Joe was fifteen minutes late. To be fair, the traffic looked horrible and his workplace was quite far from here. He’d have to change two trains, at least, if he was using the subway and if he was driving… she was going to hang around here all day.
Ashley had chosen to meet him at Café Noire because of its proximity to the offices of Doubleside. She had a meeting with an agent who was coming to her office to go over the contract for a new author in an hour, so she had to dart back immediately after her short first date.
Café Noire was a no-frills kind of place which had a rustic vibe that was classy and cheap at the same time. The cafe was a favorite among the staff at Doubleside and the few other corporate offices that called the area home.
Simple wooden chairs and tables were the only furniture. Classical orchestral music threaded through the air. It wasn’t loud or attention-demanding, only a soothing accompaniment.
The smell of chocolate interspersed with baked sugar coaxed her hidden foodie. The coffee was addictive and the treats on display near the cash counter made her salivate.
Walnut brownies, cheesecakes, assorted pastries, macaroons, chocolate éclairs… mmmmm. Did she have to wait for Joe to get here? She fantasized about putting them in her mouth, keeping her eyes fixed on the display.
Someone cleared their throat. “Ashley?”
Joe had lost a few pounds since she’d last seen him, but she had never been the type to discriminate on the basis of weight and he had never been overweight or anything like that. His blue shirt was stained with a few patches of moisture. He must have rushed here. She should have scheduled this date in later in the day, rather than have him rush mid-afternoon.
“I’m sorry.” His knees buckled when he pulled the chair out for himself.
“Hi, Joe. Nice to meet you.” She was conscious of her tone and modulated it to sound friendly.
Joe panted. “Nice to see you too. You look great,” he said, breathlessly, shaking her hand.
“I hope the journey here wasn’t too strenuous.”
He rolled up his shirt sleeves. “The subway was less crowded than I expected.”
She waited for his heart rate to slow down. He panted, then his breath became more normal.
“So Joe, where do you work?” Bella had told her a million times but she still couldn’t remember.
“Goldman Sachs. I’m a vice-president.” He beamed.
“Thanks for coming here. It’s quite far out from Wall Street.”
“No problem. Is that where you work?” He signaled to the glass shrine which housed Moonlight Publishing. Sun rays bounced off the glass armor.
“Yeah. And sorry, but I need to be back at one. I have a meeting with someone.”
“Oh, then we should get coffee while we talk. What can I get you?”
“You don’t have to.”
“Let me.”
“Okay, Americano. And a brownie. I have an insatiable sweet tooth.”
Joe winked. “Glad to have met someone who shares my love for sweet things. I’ve had my eye on that brownie since the moment I entered. I like this place. It’s different. Good choice.”
She was already starting to like him. He was kind, smart and cool. Either that or there was truth in the wisdom that flattery got you everywhere.
He placed their order at the counter and paid. She was going to let him pay. If he wanted to be nice, she should let him. She wasn’t Kat. Kat fought with every guy who tried to pay for her. Asserting her independence was a contentious issue for her.
The woman behind the counter placed two large brownies on a plate and then smothered them with chocolate sauce. A scoop of ice cream was the final icing on the cake, so to speak.
Joe returned followed closely by the waitress carrying the two plates of brownies.
“Bon appétit.” Her plate was set in front of her. Ashley swallowed the first piece of her brownie. “Mmmm. I don’t even have words to describe how good this tastes.”
Joe dug into his brownie hungrily. She liked the fact that he wasn’t pretending to be polite for her sake. “Delicious it is.”
“So Joe, do you have any hobbies?” She was uncreative when it came to first date questions so she started with the classic.
“My job doesn’t leave me with a lot of energy for hobbies, but I try to help Bella with her flowers whenever I can.”
“Yes, Bella is good at growing things,” Ashley said, using her tongue to pick up traces of cream from her lips.
“Do you have any hobbies?” he asked.
“I love to read. And my job gives me the opportunity to do a lot of that, luckily.” She coughed.
“Are you all right?”
The waiter arrived with her Americano and a cup of espresso for Joe. Ashley quickly sucked the boiling brew to dislodge the piece in her throat. Even with a scalded tongue and throat, she was glad to have gotten the crumb of brownie.
“I am now.”
“So, tell me about your family,” he said.
Ashley brought her legs together. “It’s just my dad and me for now. My mom passed away two years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“What’s your family like?”
“There’s four of us. I have a younger sister. She lives in Mount Carroll and runs an inn there. She’s too young to know what she’s missing in the city, so she refuses to come up here. My family’s lived in Mount Carroll for generations, so they’re quite attached to the place.”
“So why did you leave?”
“I always wanted to. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great place, but I just wanted to go somewhere bigger since I was a kid.”
“So why not Chicago? It’s closer to home.”
“Chicago doesn’t have Wall Street.”
“You’ve always wanted to be a banker, then?” She pushed some coffee into her system.
“I knew I wanted to be in the financial world for a long time. Then in college, I had the chance to intern at Goldman Sachs. That’s when I decided it was going to be investment banking.”
She couldn’t help but be envious of people who figured out their path so early in life. Her road to a job had been long and winding, with a million obstacles along the way.
Joe had some coffee and then looked around.
“Isn’t that Andrew Smith?”
Andrew stepped into the cafe, making everything else fade to black except his lean, luscious body she had almost made love to last night. The suit he wore had been tailored to emphasize his height and angles. A hurricane was brewing in those eyes—a vicious one.
The date had not even started and she knew it was going down in flames.
Ashley prayed he would pass by her table and not see her there. After her disappearance last night and the text message she’d sent him this morning, he had every right to demand an explanation.
When Andrew’s menacing shadow fell over the coffee cup she knew the Grim Reaper was here to claim her soul. Facing the fury in those eyes, she pleaded him silently to not make a scene. Joe was starting to grow on her.
“Someone left something in my apartment last night,” he said, handing her a transparent plastic bag with her panties in them.
Wishing the wooden floorboards would turn into quicksand and swallow her up, she gulped shots of coffee, beside herself with nervousness.
Joe looked to her and then to Andrew, hoping to get a clue. The twist of Andrew’s mouth gave him a clear signal—get out.
“I think I’ll go get some air.” Joe squirmed out, looking uncomfortable.
Out went her secure future with an investment banker.
“What happened last night?” Andrew folded one leg over the other on the chair opposite hers. She couldn’t escape his magnetism when he was not even a foot away.
“Didn’t you get the text I sent you?”
“If you want to say something, you say it to my face. Not send me a one-line text message that’s vague, wishy-washy and totally incomprehensible.”
“I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. You’re the author. I’m the editor. Let’s keep it at that.”
“Is it because of the guy who was here? Are you seeing him?” Possessiveness wasn’t an emotion she would have deemed Andrew capable of, yet it was precisely what she saw on his face now.
“I was trying to, before you barged in and humiliated me. It’s not every day that a woman in her thirties can get a date.” She swung her purse over her shoulder, getting ready to leave.
Anger marred his features. “You were dating him? Is this something new or has it been going on for a while?”
“This is the first time I’ve ever met him.” She laid his doubts to rest. Did he really think she would cheat on someone else?
Seeing her move, he got right down to the crux of the matter. “I want to know why you bolted last night.”
Whitewashed lies weren’t going to deceive him, so she admitted the truth.
“I was scared.”
“Scared of what?” he asked, leaning closer to her.
Taking a step back, she tried not to let his presence disarm her. “Scared of falling for you again. I’m scared of falling in love.”
“It was only one night of sex, Ashley.”
She balked at that. “There will never be ‘only one night of sex’ between us. It’s always going to lead to more. You can’t help it. I can’t help it. It’s a risk we’re always taking.”
“You weren’t so scared of taking risks when we were younger.” he reminded.
“I wasn’t scarred then.” she said.
“It’s been seven years already. Get over it.”
“I’m trying to, but you really messed me up, Andrew, the way you abandoned me.”
“I didn’t abandon you!” He reacted to her accusation with astonishment, which put her on the defensive. “You were the one who wanted the divorce. I just gave you what you wanted.”
“But I didn’t want it when I was lying in bed at the hospital, barely alive,” she croaked, knowing it wasn’t long before her eyes misted.
I wanted you to hold me then. Hold me and kiss me and make my pain go away.
He balled his hands into fists, avoiding meeting her eye-to-eye. “Then you should have told me… does all this even matter now?”
Digging her feet into the ground, Ashley was determined. “It does. Let’s get it all out today. How long are we going to keep avoiding saying all the awful things we should have said to each other ages ago?”
She was ready for a fight today. Ready to let off all the steam she had held back so long.
“I don’t have anything awful to say to you.”
Acting all nice, was he?
“You always clam up when I talk of our divorce.”
“Why open up old wounds?”
“The wounds might be old, but they’re still bleeding. I’m sure I caused a lot of trouble for you when I tried to kill myself. I’m sure you couldn’t go to work for a few days. You must have had to clean up the apartment and be at the precinct and hospital. I’m sure you couldn’t forget how I looked, all dead and bloody for days. You said it gave you nightmares.”
“Ashley, stop.” He pressed his fingernails into his head. “If you think I’m going to hold a grudge over missing work seven years ago, you have a really poor impression of me. I do have a life outside of work. And you were once part of that life.”
His words made the anger she held against him look unwarranted, which it wasn’t. No, she was completely justified in hating him… wasn’t she?
“I have a lot of things to say to you, though.” She swallowed a humongous amount of oxygen through her throbbing throat. “First, thanks for destroying my chance at finding love.”
“I thought you said you were scared of falling in love.” So he had been listening.
“This is a different kind of love. I was trying to build a relationship where I can count on someone to have my back when I’m at my worst. I was hoping to find the kind of love we never had—unconditional love. Even though I am no longer depressed or taking medication, I can’t say what will happen in the future. I want someone who will face the unpredictable future with me.”
His pained silence was proof that her comment had hit something. And she didn’t want to stop. Better get all of this off her chest now.
“Seven years ago, you visited me at the hospital once—when you slapped a divorce on me and vanished. When I was choking for air, you were breathing easy.”
“Ashley…” He didn’t try to make excuses, which compounded the anger she felt.
“So how can you come waltzing back into my life and expect me to sleep with you now? I’ve been stupid once. I don’t want to be stupid again. Last night should never have happened. We were both foolish to let it happen.”
“And incredibly happy too, while it lasted.”
Yes, she had been thrilled, excited, alive every moment, but that wasn’t what happiness was made up of.
“I have learnt to hold out for long-term happiness. That’s something we can never have.”
She wanted a family too—something else they could never have. “I want love that is not just sex. I want someone who will not desert me when I’m falling apart.”
He stood up, looking so detached that she wanted to physically rattle him to make sure he was human.
“I understand. Let this be the last time we see each other, then.”
She clamped down her hand on his before he could slither away. He wasn’t going to have the last word when she still had so much to spew.
“You know what I hate about you the most? Your coldness. How you can just get up and leave. You refuse to talk, discuss, cry or shout at me. You can charm the pants off me when you want to, yet when you should be charming me, you decide to shut up.”
“Ashley, please cut out the drama. We both knew last night was a one-off thing, anyway.”
“Last night was a one-off thing. But I’m starting to see that your behavior seven years ago wasn’t.”
The corners of Andrew’s eyes scrunched with something like regret. But before she could be sure of what it had been, it was gone.
“Have a good day, then.” It was a polite courtesy, nothing more.
Then he left without another syllable—just like he had seven years ago.
