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I couldn’t help but smile back, feeling a little surprised, but also pleased he’d taken the initiative. “Of course, I’m still up for it. Come on back, Chris.”
Fox looked at us with a knowing expression and a single arched brow. “I’ll be in my room, doing homework,” he announced, though I suspected his sudden dedication to schoolwork was more about giving us space than any real eagerness to hit the books. Particularly when he winked at me.
“Okay,” I said, smiling at him. As Fox disappeared down the hallway, Chris and I made our way to the back table. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
“And I have umm… cookies… a ton of cookies, or brownies?”
“Brownies, always,” he said, and put the brake on his chair, shifting out of it and onto the bench seat.
“I’m still figuring out the machine.” I poked at the steaming wand, which I’d cleaned and then cleaned some more, running through so much hot water that if coffee machines were sentient, it would be sick of me. “Do you want me to heat the brownie?”
“Yeah, please.”
His voice was in my ear, and I turned to find him standing closer than I had anticipated, and for a moment, I was caught off guard and yelped. He was right there, close enough I could see the intricate details of his sky-blue eyes—the darker ring around the pupil that I’d never noticed before.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Chris said, his voice low and tinged with amusement.
“No, it’s okay. I just didn’t hear you come up,” I replied, my heart rate picking up.
There was a brief pause, a moment when neither of us moved. We were close, so close I could feel the warmth radiating from him. Our eyes locked, and there was an undeniable tension in the air, a current of unspoken attraction we’d both been dancing around. Or I was. After all, he’d asked me out for coffee, and it was me who’d qualified it as friends only, and he’d agreed. But as I stood there, looking into Chris’s eyes, this felt like so much more when his gaze drifted to my lips, and he moistened his with the tip of his tongue.
I swallowed hard, feeling a surge of something I couldn’t quite name. It was more than attraction; it was a connection I didn’t think I’d ever felt before, not even when Briggs had swept me off my feet and promised me the world. Whateverthiscould be between me and Chris, was something we couldn’t ignore.
The moment stretched on, and I found myself leaning in, drawn to him, and Chris mirrored my movement, his hand reaching out to steady me. Our faces were inches apart, close enough to feel each other’s breath, the air charged with electricity, and there was a promise of what this could be. My heart pounded, loud in my ears, and for a moment, I thought we might close the gap, giving in to the tension that had been building between us.
The steamer on the coffee machine let out a sudden puff of hot air, jolting us back to reality. We both stepped back, a bit flustered, the spell broken, and as quickly as the moment had come, it was gone.
I cleared my throat, trying to regain my composure. “Uh, your coffee,” I said, a little more breathlessly than I’d intended.
Chris ran a hand through his hair, a small smile playing on his lips. “Yeah, coffee,” he echoed, his voice a mix of amusement and something else I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
As I poured the coffee into a cup, I could feel his eyes on me. There was a warmth in his gaze that sent a shiver down my spine. I was treading on new ground here, and I was both terrified and excited. Oh, and that came with a side order of thinking about Fox, and wondering if this was right.
“Are you okay to take this?” I held out a mug, which he took, our fingers brushing in the exchange. The contact sent a jolt of awareness through me, and I wondered if he felt it too. This wasn’t just me, right? “I’ll bring the brownie and cream. I have this new twist with cookie crumbs on top, and I hope you like it because it adds texture and a hint of extra sweetness, but you need to let me know.” Great, now I was rambling, and I heard his chuckle.
“Whatever you do will be amazing,” he said, and he couldn’t see my face, so the grin I had going on was just for me.
We sat at the back table, the air still thick with lingering tension, and the thought of a kiss. The entire time, I was so aware of him, of the way he would occasionally glance at my lips, of the warmth of his leg when it brushed mine under the table. Even though we started to talk about the diner and the festival, the undercurrent of attraction was still there, humming just beneath the surface. At least it was for me.
Was it just me?
“No,” Chris murmured, and reached for my hand, tracing a pattern with his thumb. “It’s not just you.”
Fuck, had I said that out loud? I didn’t want to move my hand; I wanted him to lean over, meet me in the middle, and kiss me.
But friends didn’t kiss friends. I had Fox upstairs, and I’d wrenched from his life, who’d lost everything, and I couldn’t up and jump into a new relationship.
“But it needs to be slow,” I blurted.
Chris nodded. “It’s all good.”
An hour passed in a blur, and when it was time for Chris to head out for a meeting with his brother about a new plot of land, there was a moment of hesitation, a lingering glance that spoke volumes. He was back in the wheelchair, and I walked next to him to the door, not wanting to say goodnight.
As he wheeled out, I found myself unable to move from the door, watching him go, seeing him get into his car and head off down the street with a wave, and I felt a mix of relief and disappointment. What had started as a simple coffee to make a new friend, had become something much more complicated. I thought about Chris, about the almost-kiss, about the tension that crackled between us, and wondered if maybe I should call an end to this friendship before it got out of hand.
“And?” Fox asked from behind me.
