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I don’t dare look up from my screen. The contempt in his voice is enough to tell me he thinks I’m a complete idiot.
“Yes. I must have…” I begin, but he doesn’t let me finish.
“Do you have a car? Can you drive?” His gruff voice cuts me off, and I ball my fists to keep my anger at bay. Who the fuck does he think he is? I’m tempted to ask him, but the little voice in my head reminds me this is my first day, and I need to bite my tongue and smile nicely, even if this guy is acting like a jerk. I drop my phone into my bag and fish out my car keys. I dangle them before him, not daring to open my mouth.
“You have twenty minutes to get to the other side of town.” I expect him to whip out a stop watch, the challenge laid down.
“Then I’d better get going.” I turn to leave, needing to get away from this man as fast as I can.
“Not the best of starts, is it, Miss… what did you say your name was?” I have my back to him, and my head is down. I stop, my hand gripping the strap of my handbag. I spin around, preparing myself for the scorn on his face.
“Daniels. Chloe Daniels.” He holds my gaze as he appears to examine me. He remains silent, so I continue to leave, barely making it out the door before the humiliation and anger brim to the surface.
As I hurry to my car, he’s still watching me through the window. It is as if his eyes are locked on me, judging me with every step I take. After opening the driver’s door, I launch myself into my seat. While my door is still open, I fire the engine so as not to waste time.
Gulping back the rage he has stirred in me, I try to focus on my next move. As the car warms up, I pull my phone back out of my bag and click on the message with the new location. His eyes still watch me from the window. I need to be rid of him if I am going to work out where I am supposed to go.
Carefully, I try to decipher the text, but his face will not leave me. His words are in my ears, and I can’t concentrate. The dancing letters jump before me as if they are laughing at me. I need more time, something I don’t have.
My shaky hands take a screenshot of the text and send it to my brother. I wait impatiently, hoping he is awake. The shrill of my phone nearly makes me drop it as his ginger-bearded emoji flashes on the screen.
“Hey, thank you, I’m in such a panic. Piero texted everyone with a change of venue, and I presumed it was clarifying today, so I didn’t bother trying to read it. I don’t know where I’m supposed to be.” My words cascade out as if a dam has burst within me.
“Hey, chill. It’s fine, just give me a second,” Frank hisses. His voice is croaky and laced with sleep. I feel bad I’ve woken him. As a freelance photographer, he comes and goes at all hours, especially when working for a newspaper or magazine. “It’s a coffee place down by the leisure center. It’s opposite the vet with the large paw on the sign.” Frank knows me better than anyone. My mind works better with images. A sigh of relief escapes when I recognize where he is talking about.
“Thank you so much. I owe you.”
“You always owe me.”
“Thanks.” I hang up, throwing my phone onto the passenger seat as I grab the sun visor, checking my face in the mirror. There is not a hair out of place in the blonde mass that I’d tamed with the straightener this morning, but as I scrutinize my reflection, I am shocked at the moisture glistening in my eyes.
I push the visor back up, wondering why my anger is threatening tears. I never cry. My school days were filled with tears and frustration at being unable to read like all the other students. I’d endured the stigma of being labeled stupid or lazy until I’d gone to art college, where it hadn’t mattered so much. The fact I could draw and had talent far outweighed the fact that it took me longer to read a sentence than everybody else. Is it because I made a mistake with the venue? I hate getting things wrong, particularly when it might highlight my weakness. Is it because I came across as a complete fool in front of a guy who’d not even had the courtesy to introduce himself?
My rage returns with a shudder. He’d made me feel so small during the few minutes in his company. I remember his face when he first met me. He’d been shocked. I wasn’t supposed to be there, but it was more than that. There was something behind the shock, a flame in his eyes that was raw and unedited.
He looked terrified.
Had he seen the real me? Did he have some sort of psychic ability that meant he could see beneath the glossy hair, the smart shirt, and the fake smile?
My tires crunch over the parking lot as I swing the car over to the exit. I glance at the coffee shop window. He’s standing up against the glass, one arm folded over his waist, his phone clutched to his ear. He is watching me with great fascination. The last thing I want to do is to add to my terrible morning by crashing into the side of the building, an act I’m sure he would greatly delight in, so I focus on where I am going.
There is a lightness inside the car at being released from his watchful stare when I pull out onto the road. I might make it if the traffic isn’t too heavy, but my heart sinks as I clock the nose-to-nose cars up ahead.
Fiddling with the radio, I pray for an uplifting song to abate my irritable mood. How can I’ve made such a bad impression? At least with Cora, I understood her dislike. I didn’t cook the bacon like she did. I didn’t know the customers as well as she did. I didn’t fry the eggs as good as she did. Bottom line—I wasn’t her. And all that was before I met Richard.
Richard.
I shiver, gripping the steering wheel.
Cora had married the wonderful Richard four weeks before I started working in her café. The constant drooling over her new husband had been almost as hard to bear as her mood swings.
‘He’s so sweet and so thoughtful. I never thought men could be so caring. He really looks after me. I’d never believed in love at first sight, but when I met Richard, I knew he was the one I’d been waiting for all these years.’
It was enough to make me want to throw up. I worried that maybe I’d end up like Cora, unmarried and unloved in her forties, so she married the first guy who came along, even though he was way younger. They’d met on some online dating site, been on two dates, and bang, they were married. It was all very rushed, but I figured at forty-two years of age, you didn’t hang around.
I’d conjured the image of a shy geek who worked in accounting and had never been on a date in his life—if only I’d been right.
I cleanse my thoughts. It’s bad enough I will be arriving late for training. I don’t want memories of Cora and Richard tainting my first day too. But when I try to shift my thoughts, they land on Piero’s brother. The sting of his last comment jumps around my head like an irritating radio advertisement,‘Not the best of starts, is it?’I stuff the comment back where it belongs, trying to regain some of the positive vibes I’d felt before encountering Piero’s brother.
