Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Georgie
I’m already down the stairs from my apartment at four thirty-one when I notice a truck next to the coffee truck.
It’s Logan’s.
His headlights cut through the misty predawn drizzle that adds a gray pallor to the green all around the lot. He’s leaning against the driver’s side door with a bottled Diet Coke in one hand and a Coke Zero in the other.
He’s grinning and looks far too bright-eyed for someone who stayed at my apartment until way too late. I wonder if he had trouble sleeping knowing he flies out tonight.
“What are you doing here?” I ask with a laugh when I get close.
“I’m bringing the girl I’ll be kissing in three to six weeks caffeine. My favorite coffee shop isn’t open yet, so this is the best I can do.”
“I’m so glad you remembered to get diet,” I say, taking the Diet Coke and then leaning into his chest. “Regular soda makes me feel like my teeth are growing fuzz.”
He chuckles and angles his head down so he can kiss my cheek.
I love that he kisses my cheek when he sees me. It’s like something out of an old movie, especially when paired with all of these romantic gestures—bookshelves, meals, surprising me at work.
With one of his arms around me, I crack the soda and take a long drink. How long ago was it that I mentioned in passing that Diet Coke is the one true soda?
I could get addicted to his brand of remembering.
“Does hot chocolate not make your teeth feel fuzzy?” he asks.
“I looked this up, actually,” I say. “It’s something about how acidic soda is. It makes the sugar cling to the teeth. Because hot cocoa and coffee drinks typically aren’t acidic, the sugar doesn’t stick to them the same way.”
He opens his own bottle and smiles at the satisfying hiss. “If anyone else were telling me this, I’d think it’s fake.”
“Should I be embarrassed I’m so uncomplicated or flattered?”
“Flattered. Always flattered.”
We both take another drink, and then I bite the inside of my cheek, wishing the pain gnawing at my heart wasn’t so much worse. “So, is this goodbye?”
“What? No, I’m coming to work with you today. I already cleared it with your boss.”
“Sorry, who?”
He doesn’t mean Marlowe, does he? The thought of him asking her makes my throat burn.
“Alma.”
“Oh, perfect,” I say, not letting myself laugh. “Are you sure, though? You want to hang out with me on a coffee truck on your last day in Mullet Ridge?”
“Don’t forget me,” a voice says to our side. I turn to see Olivia in jeans and a T-shirt, like me. “What are you doing here, Logan?”
“I’m here to help,” he tells Olivia, though the way he’s looking at me makes my cheeks hot.
“You mean you have a day off and want to spend it with your girlfriend. Got it,” Olivia says. She uses her keys to unlock the truck and climb in before either Logan or I can protest.
“Something like that,” Logan says, eyes still locked on me. My smile is the only part of my body that’s not still half asleep. “I’ll have to leave at three, so I’ll follow you there.”
And just like that, my smile feels a bit more weary. “Okay. See you soon.”
***
The second Logan steps onto the truck after we park, Olivia gives him a look.
“What is it you do that you can take a day off mid-week? You don’t sell drugs, do you?”
“No!” Logan scoffs. “No. Never.”
“He’s a Major League pitcher,” I tell her, pride making me smile so big, my cheeks hurt. “He’s been called up to the Majors and leaves for Chicago tonight.”
Olivia stares at me. “This is officially more than I’ve ever talked about baseball in my life.”
Logan groans and backs against the prep counter while Olivia and I start prepping to open.
We hit the switch on the espresso machine before we left Meant to Bean, so it’s already warmed and humming, and the smell of it heating is starting to fill the truck, cozy in a way that fights off the damp morning chill.
“This won’t do,” Logan tells Olivia. “We’re giving you an education in baseball today.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“It’ll be my pleasure,” he assures her.
“Baseball’s the kind of sport you enjoy more when you invest a lot of time and energy into, isn’t it?
” She looks at us both for confirmation.
We both nod. “See, I don’t have that kind of commitment in me.
I watched A League of Their Own. ‘You can’t cry in baseball! ’ There! That’s probably good enough.”
Logan sounds like a cat being drowned, and I get it, even if she hadn’t butchered Tom Hanks’s famous quote.
Baseball is the best, most romantic sport in the world.
Underdog stories, clutch plays at the most unlikely times, injured players overcoming impossible odds.
And then there’s the camaraderie. The fact that teams are so tight, they’d storm the mound for each other.
Alma would storm a mound for me, I guess. But she’d storm a mound if you said Sylvester Stallone is overrated.
Okay, yeah, her storming the mound is a compliment no matter how you dice it.
“You don’t have to like baseball to be here,” I tell Olivia.
“But we might talk about it a lot today,” Logan says. “Maybe so much, you can’t help but want to go to a game when your new buddy Logan gives you tickets.”
“Cool. Hey Siri: how much can you scalp baseball tickets for?”
Logan chuckles and watches us. “How can I help?”
Olivia points him to the bucket of cleaning solution. “Sit and be a background decoration. Maybe flex for the ladies so they give us better tips.”
He sits and, no surprise, he is very good at being decorative.
I can see him watching every drink I steam and every cup I cap, and for the first hour, this mostly works. But then we’re hit with a rush, and Olivia has him start calling names and handing customers their cups like he’s not a famous athlete.
The men who recognize him do a double take and the women bat their eyes too much, whether they recognize him or not.
“Did Logan Fischer just hand me my coffee?” one guys asks, snapping a picture. “I gotta post this.”
He’s not the only one to do it, either.
“You guys should try the vanilla Whip Smart,” Logan says to a group of workers who look like they have gym passes. “It’s my daily fuel.”
They all order one.
And they post about it.
A lot of people post about it.
Once we’re at the factory, there are a lot more women gawking at him.
“Who’s the hottie?” one asks, and before I can distract her, she calls out, “Hey, Hot Guy, can I have your number?” and I officially can’t let Logan be seen anymore, because it turns out I have a jealous streak, and I do not like the way it feels.
It feels …
It feels …
It feels like I want to serve this woman cold hot chocolate.
“Thanks for the help,” I tell Logan, grabbing his shoulders and spinning him back to his chair. “We’ve got it. You should sit and watch!”
He sits and lets his eyes rove over me for a second while he smiles knowingly. “But if I’m sitting here, how will I give that poor single woman my number?”
“I could glare at you right now. You know that?”
“I dare you.”
This time, I don’t hesitate. I squint my eyes at him, and it feels at least fifty percent more enjoyable than sticking my tongue out did.
Logan eyes me appreciatively. “Either I’m a bad influence on you or a very good one.”
Olivia looks back from the register at us. “This is the weirdest flirting I’ve ever seen.”
I smile and look down at the milk steamer, wishing I could keep my hair loose so it could fall in front of my face and cover this flaming blush.
By ten, Logan’s grown tired of being decorative again. I’m ringing up a customer when I hear him ask Olivia, “Can I try the wand?”
“No,” Olivia says, but I hear the hiss of the wand anyway, followed by him hissing.
“It’s hot,” he says. I glance quickly back to see him shaking out his hand.
“It’s a steam wand,” Olivia says. “What did you think would happen?”
“I didn’t know the wand part gets hot, okay?”
“The ‘steam’ part didn’t clue you in?”
Logan snorts and I switch places with Olivia, letting her hand a drink to another customer while I turn on the rinse water. I grab Logan’s wrist and guide his hand under the stream.
“Are you okay?” I ask, looking at the red strip across his knuckles where the steam caught him.
“It’s fine,” he says, but I hold it and rinse it longer than necessary. Marlowe would have something to say about the waste of water, I’m sure.
I turn it off and grab a cloth to dry his hand, patting carefully.
I’ve never noticed how muscled his fingers are before, and honestly, I didn’t know that was a thing until this moment.
I run my finger tenderly over the burn. The skin isn’t puckered or blistered, but I can’t help but feel bad that he got hurt on my watch. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“It’s fine,” he says, his voice low and soft.
We’re so close, if I stood on my tiptoes, my lips could be on his.
The temptation is as sudden as it is intense, and it’s the intensity that scares me.
I don’t want things.
And I definitely don’t claim them.
My breath catches as I lean back, trying to smile away the awkwardness. It’s understandable that I’m backing away, though. This isn’t exactly the time or place for a first kiss.
Besides, he hasn’t left or come back yet.
Until that happens, I don’t get to let myself so much as hope, let alone dream. And I definitely don’t get to want more.
***
Sometime during the lunch rush at the factory, we let Logan help again, in spite of my jealous streak.
Olivia and I take turns between taking orders and making the drinks, and Logan hands them to customers and takes payment.
The space is cramped with three people, yet I get the feeling Logan likes it that way.
He finds a way to brush my arm, my hip, my hand every time he passes.
It’s a miracle I don’t burst into flames with each touch.
It’s also a miracle that I ever survived breakfast and lunch rushes without help. Everything is so much simpler and smoother, yet it’s still so busy we’re moving nonstop.
Maybe one of the side effects to burnout is being totally numb to how hard everything really is.