Chapter Twelve #2
"Not entirely. But you're alone, and your customers know that. You should fire what's-his-name if he's going to keep leaving you to close by yourself."
She planted a hand against my chest and pushed. I didn't loosen my arm and she said, "Don't tell me how to run my business."
I sighed and pressed my lips to the top of her head again.
"I’m not. Do whatever you want with what's-his-name.
I'm not trying to tell you how to run your café, I'm asking you to be more careful with yourself.
There's a difference. I don't want anything to happen to you.
And there are a lot of sketchy dudes out there who see a woman like you and—"
I cut myself off. Neither of us needed to put into words what that kind of guy might want from Annabelle. And why she might not be safe in her shop by herself at night.
"I want you to be more careful, that's all."
"I'll set the alarm," she agreed.
"Thank you," I said, pressing one last kiss to the warm skin at her temple before dropping my arm and stepping back.
There was a flush on her cheekbones and a glitter in her eyes when she stepped away. She couldn't quite meet my gaze. I hoped that meant she liked being in my arms as much as I'd liked having her there.
"Did you eat dinner?" she asked.
"Not really. I grabbed something from the vending machine by my desk. Lost track of time. You have anything left over?"
"You know I do. I always have leftovers for you. Go grab your spot and I'll bring you some dinner."
"Only if you let me help you close.”
"I'm not going to turn down free labor," Annabelle said, with a saucy grin.
She pointed me in the direction of my favorite armchair, currently unoccupied. It was a little too close to a group around the couch who were deep into a board game, empty coffees and plates surrounding them.
It was probably rude to sit so close when there were plenty of other seats, but the armchair was my spot, and the café closed in ten minutes.
They had to wrap up the board game anyway.
If they wanted to keep Annabelle open past closing, they’d have to order a lot more than a few espresso drinks and some pastries.
Knowing Annabelle, she probably didn't plan to kick them out.
This wasn't the first time I'd interrupted a game in progress.
Annabelle had actually rearranged the chairs in that section slightly, pulling my favorite armchair a little away from the couch configuration.
She'd moved it just far enough that the people who took over the couch and coffee table for board games rarely tried to pull it into their circle.
It was still close enough that I could glower at any lingering patrons as it neared eight o’clock.
By the time I had my laptop out, Annabelle was sliding an Americano, decaf and black, fragrant and steaming, onto the table to my right.
She'd serve a customer whatever they wanted at seven fifty-nine, but me, she gave decaf.
She said if I wanted to stay up all night working, I could make my own damn coffee. Annabelle's coffee was too good to argue, so I took what she gave me and drank it happily.
She was right, I didn't need to be staying up all night staring at my laptop screen. The days of marathon coding sessions were over. I wasn't twenty anymore.
Well, they were mostly over. It still happened now and then, but generally, I was an early to bed, early to rise kind of guy.
In my twenties, I'd been fueled mostly on caffeine & junk food to counter my lack of sleep, but not long before I turned thirty, I’d noticed a spare tire creeping around my gut and found myself getting short of breath when I took the stairs.
I wasn’t ready to lapse into mushy middle age at twenty-eight, so I'd ditched the junk food and took up running. Then free weights. A few years ago, I’d gotten into a high-intensity interval program that packed an hour of strength building into twenty sweat-soaked minutes.
I appreciated efficiency, even when it kicked my ass. Especially when it allowed me to indulge myself with Annabelle’s decadent brownies.
I'd cut out most of my junk food habit, but chocolate wasn't junk. Chocolate was chocolate. A necessary food group. Plus antioxidants and all that. It's good for me.
Coffee in hand, I sipped and reviewed a section of code I'd been working on earlier in the day. My project would move a lot faster if I had a team working with me, but I wasn't yet ready to share the app I was developing. I hadn't decided exactly what I was going to do with it.
I typed and tested and typed some more, quickly losing track of my surroundings. I didn't look up until Annabelle flopped onto the couch only a few feet away and propped her sneakered feet up on the coffee table, crossed at the ankle.
Startled, I looked up to see her lounging back, a wide, satisfied smile on her face and an ice cold bottle of beer in her hand. A plate with a thick sandwich and slice of cake sat on the corner of the coffee table closest to me.