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“Can you send him away? I need to talk to you.”
I raise an eyebrow.
Blake strokes the short hair at my nape with a teasing smile. “Of course I can send him away.”
Carrot and stick all rolled into a maddening female package.
“Are you okay?” Blake asks.
“No,” Marissa says. “Definitely no. I’m traumatized.”
The smile dies on Blake’s lips. I’m unceremoniously pushed aside as she struggles to retrieve the phone and moves the conversation to private.
“What happened? You’re not on speaker anymore.”
I can still hear her friend’s reply. “Not over the phone. I’ll be there in twenty.”
They hang up, and I sigh. “I guess this means I’m getting the boot.”
“Sorry,” Blake says, cradling the phone to her chest. “Marissa is never overdramatic. If she says it’s something serious, it means it is.”
I kiss her forehead. “I’ll go, then.”
She walks me to the door and we say goodnight. What starts like a chaste kiss soon turns into something heated and I have to force myself to back away. “If you want me to go, we have to stop.”
Blake bites her lower lip. “Technically, I don’t want you to go, just need you to.”
“Same thing in practical terms, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
Blake cups my cheek. “I…” Say it, say that you love me. “I’m going to miss you. Goodnight.”
Feeling more disappointed than I should, I make my way to the elevator. Why won’t she say it? I get that her past relationship blindsided her, but we’ve been together for two months now. Doesn’t she know me enough to feel she can trust me?
Outside Blake’s building, I consider what to do. I’ve already sent Tobias home because I thought I’d spend the night. I could call a cab. Or I could just walk. The fall night isn’t particularly cold. Walk home it is.
As I cross the street, the shiny lights of a still-open Starbucks catch my attention. On impulse, I go in.
“Good evening, sir,” the barista greets me. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll take two venti hot chocolates with whipped cream, two donuts, two chocolate muffins, and two brownies. All to go.”
The young man inputs my order into the cash register before giving me the total. I pay with my phone and go wait at the end of the counter.
The coffee shop is almost deserted. Only another patron is seated at a table, a woman with blue and pink hair, busy typing on her laptop.
“I have two hot chocolates for Gabriel,” another barista yells uselessly.
I give him a perfunctory wave.
“Would you like a tray, sir?”
“Actually, I need these delivered across the street.”
“Sorry, sir, we don’t do deliveries.”
I stare once again at the almost empty shop. There are no customers and two baristas.
“How about this?” I take out my wallet and slide four one-hundred-dollar bills on the counter. That also gets the attention of the other barista, who comes our way. “Say it was time for your break and you used it to do me this little favor. Your friend can cover for you and you both go home at the end of the night with two hundred dollars in your pockets.”
