Page 16 of Gave Proof Through the Night

Jake is never going to let me live this down.

Oh no, Jake! Coffee Loft. Matcha. I haven’t even changed out of the white dress shirt I flew in.

I grab the key card and head out, hat still on, mostly to hide the hair.

That matcha better live up to the hype, because I flew red-eye, I’ve been awake for twenty-four hours, and my body is running on a turkey leg high and hallucinations of that pickpocket every time I close my eyes.

I subconsciously run my right hand over my watch band.

I don’t do this. I have never once let a stranger take up space in my head, not in college, not my rookie year, not the Olympics, not ever. I built a career on the idea that focus is a finite resource and you don’t waste it on people you’ll never see again.

And yet. Here she is in my head. Her wrist under my hand. The look on her face when she realized I wasn’t letting go.

It’s the lack of sleep. Has to be. Nobody thinks straight after a red-eye, and my brain is filling the empty space with whatever it can find, the way static fills a channel with no signal.

I press the call button for the elevator and let it go.

There’s a tournament to win. A roster full of guys who already feel like a team. And back in my room, forty stuffed orange fish that need to go. The children’s hospital, maybe. I’ll ask the concierge. Okay, maybe I’ll keep one plushie.

The elevator arrives. I step in, already thinking about matcha and fish tanks and anything that isn’t freckles and brown eyes, and let the doors close behind me.

5

ERICA

Chapter playlist:

This Is How I Roll — Money Mark

The Coffee Loft’s A-frame specials board informs me, in cheerful pink chalk, that today’s feature is a “Patriotic Cold Brew” with red, white, and blue cold foam, and I have several follow-up questions.

Right now I’m just standing here, waiting for Zoe to return from the bathroom so we can order, squinting at the specials board like it owes me an explanation. Cold foam should not have a flag in it. That feels like it should be a rule somewhere.

Sal called me last night to inform me he’d acquired me a DC connection. Her name is Ivy, and she, according to Sal, is everything a ‘face’ should be. She knows anyone who’s anyone in this town, and has collected more favors than she’ll use in one lifetime. I was told she’ll meet us today at the Coffee Loft, so here I am, having arrived early as I always do for these kinds of things. You can’t be too careful, after all. Zoe rushed into the bathroom as soon as we got here, because apparently, she gets the urge to go before she drinks coffee.

The barista calls out, “Iced oat milk matcha for… Germany? Ger… mine? Her guy? …Hermione? Okay. For… Herman. Iced matcha for Herman!”

Behind me, a chair scrapes back, and someone steps up to the pickup counter and takes the cup without comment. Herman, I guess.

I squint at the specials board, slightly disillusioned. The actual menu, the big one with prices, is on the wall above the counter. I take a step back to get the whole thing in frame.

Then my back collides directly into something. Something solid.

There’s a soft, doomed little crunch of what is probably a plastic cup, then, “Oof.”

I freeze, then that same voice says, “Oh…no.”

I spin around ready with an apology, and the first thing I register is the stain. A very large, very green stain, currently colonizing what I can only describe as an extremely well-constructed chest.

“Oh my gosh. Okay, don’t move.” I’m already at the napkin dispenser, hauling out a fistful, and I’m pressing them directly to his chest before either of us has formally agreed this is happening. And that’s when I register the other thing.

Abs. Actual, defined, ridge-having abs. I can feel them. Through a shirt. I am standing in the middle of a coffee shop, blotting at a stranger’s abdominal region with a fistful of napkins, and those abs are (I would just like this on the record, for posterity) ripped.

“It’s fine,” he says, immediately, automatically.

“It is not fine, oh my gosh…” I keep going, dabbing in a futile little circle over the worst of the stain, because apparently my hands have decided we’re doing this and nobody consulted the rest of me. And I’m babbling, something about how I’m so sorry, I wasn’t even looking, I’ll buy him a new one, do they do refills, is matcha even refillable?

But then, smooth as chocolate, he says, “We gotta stop meeting like this.”