Chapter 6
Ian
My alarm sounded loudly in my ear, only this time, I was already awake. I had hardly slept all night. Yesterday had been just about the shittiest day of all shitty days, even though it started off in a spectacular way.
After my meeting with the Murphys, I’d had to deal with phone call after phone call with my lawyer, their lawyer — and then I had to deal with Jerome.
All Jerome had wanted to do was bitch, and complain, and bitch some more about how terrible of a job I was doing. He never missed a beat — or an opportunity to try and make me feel like shit. I had twice the paperwork, and I was behind all day because of that useless meeting. Which meant that I had to stay late.
And that meant I got to bed late, which meant that I really hadn’t slept much.
I used to be able to pull that off, but it was usually after a night of partying, heavy liquor and significant amounts of sex. None of which happened last night.
All of that meant that my morning routine of a full dose of caffeine was even more necessary than ever. But even more than the coffee, I really hoped Kate would be there. There was something about her—that fiery red hair, that strong demeanor… I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly it was that drew me to her. But whatever it was, it was sexy.
I hurried to get ready. I needed to get my ass to Starbucks.
The entire car ride was filled with back and forth questioning on whether Kate would be there or not. I wondered why I cared so much. She was one woman, out of a city of millions of them. I wasn’t sure exactly what made her so special. At first, I wondered if it was the unknown, or maybe it was the challenge. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t given me a straight answer — that she seemed almost immune to the charm I thought I had. But I’d already been infatuated even before that.
She was a mystery and distraction from what my life had become, and she was a reminder of what it once used to be.
When I walked in and saw her sitting in the same seat as the day before, I immediately smiled. It was funny, really, how out of a crowded coffee shop, with a good thirty people in line crowding around her, my attention was automatically set on her.
Like she was gravity and my eyes were falling directly into her.
I grinned as I made my way through the crowd of people, my eyes plastered on her red hair and gorgeous fair skin.
She hadn’t noticed me yet. It gave me a chance to watch her for a second as I approached. With every step I took, I was even happier that she had shown up.
She wasn’t fiddling with her makeup, or messing with her nails, and she wasn’t texting a mile a minute. She was just sitting there, with her head facing the window, sipping her coffee.
She was engaged. She was distracted. But it was with the world around her and not with technology. She was perfectly in the moment.
When was the last time I could claim I had been “in the moment?”
I pulled my coat off and sat down before she even noticed I was there. But when she did, she smiled instantly, as if she had been waiting on me. I felt good about that. It meant that the possibility existed where she had been thinking about me as much as I had been thinking about her.
“So you said you just got out of a Master’s program,” I began, pretty lamely. I hated small talk. I wished I could have avoided it — but when I didn’t know someone, what the hell else was I supposed to say? “What career path are you hoping for?”
“Well, my father always thought I’d go into my family’s business,” she said, running one pale finger along the edge of the table. “But that’s not how it all turned out.”
“Oh?”
“I decided to go my own way in life.” Her voice was so incredibly matter-of-fact. Like she had been rehearsing that line. I wondered why, until I heard her add, under her breath, “Much to my dad’s annoyance.”
My brows rose. I knew what it was like to try to please an unpleasable man, and I knew what it was like to argue with him about the future — and disagree wholeheartedly about what he saw for me. I even knew the monotonous sound that resulted from repeating myself time and time again — which I’d had to do if I had any hope of knocking it far enough into his head so that he actually understood what was going to happen. Of course, I’d ended up almost exactly where he wanted me, in the end.
“Anyway, I have a teaching job lined up on the west coast for the fall,” she continued.
My eyes widened. That sounded impressive, and really fucking ambitious. I wouldn’t have pinned her for a teacher. But then I realized that was probably because I went to a prep school with all old-lady, stick-up-their-asses types of teachers. If I’d had a teacher who looked like Kate, I would’ve approached school with a very different attitude.
“What made you want to pursue that career path?” I leaned forward, suddenly wanting to know everything I could about this woman.
One thing I could tell was that she was smart. So smart that with every word she spoke, I felt myself becoming a little more drawn to her. I was far more interested in her than I had ever been in any other woman before. She seemed so kind — so completely genuine — and it paired nicely with her strong intellect.
“My sister is my favorite person in the whole wide world,” she said with a besotted smile.
“And she’s a teacher?” I couldn’t help but wonder if her sister was just as hot as she was. Then I told my dick-brain to shut up, because, with Kate, my real brain needed to be in charge.
She laughed. “No, no.”
She took a deep, exasperated breath. Almost like she was preparing for something incredibly long winded. And just as she was about to start, my phone’s alarm began to sound. Fuck.
Her lips pursed, and she stopped speaking almost immediately. But instead of paying attention to my phone, I reached into my breast pocket and silenced it. Even though I had just put myself behind schedule, I didn’t care.
“Sorry about that.” My hands made their way back to the table. “Go ahead.”
“She’s a teenager, and she’s super brilliant, but she requires a bit of attention. She has a few learning disabilities,” she began. She seemed excited to talk about it — it was almost like no one had ever asked her the question before. “So when I found that out, and I saw the world just blindly walk by without ever really recognizing her issues, I wanted to do something about it.”
I leaned forward again, making sure to listen to every word she said. It was odd, really. I wasn’t staring at her breasts, or trying to make a move on her. I was genuinely interested.
She scowled for a second before saying, “My dad doesn’t believe in personality disorders. He doesn’t think anything is really wrong with her. He’s old school in his thinking. He thinks if you don’t do well, you try harder. Everything is black and white with him. There is no gray.”
“Apparently, there’s fifty shades of it,” I muttered, with a smirk.
She laughed, clearly amused, but I nodded. The way she spoke of her dad was something I could definitely relate to. As much as I’d loved him, my dad was honestly the same way.
“And I’ve come to find a lot of people feel that way, so I want to go into teaching to help kids just like her understand that there are resources in place to help them and that they are different — but not in a bad way. I want to find a way to teach them so that they can function just as well as anyone else. I want to be the person for them who understands, even if their parents might not. In the end, special education just seemed to be that perfect resolution.”
“I can’t believe how incredibly wise you are, and deep.” I was amazed. “I’m sorry I’m not a man of many words right now. You just really surprised me.”
She grinned, and my mind took a picture of that smile. I wanted to remember that smile later. I hoped the conversation that continued after she talked about her sister would be something I would remember later as well. I was completely wrapped up in everything she told me. I was also wrapped up in her beauty and her quiet confidence. I was wrapped up in everything — I was wrapped up in her.
I wasn’t sure how long it had been since we had first started talking, or when I’d silenced my phone, but at some point when my elbows found the table — the empty table — I realized that I hadn’t ordered coffee yet.
Insane. Every day for months I had been relying on the caffeine to get going. But here I was, engaged, completely energized in a conversation. Without a single drop of coffee.
It was like she had fueled me somehow.
But I somehow doubted that it would get me through the day.
“You know, I was supposed to buy that coffee for you,” I said, nodding at her cup and then jumping up from the table with a dramatic jolt. She laughed, which was exactly the reaction I was hoping for—and even though it was lame how much I enjoyed the sound, I would have done it over and over like a fucking court jester just to hear her laugh again.
“I wasn’t sure you were going to show.” She smiled and shot me a small wink.
There wasn’t anything that would have prevented me from being here this morning. Nothing at all.
As I turned to stand in line, my phone began to vibrate. I glanced at it, and it was none other than Jerome Pfeiffer. He probably wanted to know where the hell I was.
“Shit,” I grumbled, sending the call to voicemail.
“But that’s your cue,” she whispered, grinning from ear to ear.
“I would really rather be here than at work.” I picked up my coat and pushed my arms into the sleeves. “But I should probably be getting there. I’m really late.”
I wanted to cuss my job to hell and back. It had probably been the millionth time that I had hated it that week — but it was definitely the time I hated it the most.
“You didn’t get any coffee at all!” she groaned, covering her face. “I feel so bad! You should have just shut me up and did what you needed!”
I laughed. “No, we’re not there yet.”
“Yet?” she smirked. “Someone’s pretty confident.”
“That’s the name of my game, Kate. Confidence. Cheerleaders used to spell that instead of Ian.”
She rolled her eyes in amusement, and that was when I knew that I had her with my stupidity.
“But seriously,” I said, laughing, “learning about you energized me more than coffee.”
That was true. I just wondered how effective it would be for an all-day hellacious workload, once she wasn’t around anymore.
“Are you going to get into trouble for being late?”
It was sort of cute how concerned she was.
“Nah!” I made a funny expression. “I own the place.”
She rolled her eyes again, clearly thinking I was joking. “By the way, I think you’re teasing me,” she said.
I raised my eyebrows. I couldn’t wait for her to tell me what I was teasing her with, because damn it, I could think of a lot of ways I would have liked to tease her.
“I don’t think you’re ever going to pay me back for that coffee.” She brought her cup to her lips, almost seductively, and took a small sip. I watched as a small drip held tightly to her lips until she slowly licked it off.
“You’ll know if I’m teasing you,” I said, confidence definitely present now more than ever. “But I would love to show you how appreciative I am, very, very soon…”