“Three blocks from the gym. Hard to miss.” I slid into the chair across from him. Clean-shaven today. Hair slightly damp, the kind of damp that meant he’d showered right before coming. Cedar and citrus cutting through the coffee smell. “You already order?”
“I waited. Didn’t want to be presumptuous about what you’d want.”
Most guys I’d met would have ordered for both of us without asking,or drained their drink before I showed. Ellis sat there with his order untouched, waiting.
We got in line. He insisted on paying despite my protest. I let him because arguing would’ve made this awkward. I ordered an iced coffee with oat milk. He got a cortado.
“Rough day?” I nodded at his drink.
“Long day. Work stuff.” He paid, and we moved to the pickup counter. “IT problems that became everyone’s emergency at four-thirty.”
“Let me guess—someone’s password stopped working, and they blamed you?”
“Close. Someone deleted an entire project file and swore the system did it.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Spent two hours recovering it from backup.”
“Sounds thrilling.”
“It’s a living.” Our drinks appeared, and we headed back to the table.
Ellis settled back with his cortado. “What do you do? For work, I mean.”
“Event planning.” I watched for the reaction. Most people either got too excited or vaguely confused. “Mostly weddings, some corporate stuff. I make sure everything looks perfect and runs on time while the clients lose their minds.”
“That sounds… intense.”
“It can be. I’m good at it.” I shrugged. “I like making things beautiful. Fixing things before anyone notices they were broken. The look on someone’s face when it all comes together. That part is the part.”
“I bet you’re amazing at it.” He smiled. “You’ve got that whole… attention to detail thing. Caught it at the gym.”
“You were paying attention?”
“Hard not to.” Ellis shifted in his chair. “Any wedding emergencies this week?”
“Mother of the bride tried to add fifty people to the guest list four days before the event.” I took a sip, perfect temperature, not too sweet. “Had toexplain that physics exists and the venue only holds two hundred.”
“How’d that go?”
“She cried. I didn’t budge. She added them anyway by cutting the cocktail hour short.” I shrugged. “Some battles you just let people lose on their own.”
Ellis leaned back in his chair, cradling his cortado. The afternoon light caught his profile, strong jaw, the hint of stubble from before, those eyes that seemed to shift between green and brown depending on the angle.
He set down his drink. “Tell me more about yourself. I want to get to know you better.”
“What would you like to know?”
“Something about you that I wouldn’t guess from looking at you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s a dangerous question.”
“How so?”
“Because now I’m curious what you think you know just from looking at me.”
“Fair point.” He set down his drink, and his fingers drummed once against the table, nervous, before he stopped himself. “You’re confident. Probably the most confident person in any room. You know you look good, and you use that. You’re charming—like, effortlessly charming in a way that probably gets you whatever you want most of the time.”
“Should I be offended?”
“I’m not done.” The corner of his mouth tipped up. “You work hard. I can tell from your workouts. You check your phone a lot between sets, like you’re either really busy or really loved, maybe both. And.” He paused. “You’re scared of something, and I haven’t figured out what yet.”
