rink together? ”
“Everything okay?”
“Of course,” she smacks. “Why?”
“Your phone,” I say and point at my own. “I’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday. I thought…” Hesitating, I lower my eyes onto my cup and run my finger over a deep notch in the ceramic. “You were going to drive me over to the Winterbottoms’.”
“Oh, shit.” Gwen was moving to take another bite. Instead, she pauses and opens her eyes wide. A few dark crumbs fall from her mouth onto the table. She puts the muffin to the side and looks at me apologetically. “Shit, Paisley, I totally forgot! God, what a mess. Can I make it up to you somehow?”
“It’s all good,” I answer and wave my hand, happy to know she just had a bad day. “I was just surprised. But now that we’re on the subject…” I allow my glance to wander over my left and right shoulders, then bend down and whisper, “You could’ve told me that Knox was a Winterbottom.”
“I didn’t?” She sounds surprised, which doesn’t quite fit the mischievous grin on her face. Without further ado, she grabs her muffin, takes another bite, and shrugs. “I must’ve forgotten.”
“Of course.”
“How’d it go? Do you have the job?”
“Yeah, but…”
Gwen stops eating midmouthful. “What?”
“There’s a catch.”
“You slept with him.” Her jaw drops, giving me a rather unappetizing glimpse of the mushy muffin inside her mouth. “No way. How was it?” She puts her elbows onto the round table and bends forward. “How was he? Did he pull the washing-machine number? They say he pulls that one with all the chalet…”
“Stop!” I interrupt her and am about to stick my fingers in my ears and start humming a tune to get the images out of my head. “We…ugh. God, no.” Think of something else. Quickly. “There’s nothing going on. Nada. And there’s not going to be, ever. Okay?”
Gwen shrugs. “Whatever you say. Where’s the catch?”
“I’m going to be living there,” I say and make a face. “Not with the rest of the tourists, but with him!”
My new friend blinks. Then once more. “I don’t understand the problem.”
“For real?”
“Yeah. I mean, you’re going to be living at Knox’s. Now, the guy’s a walking problem for sure, but, holy guacamole, you’ve got a free ticket to see him without his shirt on all the time!” Her eyes become dreamy. “Or without his underwear.”
Okay. Unwanted film in my head.
“Why should I? I mean, it’s not like his house is a swingers club.”
“Oh, my dear, sweet, clueless friend. If you only knew.” Gwen lifts my coffee cup out of my hand and takes the last gulp. “Knox throws the heaviest parties.”
“Super,” I mumble. We’re both quiet for a moment then I add, “Were you ever there?”
She raises her eyes and hesitates. She runs her tongue absentmindedly over her lower lip while her little nose curls. “Yeah,” she says finally. “Back in the day. But that’s all in the past.”
Kate rushes past our table and fills up my coffee. “Gwendolyn, dear. The coffee beans are empty. I asked you yesterday to bring some more.”
Gwen makes a face. “Whoops.”
“Super.” Her mother sighs and places the coffeepot back on the counter. “I’ll go over to Woody’s and get some. In the meantime, you’re in charge.”
Gwen raises her hand and salutes. “Yes, ma’am.”
Kate just shakes her head, hangs her apron on the hook by the back door, and disappears outside.
While Gwen takes a look around the diner to see that all the tables are taken care of, I bend toward her, “Why are his parties a thing of the past for you? Did something happen?”
Gwen frowns and casts her glance at a table with two women who are so made-up, it’s as if they were just coming from a party or had it in mind to tear someone apart at seven-thirty in the morning.
“It’s not that things happen at Knox’s parties, Paisley, it’s that full-blown catastrophes come together.
” She looks at me. “Nuclear catastrophes.”
“Now you’re exaggerating.” Actually, her words shouldn’t make me so curious. What Knox gets up to in his life should be of no interest to me. But I have to admit that my curiosity is gaining the upper hand.
“You’ll see for yourself soon enough,” she replies, her eyes drifting over my shoulder to the large display case. “Speak of the devil,” she mumbles. Her brown eyes go dark. “Don’t turn around.”
Naturally, I turn around immediately to see Knox walking into the diner.
With Wyatt right behind him, who however is having a bit of a hard time getting his hockey bag through the door.
Knox’s brown hair is disheveled, as if he had difficulty getting it together.
Our eyes meet and I don’t know what I expected after last night.
Maybe a smile. Maybe just a simple, “Hey.”
What I didn’t expect was him to immediately turn away from me and…ignore me. As if I didn’t exist. As if looking at me was worth less than looking at a thick cockroach.
A roach…
Voices make their way into my head. Voices that I have tried to drive out for years.
“I’m not going to play with her. That’s Paisley, the trailer roach.”
“Look out! Get away from her! Mom says that they’ve all got lice over there.”
“Why do your pants always have holes?”
“Well, it’s obvious. Her mother is one of those junkies who hang around the old drive-in getting high. As if she had money for clothes!”
“Why are you staring at Alex Woodley? He would never like you. You’re a trailer roach!”
Trailer roach, trailer roach, trailer roach…
“Paisley?”
I look up. “Yeah?”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, let’s go.” Getting up more quickly than I’d intended, I bang my thigh against the table and my coffee…
Oh, dear, my coffee!
It falls right off the table. Right when Knox walks past. And the brown liquid lands right on his jeans. Or rather…his crotch. The mug shatters on the floor.
Gwen just stands there, halfway up from the booth, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the floor.
And Knox, he… He doesn’t react. No idea if it has to do with his I-am-the-hottest-snowboarder-in-the-world-and-every-chick-likes-me schtick, but he doesn’t even let an angry snort escape.
Instead, he raises his head, real slowly, and…
grins. A grin that digs deep dimples into his cheeks and makes my legs weak.
For a second my brain short-circuits, and I am incapable of doing anything but stare.
It’s a good two seconds until I’m able to get myself back on the ground of facts.
What am I doing? Presenting myself to him like a piece of vulnerable fresh meat whose heart is beating into her throat, just like all the other women every day out on the slopes? Giving him the feeling that I’m just another challenge he can take with his snowboard before forgetting her once more?
No way. The mere fact that Knox Winterbottom makes me nervous doesn’t mean, not by a long shot, that I’m afraid of falling for him.
The thought of my weak past-self sends a shiver down my spine that threatens to take me over.
I’m doing well here in Aspen. I’m not going to risk that.
Not for an adrenaline-driven, narcissistic snowboard star who thinks he can get any woman into his bed with his oh-my-God-look-at-my-perfect-face smile.
At the thought, a wave of rage shudders through my body and at long last—at long last!—I manage to react.
I glare at him. “Not my fault if you’re in the way.”
His grin grows wider. Apparently, my rage amuses him. When I become aware of that, I’m up for dumping a second cup of coffee over him.