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I raised an eyebrow and gave him a sidelong glance. “‘Genuinely interesting’? What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that I think you have a depth that most people lack and I like that about you,” he answered, his blue eyes shining with humor. “Besides, I think you are attractive enough to be stalk-able.”
I gave him a dark look and answered dryly, “Like I said, I’m not interested. Please leave me alone.” I turned back to my computer, noticing that his smile tightened as I did so. He did not leave, but faced forward in his chair and cracked open a book I had not noticed in his hand. The cover seemed familiar in my peripheral vision and I chanced a glance in his direction. The title read:Selected Works of Edgar Allan Poe.
He noticed my less than stealthy glance and smiled slightly. “Do you read Edgar Allan Poe?”
I shrugged nonchalantly and turned my attention back to my computer screen. Coincidence. “Isn’t he some horror writer?”
He chuckled quietly. “He wrote a lot of humorous things too. One I can think of, perhaps you’ve heard of it, I believe is calledThe System of Doctor Fether and Professor Tarr.”
I gritted my teeth and couldn’t help correcting him. “Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.”
“I knew you read him,” he said with a broad smile. “You seem like the type.”
I sighed inwardly, unable to resist a conversation about Edgar Allan Poe. “I wrote my senior thesis on him. He was a genius.”
“A man with that depth of emotion, creative ingenuity and sheer brainpower …brilliant. Simply brilliant. Have you heard that he was the first to come up with the idea of the Big Bang Theory?”
A smile stretched across my face, despite my attempts to stop it. I couldn’t remember the last time that had been a problem for me. “I never thought I’d meet someone else who knew that about him.”
“He also never went by ‘Edgar Allan Poe’, it was always simply ‘Edgar Poe’, which incidentally brings us to the subject of names. I’m Frost.”
I raised an eyebrow and turned to face him again, shaking the hand he offered me. His hand was as warm and soft as I’d remembered it from this morning and sent the same weird warmth through my veins. “Poe. Do you have a first name, Frost?”
“I never go by it. Just Frost. Do you have a first name, Poe? And is the name coincidence?” he asked with a grin.
I answered with a much smaller smile. “I never go by my first name either. And ‘Poe’ is my real name, though of course I’m quite sure it’s not from blood relation. I don’t have connections to any of his cousins and obviously I’m not a direct descendant.”
Frost nodded, his eyes sort of mysterious, as if he was filing away every word I said for future study. He released my hand and looked to my computer. “So, what are you writing?”
“Um…” I hesitated, self-conscious. “Well, I suppose right now I’m working on a novel.”
His eyebrows shot up and he chuckled in surprise. “You’re kidding.”
“No. Aside from being a Starbucks barista, I’m an aspiring writer.”
Frost smiled and met my gaze again. “That’s incredible,” he said honestly. “I wish I could write. I bet it’s nice to fall into some other world. Something completely under your control.”
I frowned slightly, intrigued by the insight. “Yes,” I said quietly. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
Frost’s eyes had glazed slightly, as if his mind was drifting somewhere else, perhaps somewhere less pleasant. With a blink of the eye, he shook it off and smiled crookedly. “So, about that drink?”
I sighed and shook my head, bad memories of my own racing through my mind. “I don’t drink, actually. Thank you for the offer, though.”
“Neither do I. I suggested it because a drink is far less pressure than dinner.”
I swallowed hard and looked to him sadly. “I’m working tonight. Sorry.”
“When are you not working?” he asked with a mischievous glint in his icy eyes. “I suspect you don’t say ‘yes’ often, but you’re far too interesting for me to give up on easily.”
I smiled tightly and saved my writing, then logged off the computer. “I can’t. I work five nights a week and any free time I have I need to be writing. Otherwise I’ll never publish anything and I’ll be stuck at Starbucks forever.” I stood and pushed in my chair, awkwardly avoiding his piercing gaze as I said, “I enjoyed talking to you, Frost. It was nice to meet you.”
With that, I quickly stepped around him, wrapping my arms around me to hold myself together, and left the library, letting the ice-cold wind sweep me away down the city street.
TWO
I hated the restaurant business with a passion. Not only did one have the olfactory assault of bleach and grease to contend with, but for someone who was extremely clumsy, a restaurant environment was less than ideal. Furthermore, there is a very large percentage of the population that is well-suited for customer service, including a smaller portion that is always happy and helpful and thus ideal for a job like waiting tables. But then there is also a tiny portion of the population that consists of individuals like me. People made me very uncomfortable and waiting tables was not a good occupation for someone who could not hold a conversation with an acquaintance much less a stranger.
