8. Miles #2
There isn't a queue at the counter, which means I'm at the front.
“A large coffee, black, please.” After ordering I step to the side and that's when I see her. She’s coming through the door with her camera bag on one shoulder and a coffee already in hand.
Her head is turned back to say something to one of the girls.
She doesn't see me.
I see her, all her beauty, sexy smile, and sexy eyes. God, she’s beautiful.
The collision happens in the space between one second and the next, her trajectory and mine converging at the exact point where the counter ends and the open floor begins.
Her shoulder catches my chest. Her coffee tilts and then the full cup falls it ends up soaking through my shirt in one immediate wave that registers as cold before it registers as hot coffee.
I look down at my shirt.
Then back up.
She's already looking at me, wide-eyed, the color rising in her face, one hand still outstretched from where she tried and failed to catch the cup.
Up close she's exactly what every hour of watching her prepared me for, and yet somehow, she’s nothing like it at all.
The camera strap is cutting across her collarbone.
"I'm so sorry," she says. "I wasn't… I didn't see you, I'm really sorry."
I look at her for a moment longer. Not because I'm deciding what to say, but because I want to see what she does in the silence.
Her chin lifts, just slightly. The apology is genuine, but she's not going to collapse under the weight of it. She holds my gaze, embarrassed but refusing to let it win.
"It's a T-shirt," I say.
She blinks. "I can… there's napkins, I can…"
"It's fine."
"It's really not, it's all over you…"
"It's fine," I say again, and this time she stops and tries to read something in my expression that she can't quite name. I’m good at hiding my emotions. She blinks. She wasn't expecting that to be my response.
"Your coffee," I say.
She looks at the empty cup in her hand.
"I'll get you another one."
"No, you really don't have to do that."
"You're out of coffee."
"Because I walked into you."
"I walked into you."
She opens her mouth, then closes it. The laugh she's been suppressing makes a brief attempt at the surface, and she catches it. "It's fine, honestly. I'll just…"
I turn to the counter and order her coffee. The barista looks between us and says nothing and starts making it straight away.
Her friends are at the table by the window, the one who talks all the time, is leaning forward saying something to one of the other girls. I catch the tail end of it.
“Just take the coffee, oh my god…”
Sadie turns back to me. Something in her face has shifted, not softer, exactly. "You didn't have to do that."
"It's a coffee."
"You're also covered in my coffee."
"I've had worse mornings." I pick up both cups when the barista sets them down, and I hold hers out which she takes. Our fingers don't touch, which saddens me, I’d have liked to touch her just this once. She looks at the cup and then up at me, and for one second, we’re close enough that I can see the color of her eyes and the faint line of concentration between them.
"Thank you," she says.
"Don't thank me, just watch where you're going next time."
The corner of her mouth turns upwards.
I turn back to where Mason and Declan have installed themselves at the nearest table. Mason with both elbows on the table, watching me with an expression I have no interest in engaging with right now. He knows who she is.
I pull out the chair across from him and sit down.
He opens his mouth.
"Don't," I say before he can say anything to me.
He closes it but smiles and picks up his coffee and looks out the window. The smile he's wearing does not go away.
“Am I missing something?” Declan asks.
“It’s nothing.” I take a sip of my coffee and Mason laughs, he looks over to where Sadie is.
“Well that nothing keeps looking over here, and…”
“Can we change the…”
“Come on, Miles, tell Declan who the pretty girl is,” Mason jokes.
“Fuck off.” I drink my coffee already knowing this will be the first of many. It’s going to be a long day.
“Oh, are you having a little fun?” Declan looks over my shoulder at Sadie. “She’s out of your league.”
I ignore him and take the last sip of my coffee before getting up and walking to the counter to order another.
This time I add a few extra pumps of sugar.
It’s going to be a long day, but seeing Sadie up close, I know how my night will end.
I smile to myself, take my coffee and follow my brothers out of Grounds.
On the way out I lift my cup to Sadie and she smiles. Fuck those lips are so tempting.
I'm going to enjoy my time with her.
***
I can’t sleep, I’m reading more files, and it’s fucking up my head. Sleeping is the last thing I want to do.
I know I wanted to come here. I wanted to come earlier, but the files took over, and I lost track of time.
But right now, there’s only one place I want to be, and that’s close to Sadie.
Just for a short while, but long enough to steady the itch crawling under my skin.
Because the itch of being so close to her this morning has gotten worse as the day has passed.
I slide the swipe card through the reader. It beeps once, with a soft green light of approval, and the lock releases with an obedient click. At four in the morning, the hallway is quiet, the only sound is coming from the low mechanical hum of a vending machine.
I step inside her dorm and guide the door shut behind me, letting the latch catch silently.
The air inside wraps around me immediately, it’s warm, intimate, and carrying the faint sweetness of a cinnamon candle she must have lit earlier. I stand there for a second, breathing it in. This is my space now. Hers and mine.
First, I move to the kitchen counter. The old violets are still perfect, their petals vibrant and full under the low range hood light I flick on.
They don’t need replacing, but I want her to wake up to something touched by me tonight, something fresher.
I lift the old vase anyway, pour the water down the sink in a thin, controlled stream, and set the new bunch which I picked up on the way here, and place them in.
They are deeper purple this time, almost bruised at the edges, their stems trimmed with the small knife I keep in my pocket.
My footsteps stay silent on the thin dorm carpet as I drift through the living area.
Her laptop sits closed on the desk, my backdoor nestled safely inside its circuits, feeding me every keystroke, and every late-night search.
I won't open it tonight. I don’t need to.
I already know what she’ll type when she wakes up.
Her bedroom door stands ajar. I smile, this is her invite for me, she just doesn’t know it yet. I push it wider with two fingers.
There she is.
Sadie lies curled on her side facing the door, the thin blue comforter slipped down to her hips like it’s trying to expose her for me.
One bare leg peeks out, her skin smooth in the faint hallway glow.
The strap of her faded tank top has twisted, revealing the delicate line of her collarbone and the slow, steady rise and fall of her ribs.
Her lips are parted just enough that I can see the faint gleam of moisture there.
She looks innocent, and she’s completely unaware. She’s perfect.
I stop at the foot of the bed and simply watch, letting the minutes dissolve.
The room smells like warm skin and sleep, like her shampoo on the pillow and the faint trace of the lotion she rubs into her hands before lights out.
Every breath she takes pulls something tighter in my chest. She has no idea how close I am.
How easily I could reach out and brush the stray hair from her cheek.
I let myself stay longer than last time. Counting the subtle flutter of her pulse at the side of her neck. Memorizing the way her fingers twitch once against the pillow in some private dream.
Her camera rests on the nightstand; the strap is tangled around the half-empty water glass like last time.
I pick it up, and turn the body toward the bed, framing the shot carefully in the viewfinder, my face is half in shadow from the hallway light, my jaw is tight, but she won’t see my face, not with my mask on.
I’ll be hidden from her. My eyes are locked straight into the lens while Sadie sleeps soft and vulnerably behind me, her body filling the background like she belongs exactly there.
The shutter sounds once, a quiet mechanical sigh that feels louder than it should.
I check the screen. The image is flawless.
Me, sharp and present. Her, exposed and mine.
I set the camera back down exactly as I found it; strap twisted the same careless way. One final look at the gentle rise of her chest, then I back out of the room, pulling the door to its familiar ajar position.
The front door closes behind me with a muted click. I slip the swipe card back into my pocket as I walk down the empty hall, already thinking about the next time.