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Conversation was a lost art—sadly. I enjoyed talking to people, and just about anywhere I went, I tried to strike up a conversation. It made me more comfortable, especially if I was in a crowd. I glanced around again as I shuffled forward a few more steps.
There was a constant level of noise in the place, the door opening and closing, the chatter of people, the clicking of keys, the whooshing of steam on the espresso machine, and the dinging of the cash register. If you didn’t bunch the sounds together in a group, it could have been overwhelming.
Someone bumped me from behind, and I glanced over my shoulder to see a woman with her phone glued to her ear, her blond hair blocking her features and a huge-assed shoulder bag over her arm. That’s what hit me, not her, her damn bag. I shuffled a few inches to the side to avoid it.
We moved up another foot as the next person was helped, and then someone leaving cut between the woman in front of me and me, making me step back to avoid getting stepped on. I frowned at the guy as he passed by, not even saying excuse me—fucking millennials. They thought they owned the world. I shook my head and got poked by the woman’s bag again.
I ignored it and wiped my brow, which was starting to bead with sweat. It wasn’t just the heat in the room; it was the noise, the people, the feeling of being herded toward something.
A sharp jab nailed me in my back near a bruise from a recent training incident, and I spun around. “Would you mind watching your bag, please?” I said roughly. Even though I was pissed, I was trying to keep my cool.
The woman’s face snapped to mine, and we both jerked back slightly. “Mags?”
“Greg?” she said at the same time. “Heather, I need to call you back.” She hung up without even waiting for a reply. “Gregory Blaire, what are you doing here?”
“Getting coffee with the rest of the damn city. I could be asking you the same thing. Last I heard you were going to Atlanta.”
“I did go to Atlanta, and the last I heard, you had gone back overseas for another deployment.”
“Yep, I did. I just finished twenty. I’m out now.”
She let her gaze drift over my face and down to my chest. “You look good, Gregory.”
While she had been checking me out, I’d been doing the same, and she looked better than good. She looked fucking edible. “Thanks, you too, Maggie.”
“Do you mind moving up?” the pregnant woman behind Maggie said abruptly with a bit of a bite to it. Someone needed a caffeine fix. Didn’t she know that wasn’t good for her baby?
“Sorry, ma’am. I’d be happy to.” I gave her my best smile, and she relaxed a little—even smiled back. I turned my attention back to Maggie after I had shifted closer to the register. “How long you been back in town?”
“A few years, what about you?”
I grinned down at her, noting that she had a few lines around her blue eyes now, but they didn’t detract from her beauty. In fact, it was quite the opposite. “About sixteen months.”
I glanced at the counter and saw I was up next, so I dug into my side pocket to retrieve the laminated coffee order card. I stared at it for a moment; who fucking laminates something like this?
Maggie took the card out of my hand and laughed. “Are you serious? Your office needs a laminated list of how everyone takes their coffee?” She skimmed the list and laughed again as she lifted her pretty, smoky-blue eyes to mine. “Are you the coffee boy? Is that the best job you could get?”
I removed the card from her hand. “No, I’m not the coffee boy. I haven’t spent much time in the office, so I got sent on the errand.”
The barrister called out, “Next!” and I shifted to the register.
I looked down at the card, ready to start reading it off when I thought better of it and thrust it toward him. “One of each of these, then four blacks with cream and sugar on the side to go.”
The guy rolled his eyes but took the card and began to punch buttons faster than I could have read them. I had no fucking clue what half-caf-soy with an extra skinny shot meant. What happened to regular coffee with cream and sugar?
“Is that it?” the clerk said, and Maggie pushed in beside me. “Add another large black with extra room for cream, please.”
I raised a brow toward her. “Sure, by all means, add your order to mine.”
She grinned and leaned forward slightly, lowering her voice, and seductively said, “With all that, I didn’t think you’d notice one more. Besides, I think you owe me at least a cup of coffee.”
Damn—she kept smiling up at me, and I had this crazy-ass idea to lean forward and kiss those lips. Fuck if the idea didn’t get something moving below the belt too.
I was opening my mouth to tell her just what I had noticed when the front door opened, and someone screamed. Two men with masks burst into the place, both holding handguns. I grabbed Maggie’s arm and pulled her behind me before I took hold of the pregnant woman’s arm, too, and yanked her around me also. They were no sooner behind me when a gunshot went off into the ceiling, and my demeanor went from sexual to lethal in the time that it took for the firearms slide to move backwards and then snap back in place.
Chapter Two
Maggie
