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I pull up the shop’s account to close out the false alarm in the maintenance log. While it’s loading, I reach for my coffee. That’s when I see it. Where my cup normally says Striker, today it says, WORLD’S GREATEST DRONE DAD.
I don’t have to think too long to understand how that happened. Beth got into the customer profiles and found mine, the one I signed up for ages ago to get discounts and a free tenth cup of coffee. She changed the name in my customer profile.
Taking a sip of coffee that’s as dark as my soul, I realize that I should be irritated with her shenanigans. She has no authorization to change things in my profile. Whoever gave her access to that part of the system made a huge mistake. It’s sloppy, from a security perspective. I clearly need to have a conversation with Milo about access privileges for different parts of his system.
I laugh because I realize that I’m taking this far too seriously. And then I sit there, kind of stunned at myself, because I can’t remember the last time something surprised a laugh out of me. I look at what she wrote on my cup and decide to do one better.
***
The next morning I’m at the counter of the coffee shop at six fifteen. I found Beth’s profile yesterday and discovered she gets coffee every morning on her way to work at a prestigious local accounting firm. Her visits are always around six thirty.
When the barista asks for my order, I give her Beth’s sugar-laden concoction and tell her, “Put it under ‘Drone Molester’.”
She blinks, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t think I’m allowed to use that word on a cup.”
“Fine. Write Drone Abuser instead,” I find myself explaining. “She kicked my favorite drone, and I didn’t fuckin’ like that very much.”
She reluctantly types it in but mutters something about how men never grow up.
Beth pulls up at the drive-through right on time. And I watch as she obliviously takes the cup and drives off. I walk out whistling a happy tune and jump on my bike. I’m a grown-ass man and shouldn’t like playing catty games with a woman, yet I do. I’m not gonna lie, getting my own back feels good. Now, we’re even, and I can be done. We don’t ever have to talk to each other again.
Only, the next day, I realize we might not be done, because she leaves me a flirty message instead of one making fun of me. It says HANDSOME MENACE. Smiling to myself, I realize she thinks I’m handsome.
I send her one back saying, SUGAR AND SPICE, because that made her smile before. We go back and forth for days. She sends me, HOT BIKER COMIN’ THROUGH. I reply BIKER APPROVED. She finally sends back, ASK ME. I immediately take her up on the offer, DINNER AT 7 PM SUNDAY. And she sends back, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, along with her address.
I’m way more into our weird flirting than I should be. But it becomes our thing. A private, stupid, escalating flirt through the coffee shop’s point-of-sale system.
At some point, I find out the employees are taking bets on whether or not we get together. The kicker is Milo is holding the money. The morning barista keeps a running tally on the back of the milk-order clipboard. It’s getting surreal having all these people involved in our relationship before we even have one.
***
Sunday takes for-damn-ever to get here. I tell myself it’s just dinner. A pretty strawberry blonde flirted with me on coffee cups, called me a handsome biker, and told me to ask her out. So, I did. Now I’m standing in front of her apartment with flowers in my hands because I really like this woman and she deserves all the good things life has to offer, like flowers and dinner at a nice restaurant.
When she opens the door, I’m taken aback. She’s got her hair down and it’s a good look for her. I’m glad I wore a dress shirt and dress pants because she dressed up in a pretty green dress to match her eyes. Beth really is a beautiful woman. I can’t believe she warmed up to me so quickly. I’ve got to be the luckiest man on earth tonight.
She looks at the bouquet of roses in my hand and smiles. “I can’t believe you brought me fresh flowers. No one does that anymore.”
“You deserve it, sugar,” I tell her.
She takes them. “They’re beautiful. Come in while I put them in water.”
I look around a little, just in the front room while she’s in the kitchen. Investigating is what I do. It’s a big part of security, and it’s hard to turn off that part of my personality. Plus, I’m genuinely fuckin’ curious about her. I want to know her more than I’ve wanted anything in a long time.
Her place is neat and organized, but also feels lived in. There’s a shelf of accounting books, which makes sense considering her occupation. I file it away mentally with everything else I’ve been learning about Beth Benson for weeks now.
We have dinner at a small Italian restaurant two towns over. It’s quiet, romantic and has candles on the tables. It’s the kind of place I’d normally never take a woman because it would generate relationship expectations. Beth is someone I wouldn’t mind generating expectations with. I could talk to her until they turned the chairs up on the tables. We argue about everything, the wine, the bread, whether grated parmesan in a jar is real cheese. Every argument is really just a playful excuse to keep talking, and we both know it, so there’s zero motivation to rein it in.
While we’re waiting for dessert, she props her chin on her hand and studies me intently for a few seconds. “So, what’s your real name?”
I usually deflect questions like this with women because I usually want to keep them at arm’s length. This time, I find myself answering, “Conrad Cooper III.”
“Around these parts, that’s an old-money name, right?”
Shock rolls through me that she’s so easily picked up on that piece. “Yeah, only by the time I came along all the money had mostly run out. I ended up with a big old turn-of-the-century house that I hardly stay at and a little pile of money that I feel too fuckin’ guilty to spend,” I tell her gruffly.
“Really?” she asks. “If you don’t mind me asking, why do you feel so guilty? If you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to, but I’m curious.”
“My mother passed while I was deployed and I didn’t find out for weeks because we were out of range for civilian communication. My father also kept the news of his cancer to himself. He chose a nursing home placement, so he didn’t have to burden me with his problems. I came home just in time to say goodbye to him before he passed. I’d fuckin’ give everythin’ I own to have one more day with them.”
