Chapter One #2
I looked away so fast I almost tripped over my own feet.
The rest of his meal passed in a blur of me aggressively not staring while also being hyper-aware of every single movement at that table. He ate slowly, precisely, fork in his left hand in European style. He checked his phone twice. He looked out the window at the elk
refuge for a long moment, his expression going distant in a way that made me wonder what he was thinking about, which was dangerous, because wondering about customers is how you end up like those people in rom-coms who fall for the mysterious stranger and then it turns out he's a serial killer or a prince or some other complication.
When he was done, I brought the check, and he paid in cash, tipping exactly twenty percent.
And then he left, and I stood there with the twenty-dollar bill in my hand, and Jolie looked at me knowingly.
“What?”
She gestured to the twenty-dollar bill in my hand. “Are you going to frame that?”
“Of course not.” I was meaning to, but I just hated having to admit she was on to me, and so I forced myself to put the money in the register. This was so me, by the way. I was an expert when it came to cutting my nose to spite my face.
I’m not going to think about him anymore, I remember telling myself that time while wiping his table with more force than necessary.
Come tomorrow, I’d completely forget his face, his accent, and everything about him.
That was what I promised myself.
But...then he came back the next morning, and...argh.
I found myself staring at him again as he entered the cafe at the exact same time and chose the exact same booth.
This time he didn't need the menu. This time he ordered the mushroom and gruyère omelet and black coffee, and when I brought it to him, he said "thank you" in that low, unhurried voice, and I said "you're welcome" like a functional human being.
I begged myself not to look back.
But of course I failed spectacularly with that, too.
I stole a quick little look at him over my shoulder and felt absurdly heartbroken when I saw him already focused on his phone.
Stop being so silly, Thea! Do you really think a man like him would notice you?
Real life was no rom-com movie. Real life was me working as a waitress to make ends meet while I finish school and do my best to overcome the traumas of my past.
Real life was about me taking life one day at a time...never mind if that same customer with the beautiful accent came back the next day.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
By the end of the first week, I knew his schedule.
Seven-fifteen to seven-thirty, always that window.
The corner booth, always that spot. And I knew his orders: omelet on Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Smoked trout hash on Tuesday and Thursday.
Saturday he ordered nothing, just black coffee, and he sat there for an hour reading his phone with that
beautifully brooding expression, and I wanted to ask what he was reading that made him look like that, but of course I didn't, because you don't ask customers personal questions.
You definitely don't spend your Saturday evenings wondering what happens to him on Sundays when the café is closed.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Jolie declared over dinner with the Foxes, and when I looked up, it was to find our married hosts looking at me with interest.
“She’s seriously into him. The only guy she’s ever been into, but she refuses to even say ‘hi’ to him.”
Argh.
I glared at Jolie. “How can you ever be a good psychologist if you don’t understand what patient confidentiality means?”
“A: you’re not my patient, and B: I never said I was going to be a psychologist.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Then why study whatever it is that you’re studying if you’re not going to be one?”
Jolie’s smile was impish. “That’s a secret...and totally beside the point.” She turned to Sarah, saying, “The Bible doesn’t say anything about the girl being forbidden to make the first move, does it?”
I rolled my eyes. Even I knew the answer to that, and especially when we just finished studying the Book of Ruth last week.
“My wife would be the first one to tell you there’s nothing wrong about making the first move,” Damian drawled, and when we saw Sarah turn red...
Ooooooh.
The tables were instantly turned, with Jolie and I immediately teaming up to pester Sarah for details, and this had her billionaire husband’s eyes gleaming in amusement even as Sarah kicked him under the table while telling us very firmly that some things were only for couples to know.
Ha! Talk about a cop out!
It was already half-past ten when we called it a night, and like always, Damian insisted on having his chauffeur drive Jolie and me home to our respective places. On the way back to the city, Jolie turned to me suddenly, saying, “I’m serious, you know.”
Huh?
“You should really think about what’s holding you back from talking to him.”
I looked away as she said this...mostly because I didn’t want her to realize that I already knew the answer. Because I had been thinking about it, and the thing was...I still couldn’t see myself as someone who deserved to have a normal life.
I knew God loved me, and that He’d never leave me or forsake me, but a part of me was still scared.
A part of me still saw myself as the girl whose father was in prison for the rest of his life, and it was just pure luck—instead of God’s perfect will ensuring I was where I was—that I ended up in Wyoming because of the non-profit founded by the Foxes.
A part of me was terrified that God would take all of this away if I ever messed up, and so...I just preferred to stay invisible.
Because you couldn’t make any mistake when the world didn’t notice you.
MONDAY MORNING, I FOUND myself torn between hoping and dreading that he’d come.
Spoiler alert: he arrived at the exact time as usual and, yes, he chose the same booth as well.
When I brought him his omelet, he looked up and said, "You work here every day."
It wasn't a question, but I answered anyway. "Six days a week. Mondays through Saturdays."
"Not Sundays."
"Café's closed Sundays."
He nodded slowly, like this was important information he was filing away, and I stood there with an empty tray and no excuse to keep hovering, and then he said, "Thank you, Thea."
I almost gasped. Almost started fantasizing even. Until I remembered that my name tag was pinned to my apron.
For the nth time, Thea, stop being silly!
"You're welcome," I managed, and I walked away before I could do something mortifying like ask how long he'd known it or whether he'd been planning to use it or why my chest felt like something had cracked open inside it.
Jolie took one look at my face when I got back to the counter and said, "What happened?"
"Nothing."
"You're blushing."
"I'm not—"
"You absolutely are. Your face is the color of those beets Gail uses in the salad."
"He said my name," I admitted, and even saying it out loud made it feel more real, more significant than it should have been.
Jolie's eyes went wide. "He knows your name?"
"Name tag," I said, pointing at it.
"Still. He looked. He noticed. He said it." She was grinning now, that full-wattage Jolie grin that usually preceded her saying something wildly inappropriate. "This is happening."
"Nothing is happening—"
"Oh, something is definitely happening. I'm calling it now. By the end of the month, you two are going to—"
"Jolie." My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. "Don't."
She sobered immediately. "Hey. I'm sorry. I was just teasing—"
"I know." I pressed my hands flat against the counter, trying to calm the suddenly frantic beating of my heart. "I just—I can't. Okay? Whatever you think is happening, it's not. He's just a customer. And I'm just...me."
"Yeah," Jolie said softly. "You're just you. And that's not nothing, Thea."
But it felt like nothing.
It always had.
THE DAYS ACCUMULATED like snow.
Ten days. Fifteen. Twenty.
He came every morning. Same booth, same window of time, same precise rotation of orders. And I learned things about him without meaning to, the way you learn the shape of furniture in a dark room just by walking through it enough times.
I learned that he held his fork in his left hand, European-style, and that Jolie was right—it did make him seem Continental, charmingly but also intimidatingly so.
I learned that he read something on his phone that made his jaw tighten every Tuesday morning around seven-forty, like clockwork, and that whatever it was, he never finished reading it.
He'd put the phone face-down on the table and stare out the window at the elk refuge for exactly two minutes (I counted) before picking it up again and closing whatever it was without reading the rest.
I learned that he drank his coffee black, no sugar, and that he took his first sip exactly forty-three seconds after I poured it, as if he was waiting for it to cool to some specific temperature only he knew.
I learned that he tipped exactly twenty percent, every time, calculated down to the penny, which meant he was either very good at math or very
good at having standards, and I suspected it was both.
I learned that on Saturdays, he didn't order food.
Just coffee. Just an hour of sitting in that booth, reading something on his phone with an expression that I'd started cataloging—beautifully brooding on most days, but sometimes it shifted to something else.
Something more resigned. Something that made me want to ask if he was okay, which was ridiculous, because I didn't know him, and he didn't know me beyond "Thea, the waitress who brings his omelet."
Sundays became the best and worst day of my week because it gave me space that brought me relief and agony. Jolie teasing me about him, I could handle. But it was when Sarah herself finally (but gently) encouraged me to pray about my feelings for him, for wisdom from God...