Chapter 39 Adela
Professor Aldridge's Tuesday lecture runs seven minutes over.
I know because I check my phone twice under the desk — not for messages, just for the time, to track the window I have before the afternoon closes in and the free hours disappear.
I've been planning this since Sunday. Three coffee shops, face to face, because the applications I sent two weeks ago have gone into whatever void applications go into when no one is in a hurry to fill a position.
I need something that is mine. Something that has nothing to do with Cody or the library or masked men or the suffocating weight of a life I didn't fully choose.
A shift. The smell of coffee. Regular faces that know my name.
An apron. Four hours when I am simply a girl who shows up, does the work, and goes home.
That's all I want.
The lecture ends. I pack my bag and walk out into the cold.
The first café is on University Ave.
Bright, busy, the kind of place that has its aesthetic figured out and its staff already full. The manager is polite and apologetic and hands me a card with the website to apply online. I already applied online. I smile, thank her, and leave.
The second café is quieter. The man behind the counter listens to me for 45 seconds, then tells me they're not hiring. I thank him too. I walk back out into the gray afternoon and consult the list on my phone.
The third one is two blocks further than I planned to walk in this cold, but I walk it anyway because I told myself three and three means three.
I push open the door.
It's the café where I met Beckett.
I almost stop walking when I realize it. Almost turn around. But the warmth hits me, and the smell of good coffee hits me, and the girl behind the counter looks up with a kind smile. I could use a kind smile.
"Hi. I'm looking for the manager to see if you’re hiring."
The girl blinks. Then she turns toward the back. "Jordan!" she calls. "Someone's here about a job!"
Jordan turns out to be a man around twenty-five with flour on his sleeve. He comes out from the back, wiping his hands on a cloth, and looks at me with an expression that is direct without being unkind.
"You have experience?" he asks.
"Some," I say. "I'm a fast learner. I'm reliable, and I don't call out."
He studies me for a moment. "Are you a student?"
"UW. My schedule is flexible. I can work mornings, afternoons, weekends."
He looks at me for another moment. Then he reaches under the counter and grabs an apron.
"You want to show me?" he says. "We're short today. Two hours. I'll watch you work, and we'll talk after."
I smile, taking the apron.
“Yes.”
He nods and returns to whatever he was doing.
The two hours are the most uncomplicated two hours I have spent since arriving at UW Seattle.
Jordan puts me on dishes first. I work through the backlog without being asked twice about anything. Then he moves me to bussing tables.
The café fills and empties and fills again. Students, mostly. Laptops, headphones, and the ambient creative misery of people on deadlines. I move through them invisibly, which is its own kind of relief.
Jordan watches without making it obvious.
It’s a relief to be useful. I’m enjoying this more than I should.
Around the ninety-minute mark, Jordan appears beside me while I'm restocking the condiment station.
"You're good at this," he says. Not a compliment exactly. An observation.
"It's not complicated."
"You'd be surprised." He leans against the counter. "Most people think it's beneath them. You can always tell."
I think about my mother's charity dinners. About learning to clear a table at twelve because the staff was short, and my father said to pitch in. About every performance I've given in every room I didn't want to be in. "It's never beneath anyone," I say.
He almost smiles. "Can you come in tomorrow? Eight to noon?"
"I have class," I say. “I can be here right after.”
He takes the apron when I hand it back. "Bring your schedule when you come in, and ask for me when you get here."
I pull my coat on, collect my bag, and walk out into the cold, feeling something small and solid settle in my chest.
Mine.
That's mine now.
I'm two blocks from the café when I see his familiar face. His broad shoulders. The height of that man is no joke. He's across the street, moving at a pace that suggests he’s going somewhere important.
Theo.
Everything that has been luring about him since the first afternoon he dropped a book on my desk comes flooding back in one wave, and I am standing on a sidewalk in the cold letting it.
I don't make a decision.
I start walking.
I cross at the light — or I start to cross at the light, and then the light changes, and I jaywalk because he's already moving far ahead, and the distance is getting worse. I pick up my pace. He moves like he has somewhere to be.
He turns a corner.
Shit.
I powerwalk.
I reach the corner and turn it and find—
An alleyway.
Narrow, brick on both sides, but wide enough to fit three people across. I keep walking, wondering where he disappeared to. I’m almost at a crossroad when large hands close around me.
I make a sound that’s not quite a scream, not quite a gasp, something in between, and then I'm against the brick wall with the cold of it against my back, and he’s in front of me.
Looming is the right word.
His height, his shoulders, the mass of him in the confined space of the alley. His breath, when it reaches me, is minty and cold. His hands aren't hurting me. They're just present. On either side of my shoulders against the brick. Framing me.
I can't move.
I'm not sure I want to.
"Following me, Adela?"
His voice is what it always is. Like he has never once in his life been surprised by anything and doesn't intend to start.
His eyes are full of amusement. His jaw has some stubble. His lips are full this close. And he has a scar on his forehead that I haven’t been able to examine this close before.
None of it matters because I can't breathe properly. My heart is doing something that has nothing to do with the fright of being grabbed.
"You want the book back?" he says, quieter now.
I nod. "You got the note?"
"And so did your little boyfriend."
"How do you know—"
His finger touches my lips to silence me.
One finger. The lightest possible contact. And my entire nervous system stops operating normally. I breathe faster. My hands find the brick behind me, as if I need something to hold on to.
"You shouldn't be talking to me," he says.
I swallow against his finger. "We can't meet at the library anymore."
He doesn't remove his hand. His finger traces my lips, and I feel it in places that have nothing to do with my mouth.
"And where do you suppose we meet?"
"We can't," I manage.
He drops his hand.
I finally breathe, pressing my lips together. I need to get my shit together, or he’s going to read my body language. I’m not ready for that to happen.
"Why are you on this side of town?"
I chew my lip. "It's a couple of blocks from where I live. And I just got a job."
Something shifts in his expression. Not a surprise exactly. "You got a job."
"At the coffee shop on Meridian," I tell him.
The corner of his mouth moves. "Cute."
"Why are you here?"
"Business."
"Business?" I ask. He still hasn't stepped back. There is no room between us to breathe properly, and he seems completely unbothered by that. "What kind of business?"
I reach for his coat. The flap is right in my face. My fingers find the hem, turning it slightly, not pulling. He watches my hands with an expression that gives me nothing and takes everything.
"Like your mom's type of business?" I ask. "Or are you following me?"
I say it to deflect. To put something between us.
His face changes, and something that tells me I've pressed somewhere real. He steps closer, which I didn't think was physically possible, and now I am entirely inside the space of him and there is no version of looking anywhere that isn't looking at him.
"Theo," I breathe, nearly about to fall over at how close he is. I can’t handle the proximity. He’s just so large.
"Where do we meet now?" he whispers.
I look around at the narrow walls. "Here?"
"It smells."
"Is that why you're this close to me?"
He leans down, and I feel his breath on my cheek when he says, "I am on your leash."
I whisper back, "Like a dog?"
His hand finds my face, turning it up. My chin in his fingers, tilted until I have no choice but his eyes. "I would meet you at the edge of the earth every day if you asked me to."
The world goes completely quiet inside me. I stare into his eyes, and something in them tells me he’s speaking the truth. My heart swims in my gut.
"You haven't even asked for my number," I say because I don’t know what else to say to that.
His eyes drop to my mouth and come back up. "Is that what you want? You want me to ask you…for your number?"
I nod.
"And what would you like me to do once I have it?"
"Plan a time to meet."
"Why?"
"So I can get my book back."
His face breaks into a smile.
It’s beautiful.
I have never seen him smile before, but it’s gone in a flash. My heart pounds against my ribs.
"Your book?" he says.
"My book." I reach up without thinking and fix a piece of his hair that the wind moved. My fingers against his forehead, near the scar. He goes very still.
"I have a better idea," he says.
"I don't know if there's a better idea."
"Barnes and Noble. Saturday."
"Can't."
"In the morning?"
"I shouldn't."
"Why?"
"I have a thing." My stomach tightens when I think about Saturday. About Cody's dinner. About the gates closing behind my car, and Cody seeming to be so well that he might…
"A thing."
"Yes."
"Surely it doesn't take all day."
I exhale, not wanting to explain how the energy I have to build to be with Cody will, in fact, take all day.
"I should go." I pull out of his embrace, stepping around him. I move toward the mouth of the alley.
"Wait."
I stop.
"You didn’t give me your number."