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There was a reason Penny’s knitting group called him Hottie Barista. The man was supernaturally handsome. He looked like he should be followed around by a key light and a menagerie of cartoon animals.
The first time Penny had seen him he’d rendered her so tongue-tied and breathless, it had been all she could do to blurt out her coffee order. But over the intervening months, she’d gotten more used to looking at him. She still deeply appreciated the view, but he didn’t steal the air from her lungs anymore. He was a part of the scenery now, like a majestic vista she was lucky enough to gaze upon every day.
His eyes sought hers, which in and of itself was unusual. He almost never made eye contact. Or smiled. Or made conversation. It was part of his mystique.
Penny was a naturally friendly person. Her open, sympathetic demeanor invited confidences wherever she went. She couldn’t get on an airplane or sit in a waiting room without hearing the life story of the person next to her, which was fine with her because she loved talking to people. She’d never met a stranger she couldn’t befriend—until Caleb.
Apparently, he was too cool to make small talk with her. All she’d ever gotten out of him was disinterested monosyllables and shrugs. It wasn’t like she’d been flirting with him either. She was aware that her chances with a man of his physical perfection were approximately infinity to one.
She liked to think of herself as pleasingly plump, like Nancy Drew’s best friend Bess, even though she knew there wasn’t any such thing as “pleasingly” plump as far as most people were concerned. Especially not in LA, where almost everyone walked around looking like runway models.
Penny had been fat all her life, and she’d tried everything to lose weight. Any fad diet or exercise craze you could name, she’d tried it, even though she knew better. She was a scientist; she knew bad data and specious claims when she saw them. But she’d been so desperate to look like everyone else, she’d ignored her own better judgment in her quest to be thin.
Until one fad diet too many had left her with a vitamin deficiency and borderline blood glucose levels that had caused a scary fainting incident and landed her in the emergency room her sophomore year of college. A very nice female doctor had sat her down and explained that she was doing more harm to her body than good, and she would be much better off eating a well-balanced diet and throwing her scale in the dumpster.
Ever since, Penny had been rigorous about eating healthy—actually healthy, not fad diet healthy. Once she stopped torturing her body with juice cleanses and extreme diets, her weight stabilized at her current size sixteen. This was the size her body naturally seemed to want to be, and Penny had made her peace with that.
Mostly.
The whole body positivity thing was still a work in progress. Moving to the land of free-range size 00 actresses had certainly put it to the test, but she felt like she was doing pretty well, considering. Penny was a big believer in the “fake it till you make it” theory. Pretend you have self-esteem long enough, and eventually you’ll actually have self-esteem.
Regardless, she had no illusions about her chances with a man like Caleb, so she was always careful to keep her overtures polite and platonic. She didn’t want him to think she was like all the other women who came into Antidote and tried to flirt with him—women whose overtures he ignored just as determinedly as he ignored Penny’s, no matter how attractive they were.
Maybe he was gay. Or had a girlfriend. Still, it had always bothered her that he was so determined not to talk to her. She was delightful, darn it. Everyone else wanted to talk to her. But no matter how many times she came in here, how unfailingly polite she was or how well she tipped, she’d always gotten the same bland indifference from him as everyone else.
Until he’d come into the bathroom to check on her Friday night. And now he was staring directly at her with those piercing eyes and his forehead all creased in concern. Like he was looking at someone who’d received a terminal diagnosis.
Penny felt the blood rushing to her cheeks and tore her gaze away, fumbling with her wallet. She could still feel his eyes on her as Elyse rang her up. Why was he just standing there? Wasn’t he going to make her drink?
“Your name’s Penelope Popplestone?” Elyse said, squinting at Penny’s credit card. “For real?”
Penny smiled reflexively and nodded. “For real.”
“Badass. That sounds like a character in a children’s book.”
It took Elyse three tries to swipe Penny’s card, and Caleb stood there the whole time. Just staring at her. It was unsettling. Finally, Elyse mastered the credit card machine and it spit out a receipt.
“Tables need busing,” Caleb told Elyse as she shoved Penny’s card and receipt at her. Elyse nodded and grabbed a rag, leaving Penny and Caleb alone at the counter.
Penny cleared her throat. “Can I have a pen?” Elyse had forgotten to give her one.
Caleb grabbed a ballpoint from the cup behind the register and held it out to her. He had neatly trimmed nails and callused fingers, like a man who knew how to use his hands.
Penny swallowed and took the pen from him, her heart thudding painfully in her chest as their fingers touched.
Stop it, she told herself as she clenched the pen. He’s just a pretty jerk. She scrawled the tip and her signature and thrust the receipt back across the counter.
“How are you?” Caleb asked before Penny could make her escape.
“I’m fine,” she replied without meeting his eye. Why did he have to suddenly be friendly today? She’d spent months fruitlessly trying to make small talk with him, but it wasn’t until she’d been rendered pathetic and pitiable that he was finally interested in having a conversation. Figured.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what Kenneth was up to.”
Penny shrugged like she wasn’t still bitter about it. “It’s not your job to police my boyfriends for me.”
It’s your job to make my coffee order, she thought silently, wishing he would go and do it. He was the next to last person in the world she wanted to talk to right now—the absolute last being Kenneth.
“I could have warned you though.”
