Will
Chapter Twenty-One
Ididn’t know what it was about Elsie Cameron that made saying no to her ridiculous requests so difficult for me.
Maybe it was because I knew she had a long night. Maybe it was because I felt guilty that Ava had been giving her such a hard time. Maybe it was because I was reluctantly impressed with the way she swooped in to help her out, anyway, when she could’ve just as easily let her crash and burn.
Or maybe, an annoying voice in my head whispered, you just weren’t ready for your night with her to be over yet.
Which is why, a few minutes past 10:00 PM on a Wednesday night, I was jangling the keys on my belt, looking for the one to open the café door. Something, I can say with extreme confidence, I would not have done for anyone else in all of Colbridge.
I didn’t read too much into what that meant.
“It’s cold.” Elsie shifted from foot to foot, waiting while I jammed the key into the lock.
“And you wanted to walk home.” I shook my head at her, pushing the door open.
“I would’ve built up a sweat while walking,” she threw over her shoulder before striding past me into the café.
“Yeah,” I muttered, following her inside, “especially after wandering in circles for miles.”
She threw me a wry smile, as if she didn’t quite hear what I said but understood the sentiment nonetheless, before taking in the surroundings of the café.
“It’s dark in here.” She turned to me for a solution.
I stared at her, flicking up a switch by the door. “Better?” I asked.
“Ah, so cozy.” She clapped in delight, gazing at the string of Christmas lights strung around the perimeter of the café.
I didn’t put the overhead light on, finding the dim light suitable enough for my task.
“Here.” I slid a chair off the table she’d sat at that morning and set it right side up. “Sit here while I make your drink.”
“I feel like I should help somehow.” She frowned.
“How are you supposed to help make coffee?”
“I don’t know,” she made a face. “But I’m putting you out. I should at least be standing uncomfortably while you work.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sit down, Elsie.”
She shrugged. “If you insist.”
I slid behind the counter and switched the espresso machine on, watching out of the corner of my eye as she pulled her laptop from her satchel and set it up on the table in front of her.
The espresso machine whirred to life, and against the quietness of the café, only that and the sound of her fingers clicking against the keys were audible.
It was nice. Peaceful. I felt like I could breathe.
The truth was, as much as I’d wanted to be home tonight, this detour in routine wasn’t entirely unwelcome.
It was nice having a night that didn’t look like every other one for the last five years.
Elsie was definitely a wrench thrown into an otherwise well-oiled machine, but she was one that made me examine whether the system even worked as well as I thought.
I took longer than necessary making her coffee, using it as an opportunity to watch her unnoticed. At least for a minute.
As frustrating as it was that she had zero awareness of her surroundings, it was also kind of impressive how thoroughly she could lock in and shut the rest of the world out.
Where Elsie could disappear into her own mind, I was annoyingly and constantly aware of everything occurring around me at any given moment.
So, to observe her escaping it all? It was almost a relief for my brain, too.
After a few minutes, I figured she’d be just as oblivious to me approaching her as she was to me watching her from across the room, so I slid into the seat across from her.
To my surprise (and relief), she glanced up at me, but only for a second.
“Shhh,” she rushed to say before I even opened my mouth. “I’ll lose my train of thought if you say anything.”
I held a hand up in defense, holding the coffee toward her in silent offering.
“Thank you,” she said sheepishly, taking a sip. “I promise I’m almost done. Wow, this is good.”
“Take your time,” I told her, meaning it. “I’m in no rush.”
“You’re an angel,” she said gratefully, green eyes glued back to her screen.
Just so I didn’t feel like so much of a freak just watching her work, I tried to busy myself with getting things ready for the morning. There wasn’t much to do, but I didn’t like to be idle.
I filled the sugar bowls on each table, I reviewed the order form for the week—which, true to Ava’s word, was ready to go, I wiped down the counter, and refilled napkin holders, and when I finally sat back down, Elsie slammed her laptop shut with a breath of relief.
“Another chapter done!”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked. “I guess that coffee worked, then.”
“Trust me, that writing sprint was fueled solely by this magic bean juice you crafted so wonderfully.”
“That has to be the most unappetizing way I’ve ever heard coffee described in my life.”
“Yeah?” She grinned, pleased by the achievement. “Well, I’m a writer. I live to shock and surprise with my word choices.”
“Mission accomplished.”
She smiled, the humor giving way to something more vulnerable.
“Thank you, Will. Really,” she said, meeting my eyes in a way that almost made me want to look away. “It means a lot to me that you went out of your way to do this for me tonight.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I told her, because really it wasn’t. “You deserve it after the night you had.”
She deflated before my very eyes.
“She hates me, doesn’t she?” she asked, looking torn up over the thought.
“No,” I said too quickly.
She gave a half-hearted smile.
“It’s okay, I kind of figured.”
“Look, Elsie. Trust me when I say that whatever it is, it has nothing to do with you.”
“Her hating me has nothing to do with me?” She arched a brow.
“Not really.”
“How do you figure that?”
“It’s complicated. I don’t really know how to explain Ava.” Or I didn’t want to. “It’s just something she has to work through on her own. Okay?”
Elsie paused, staring off into the distance.
“She said she was jealous of me,” Elsie admitted softly. “Why would she be jealous of me?”
Had Ava really said that?
I was surprised, being the perfectionist she was, it was rare for Ava to own up to possessing the uglier feelings in life. What shocked me even more was that it was Elsie she opened up to, of all people.
“I don’t know, maybe because you’re pretty.” I tried to make sense of it. “Or maybe—”
“Wait, what?!” Elsie nearly screeched. “Why would you say that?”
I stilled, realizing my mistake.
Had I just told her she was pretty? Why the hell would I say something like that?
“I don’t know!” I scrambled, wanting to get out of my seat and leave right then. “I just meant, isn’t that usually why girls are jealous of each other?”
Elsie scoffed. “You’re reducing us to very superficial creatures, William. Do better.”
“My bad,” I said, hoping the blip would go unmentioned any farther.
I flexed my hand against my thigh, wondering what the hell had gotten into me lately that I was even contemplating things like whether a girl was pretty or not. When was the last time I’d even noticed something like that?
Elsie broke me out of my reverie by her next admittance.
“She said she was jealous because she thinks I’m free and unrestrained by life.”
“If you knew, then why did you ask?” I mumbled, frustrated.
“It was supposed to be a rhetorical question, Will. A simple musing, if you will.” She waved a hand dramatically in the air. “Gosh, isn’t a girl allowed to ponder in this town?”
“You’re really something, you know that?”
“Thanks.” She grinned.
“I didn’t say it was a good something.”
“I’d rather be something than nothing.”
“Hold on,” I narrowed my eyes, “my brain is trying to figure out if that makes sense or not.”
She laughed, and I got to my feet, feeling the strangest regret that the night had come to a close so quickly.
Elsie was easy to be around. She was funny and a little chaotic in a way that kept me on my toes. And she made me forget about all the shit I had piling up at all times.
I guess she took up more than enough headspace on her own, it didn’t leave room for much else.
She started to stand herself, until I saw before my eyes as a thought struck her and she plummeted back into the chair, opening her laptop back up with frantic energy.
“Wait, I’m so sorry, but I just thought of something else to write.” She looked at me, a silent plea in her wide green eyes.
“Something else? After an hour of writing, you still have more to say?”
Unsurprising. Elsie never ran out of things to say, or think, or do. Her mind was more active than anyone else’s I had ever met.
“What can I say? The ambience of your café really sets the playground of imagination ablaze.”
I shook my head at her, forcing myself to keep the smile threatening to escape under lock and key.
“Then, by all means, write away.”
I set my head down on the table, closing my eyes for just a minute.
I didn’t know how I’d ended up feeling so at ease in a dark café at eleven o’clock at night, with a relative stranger sitting across from me and a thousand things waiting for me in the morning.
I only knew that I was.