2
Beckett
“Back again!” Evie, the same little blonde that served me yesterday, arrives at my table within seconds, her big brown eyes as wide as her smile. “What can I get for you?”
I pull my attention from the front counter, and I look at her. She’s cute, and even if she hadn’t introduced herself to me yesterday, I’d have known who she was just from Ryan’s description of her. He’s been more than a little chatty about the Coffee Leaf Girls and their quirks. Only one of them has me sitting on the edge of my seat while she gracefully moves around her space, though, and it isn’t the one standing beside me.
“I’ll take a large cappuccino and a huge chunk of your chocolate mud cake, please.”
“Absolutely,” she replies, grinning at me before practically skipping her way across the room and behind the front counter.
She moves out of view after speaking to Evie and over to the coffee machine to whip up my order, so I spend a few minutes scrolling through the shops’ socials until Evie returns with a ridiculously large piece of cake, a massive cup of coffee, and an inquisitive look on her face.
“There you go,” she says, sliding a silver spoon onto the table in front of me.
“Thank you,” I reply as she straightens, placing my phone down and refocusing my attention across the room.
I grab the coffee, take a sip, and watch from the corner of my eye as Evie looks between me and the front counter. “You know, Penny?” she asks, wiping one of her hands on the bright pink tea towel slung over her shoulder.
I don’t.
I want to, though.
Haven’t stopped thinking about her since the moment I laid eyes on her.
Came in yesterday with the expectation of leaving with a killer coffee. Instead, I walked with a semi and a new obsession.
Figures .
And then, once I found out from Ryan that Penny is single, making her not only intriguing but attainable , I couldn’t help myself. I knew I had to have her, so here I am.
“Not yet,” I reply, around the rim of my mug.
Evie snorts from beside me and shakes her head, making her bluntly cut, white-blonde bob bounce. “Oh, Sweetie.” She chuckles. “Many have tried. Many have failed. If I were you, I’d pick someone else to set my sights on.”
“That so?” My response is to Evie, but my attention doesn’t waver from Penny.
She’s young. Not too young, but young, and all curves. Her body and the way her thick hips round up into a tiny, fist-bite-inducing waist make it impossible not to stare, and I’m certainly not the only one in this café appreciating her hourglass figure. Her long, dark hair, tanned skin, and bright, hazel eyes only add to her appeal, and although her outfit is basic, consisting of a black singlet and a pair of tight-fitting flared tights, goddamn, the woman wears them well.
There’s something about her that just commands attention, and she’s sure as fuck got mine.
I can’t remember the last time I felt this kind of excitement. This kind of draw to a woman. I made it a rule after Paige, my ex-fiancé, not to bother with the opposite sex. I filled my time with work, with art, with my passions. And then I saw her .
Now, for some fucking reason, I can’t take my eyes off her.
Acting like a damn thirteen-year-old boy with a crush and not the thirty-three-year-old man I am, but oh well, shit happens.
Evie huffs humorously, reaches forward and pats me on the shoulder. “Enjoy that cake.”
I don’t reply, and she skips off to the customers waiting on her while I keep my eyes locked on my target.
After twenty minutes and another coffee, I’ve worked out that Penny isn’t great with computers. When she’s frustrated, she frowns in a certain way, making this little crease form between her perfectly shaped eyebrows. Evie, who seems to be the more tech-savvy one, stops by to help her every five minutes or so, and then the crease disappears, for a while at least. I’ve also learned that the tall, lanky kid with black hair, who clearly works for the girls, has a hard-on for Penny and that she hasn’t picked up on it yet. Either that, or she’s simply ignoring the fact.
Customers seem to search for Evie as soon as they walk in, but Penny’s chest puffs out with pride when they start gawking at the cake display, so I assume she’s the one who bakes. The one who made the chocolate cake Evie is now sliding another slice of in front of me.
She straightens and gives me a little wink before spinning around and heading to another table.
I can see why Ryan has a soft spot for her.
When a relatively normal-looking guy, dressed in what I assume is a fairly expensive suit, walks into the café, and Penny responds by rolling her eyes and closing her laptop, I watch on, curious as to why. As he approaches the counter, and she pulls her lips into a fake smile so wide that I can practically see her wisdom teeth from here, I wonder if this is my chance. If I should go up there and save her, play the hero and steal her attention for myself, but as the thought crosses my mind, my phone buzzes on the table and draws my attention down. I read the message from Ryan on my lock screen as I shove a large bite of chocolate cake into my mouth and do my best not to groan out loud as the taste spreads across my tongue.
RYAN: Bro, we got a bloke here wanting a consult. He’s asking for you specifically. Wants an ocean-themed watercolour back piece done. What do you want me to tell him?
His message has me grinning from ear to ear. It’s been too damn long since I’ve been able to flex my specialty. Don’t get me wrong, I love the shit I’ve done recently, but watercolour tats feel more like painting than sketching or drawing, and there’s something about doing ‘em that just gets me going.
Quickly, I glance back up at Penny as she stares at the man waving his hands around as if he’s telling a story and take another bite. If he can’t tell how uninterested she is, he’s blind because her expression does nothing to hide her boredom.
Poor bloke.
After letting Ryan know I’ll be back in twenty, which I will, ‘cos I don’t plan for this to take much longer, I shove the last piece of chocolate cake into my mouth and then place my mug onto my now empty plate so that my dishes are easier to move back to the kitchen.
Then I stand, ready to make my next move.
Just as I get within earshot of the conversation Penny is having with her customer, I hear him say, “Why do you continue to turn me down when we both know you really want to go on a date with me? Don’t make me beg, Penny. I’ll lose interest eventually, and then what are you going to do?”
Penny rolls her lips together and nods, the look in her eyes giving away the fact that she finds the question amusing.
“What will I do…” she repeats slowly, pretending to ponder the question while wiping her hands with a pink tea towel identical to the one Evie has tossed over her shoulder. “I’d say I’d probably live my life a little more peacefully. That I’d be okay knowing that we never have to have this conversation again.” I watch his ears turn bright red from my position behind him, as she adds, “I’d say I’d be alright knowing you lost interest, Lucas. So please, feel free to do so.”
I can’t help but laugh at the way she phrases her complete and utter dismissal of the man. I try to cover it with a cough, but the withering look he shoots me over his shoulder lets me know I’m not fooling anyone.
Quickly, he turns his attention back to her. “I understand you’re playing hard to get. Hell, I even like it a little…”
This is just embarrassing now, so instead of letting him continue, I interrupt. “You almost done with this oddly persistent pickup attempt, my man? Some of us have shit to do.”
This time, I don’t even get a glare; he just freezes at the sound of my voice. Penny, however, turns her attention from him to me, and when her bright hazel eyes meet mine, I feel like I’ve been hit by a bolt of lightning.
Chemistry is an amazing thing, and I knew we’d have it the second I saw her.
“Penny,” Lucas hisses, but she doesn’t respond. Instead, she looks me up and down, slowly, appreciatively, and I stand my ass there and let her because it’s not like I haven’t been doing the same damn thing to her since I got here. She just didn’t clock it.
Lucas looks over his shoulder at me again, huffs, and then like his ass is on fire, he grabs the takeaway coffee cup from the counter, spins on his heel, and storms out of the café, leaving nothing but the smell of his overly peppery cologne behind him.
“Ready for me, Love?” I ask as she watches the door, and I watch her.
She blinks, and then her eyes are back on me. “Absolutely.”
I step forward so that I’m closer to the counter, and she cranes her head back. She’s not a tall woman, I’d guess around 5’3 or so, so I’m sure it’s not uncommon for her to have to adjust her stance to look up at someone, especially someone that stands at 6’5, like me, but the way she holds my eyes while doing so makes the act feel much more intimate.
“What can I get for you?” she asks, her voice soft and sultry, as she tosses the tea towel on the counter and braces herself with both hands on the wooden surface.
“Your number,” I say, leaning down so my forearms are flat on the counter in front of hers, putting us at equal eye level. “Please,” I add, as she raises a defiant eyebrow at me.
“And why on earth would you need my number?”
She smells fucking edible. Like strawberries and vanilla, and I take a second to commit the scent to memory before saying, “To call you.”
I’m being far more forward than I typically would be, but something about Penny tells me that’s exactly how I need to play this.
“What a disappointing answer,” she replies, slowly pulling her hair into a ponytail and then tying it up with the black elastic she had around her wrist. My eyes automatically focus on her decolletage; the slope of her now bare neck and the shadow highlighting her collarbone, as she says, “I don’t date. Thanks for the offer, though.”
“What a coincidence,” I reply, looking back into her narrowed, yet still captivating, hazel eyes. “Me either.”
She bites that plump bottom lip and cocks her head to the side. “Then there’s no need to call me, is there?”
“I wanna take you to dinner.”
She furrows her eyebrows, but not in the way she seems to when she’s frustrated; this is more out of curiosity, as far as I can tell. “And what is dinner, if not a date?” I don’t miss the mischievous glint in her eyes as she asks the question.
I shrug one shoulder and hope like hell that this conversation is going in the direction I want it to. “Before.”
She lets out a melodic laugh and bites her lip again before replying. “Before what , exactly?”
“Ah, now that’s entirely up to you.”
“You’re very pretty, Beckett ,” she says, with a sigh and a shake of her head, and now it’s my turn to be confused because I sure as shit didn’t tell her my name. “I know things,” she answers my question without me even having to ask and moves right along. “But I don’t do dinner.” My lips part, but when she raises a finger to her own, I do as I’m told, and I remain silent as she continues. “I do, however, drink.”
The air crackles between us as the offer for much more than a drink lingers in the air. I have to clear my throat and readjust my stance to hide the fact that my brain is currently conjuring up a thousand different ways that I want to fuck this woman after that drink from the rest of the people in this establishment.
“A drink then,” I say, my voice dropping an octave. “I’ll pick you up at-”
“I’ll meet you at the pub at six.”
I huff in amusement, realising now that the woman isn’t playing hard to get at all.
“Six it is,” I reply, as her eyes bore into mine; the green and gold flecks that make up her irises so easily distinguishable in this lighting. Like an abstract painting, almost.
She shrugs nonchalantly before leaning in closer and looking around to make sure no one else is within earshot. “I have to warn you,” she whispers, and I can feel the warmth of her breath against my ear as I, too, lean in. “I will chew you up and spit you the fuck out.”
I turn my head to look at her at the same time she does, putting our faces dangerously close together as I smirk and glance down at faint teeth marks indented into her bottom, berry-coloured lip. “Sounds like a damn good time to me.”