Chapter Eight
THE NEXT MORNING, I arrive at the café thirty minutes early.
I tell myself it's because I need to prep the espresso machine. That Gail asked me to restock the napkins. That I have a lot to do before we open.
I tell myself it has nothing to do with the fact that Santino arrives at seven-twenty-three, and I need those thirty minutes to build my armor back up.
To remember how to be professional. To figure out how to look at him without remembering the way his hand felt under my shirt, the way his mouth tasted, the way he looked at me like I was the answer to a
question he'd been asking his whole life.
Thirty minutes.
I can do this.
I count sugar packets (forty-seven). Wipe down tables that are already clean. Rearrange the menu cards in their holders even though they don't need rearranging.
Seven-fifteen.
My hands are shaking.
It's fine, I tell myself. It was one kiss. People kiss all the time. It didn't mean — it didn't have to mean — and I'm not going to be that girl. The girl who reads an entire novel into a single
chapter. The girl who builds a castle out of one brick and then cries when it falls. I'm not. I refuse.
Seven-twenty.
Jolie arrives, takes one look at me, and sets down Wuthering Heights on the counter. “Everything okay?”
“Uh huh.”
"You're wearing makeup though.”
“S-So?”
She starts to smile, and I start to blush. But when she opens her mouth, I shoot her a warning look.
“Don’t.”
Her smile widens just as the bell above the door chimes, and I forget all about Jolie because I realize...
Seven-twenty-three.
I don't have to look to know it's him. I've memorized the sound of his footsteps, the way he moves through space, the exact rhythm of the door closing behind him.
I turn.
And everything inside me goes cold.
Because he's smiling. That mocking, easy smile I haven't seen since—since before. Since before the overlook and the dance and the alley and his hand under my shirt making me come apart like I was something he'd been waiting his whole life to break open.
The mask is back.
Flawless. Perfect. Like last night never happened.
Like I never trembled in his arms. Like he never said I wasn't a phase. Like his voice never went rough when he told me to let go.
He walks to the corner booth. Sits. Doesn't look at me.
And I realize—he's not going to acknowledge it. Any of it. He's going to pretend last night was just—what? A moment of weakness? A mistake?
Stop it, I tell myself. I have to say it over and over again as I walk up to his table, and I notice how he’s looking at his phone, and how he’s radiating ‘professional distance’ like it's a shield.
The mask isn't just back.
It's fortified.
I walk over. Professional. Neutral. Every step measured. "Good morning."
"Good morning." His voice is polite. Distant. Like I'm any other server. Like his hands weren't on my body twelve hours ago. "Coffee, please."
I pour. My hands are steady. I've practiced this. I practiced this at five in the morning when I couldn't sleep, when I kept replaying the alley over and over, when I kept feeling his thumb circling and his voice in my ear telling me to let go.
"The omelet today?" I ask.
He doesn’t answer and instead looks past me. “Over here.”
Santino dismisses me with a wave as two men approach his table, and I...
I can’t remember feeling this small.
This ugly.
This invisible.
I walk away in a daze. In the corner of my eye, I notice how the men joining his table are dressed in racing suits, and I hear all three of them speaking in Italian. That should probably mean something. I feel like it matters. But I’m just too hurt to figure things out.
I get back to my work. Shame eats me inside, but I can’t stop stealing looks at his table.
I don’t understand a single word they’re saying, but their gestures and body language?
It speaks volume. The rigidness of Santino’s posture.
The way the other men are shaking their heads.
And then finally, one of them hands Santino a folder just before they leave.
Time passes by. I tell myself that I’m willing to wait for Santino to explain things. That there’s nothing wrong about choosing to believe him. But when he just suddenly walks out without looking back—
I can’t even cry.
Because this time...
The pain is simply past the point of tears.