Chapter Two

 

 

 

Stephanie

 

 

 

 

 

 

I woke up to my alarm blaring a few hours later and it felt like I had just fallen asleep. That wasn’t anything new, though. Getting more than six hours of sleep had become a luxury.

The chill of the house hit me the moment I crawled out from under my covers. Although we lived in Arizona, home of the triple-digit summers, we had a few weeks out of the year where the high temperatures liked to drop below sixty which led to chilly nights. My poor desert acclimated body couldn’t handle it.

The house was quiet when I walked across the hall to the bathroom and I knew that Alyssa was already gone for the day. She was a field reporter at a local news station and worked early to have her stories ready for the day. It was hard to keep up with her since she slept the most random hours but my peppy friend never seemed fatigued.

After my shower, I sat on my bed so I could watch the six o’clock news- a habit I had been in since college. Every now and then Alyssa would appear but not as often as I felt she deserved to. She was a great reporter but generally got stuck with the less serious segments. She had a theory that it was because she was so young and a woman. She was sure her producers didn’t feel she would be taken seriously with the harder hitting stories

Thirty minutes later, I was dressed in a pink blouse, black a-line skirt that went to my knees, and black heels that I knew would be kicked off at every available moment. I had also dried my hair and left it hanging straight in a very boring way. My pale blue eyes had been lined with enough make-up to hide most of my exhaustion but a look in the mirror told me I wasn’t fooling anyone.

I was in my car by seven and had a moment of panic when I realized I was going to be cutting it close. I drove as fast as I could in the early commuter traffic and when I pulled into the parking lot of Java Express shortly after seven-thirty, I felt nervous anticipation run through me.

The bell above the door chimed but no one in the packed coffee house seemed to notice. The line was about five deep and my eyes darted around as I walked to the end of it. When they caught sight of someone leaning against a stand-up table, a smile hit my lips automatically. I wasn’t too late.

The man was wearing a suit, the same thing he always was, and it was a light grey color. A sky-blue dress shirt was under his jacket and a maroon tie hung at his neck. His shaggy blonde hair was lighter than mine and never seemed to have any order to it. In fact, it looked like he had already run his hands through it once or twice that morning.

Two cups of coffee were on the table in front of him along with two pastries and he glanced at his watch with his eyebrows knit together. I stepped towards him and as if he felt me there, he looked up quickly.

His light green eyes met mine and a smile hit his face like he couldn’t help it either. He straightened up and nudged a coffee cup towards me when I made it to the table.

“Vanilla Latte. You’re late.”

I picked up my coffee and took a quick sip before giving him an apologetic look. “Sorry, City Roast. I’m moving a bit slower this morning.”

The man, whose actual name I didn’t know, had been my morning coffee partner for about three weeks. I had noticed him long before that, though. We always seemed to hit Java Express at the same time and had shared a few looks over time. It wasn’t until one morning when I was told the apple fritters were gone that we spoke.

“You know,” he had said as I stood off to the side waiting for my drink and the chocolate croissant I’d ordered instead. “I’d be willing to split this delicious apple fritter with you if you want to share that croissant.”

I looked up at him and narrowed my eyes playfully. “You ordered the last apple fritter? I’ve never seen you order any sort of pastry.”

“Paying attention to my order then, huh?” He grinned and I felt my cheeks go red.

“Maybe.”

The barista called out that his city roast was ready and he stepped forward to grab his coffee. Once he had it in hand, he gestured to a table off to the side.

“I’ll be right over there if you decide you want to go halfsies.”

“Halfsies,” I repeated with a snicker and he just shrugged one shoulder before walking away. A minute later, my vanilla latte was called out and I grabbed it from the counter. It took me about two seconds to make my decision and I headed to the table where he was.

“So, City Roast, what made you want an apple fritter today?”

He grinned and pushed the pastry towards me. “You make it sound good when you order it, Vanilla Latte. I’m not sure how you’re not in a sugar coma, though.”

We both laughed and I gave him a run through of my eating habits. Before I knew it, both of our breakfasts were gone and I had fifteen minutes before I needed to be at work. We threw away our garbage and stepped outside into the chilly morning air.

“What’s your name?” he had asked as he looked over at me. “I’ve been calling you Vanilla Latte in my head for a few weeks but it doesn’t do you justice.”

I smiled and shook my head. “I think it suits me, honestly. You tell me yours first.”

“I’m not sure that’s fair,” he replied with a chuckle. “Maybe I could guess.”

“How about this?” I started, resisting the urge to step closer to him. “You get one guess a day. If you can figure it out, you win.”

“What do I win?”

I shrugged. “What do you want?”

“A date,” he responded quickly, without needing a second to think about it. “If I guess correctly, you have to go on a date with me.”

I arched my brows. “And if I win?”

“Then I go out on a date with you.”

We stared at each other for a moment. He had an inch or two on me in my three-inch heels, leaving us almost at eye level and the intensity staring back at me made butterflies swarm in my stomach. I nodded and held out my hand.

“Deal.”

He wrapped his larger, warm hand around mine so we could shake on it and I felt a shiver run up my spine that had nothing to do with the cold air. The two of us just stood there, our hands connected, lost in our own moment. It was broken when someone pushed out of Java Express, forcing us to step out of the way, and I felt the loss of his hand the second he let go.

“Okay.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “Rebecca?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Peter?”

He scrunched up his nose. “Do I look like a Peter?”

Laughter escaped my mouth but before I could reply, my phone chimed. I pulled it out of my pocket and gasped when I saw the calendar alert. “I have a meeting in five minutes. I have to go. See you tomorrow, City Roast?”

“See you tomorrow, Vanilla Latte,” he confirmed, holding his hand up in a wave as he stepped back. I flashed him another smile and turned to head to my SUV. When I made it to where I was parked, I looked over my shoulder. He was still standing there with his hands in his pockets, a smile on his face, and his eyes on me.

So, for three weeks we had been having quick fifteen minute conversations over coffee during the weekdays. Neither of us had missed a single one and neither of us had guessed the other’s name.

“I thought maybe you were bailing on me,” he said that morning as he halved the blueberry scone he’d ordered for us. I shook my head and reached out to grab a chunk of it.

“I wouldn’t dream of it… Daniel.”

He laughed softly. “Wrong. What are your weekend plans?”

“I have a dinner thing tonight and then I’m trying to be as lazy as possible.” I watched as he took his own bite of the scone. “What about you?”

“Well, I have to go to San Francisco for work on Sunday morning.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “And I won’t be back until Friday night.”

Disappointment hit me hard when the realization of what that meant washed over me. “You’re going to be gone all next week?”

“Yeah. But I’m going to make it up to you.”

“How so? I’m starting to doubt your abilities. You haven’t even guessed my name yet,” I teased gently, trying to hide how pleased I was with the thought that he was going to miss me.

“What if I bring you back some Ghirardelli chocolate?” His green eyes were bright as he looked at me. “I might not know your name yet but I know damn well you won’t turn down sweets… Erica.”

“Wrong name, right assumption in regards to my eating habits.” I finished off the last of the scone and started gathering up our garbage. “And those chocolates won’t make up for it completely but it’s a great place to start.”

He helped me clean up and we both stepped outside into the air that was way too nippy for Southern Arizona. He walked me to my car, something that he’d been doing since our second morning, and we both stopped near the door. He released a sigh and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“It’s going to be a long week, Vanilla Latte.”

“It will fly by and you’ll be back here with my chocolates before you know it.” Before I could change my mind, I stepped forward and pressed a kiss against his cheek. “Safe travels, City Roast.”

He grinned and opened my car door for me, the same thing he did every morning, and I slid in behind my steering wheel.

“Don’t find any new coffee partners while I’m gone,” he told me with a stern expression on his face but the corner of his lips twitched slightly. I just chuckled and shook my head.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. See you a week from Monday?”

“Ten days,” he confirmed before closing my door softly. He stood in the parking lot watching as I backed out and held his hand up in a wave that I returned before driving away.

I was a few minutes late but it wasn’t a big deal. I put in so many hours that I could have come in at noon every day and still manage to work more than forty a week. Besides, I wasn’t habitually late and my boss knew it.

The day went by quickly but that was only because I had so much to actually do. It never failed that Fridays were the busiest and it seemed to be even worse since I had planned on leaving at a decent time.

“Son of a bitch.” I reached up and hit the side of my computer monitor with the palm of my hand in an attempt to get it to work. “You can’t freeze now.”

“You know that actually doesn’t do anything to help, right?”

I looked up and scowled at the man in front of me. When I say I looked up, I looked up. Keon Swift was six-foot-six, towering over me by ten inches without heels, and by a hell of a lot more when I was sitting at my desk. His handsome face had a mischievous smile plastered to it and he reached up to push the dark hair out of his light-brown eyes. If I hadn’t been so damn exhausted from staying out so late with Bettina and the Lampkins, I might have smiled back.

“It makes me feel better. I haven’t saved anything in about thirty minutes.”

He sighed and came around behind me so that he could lean in and take a look at my screen. The smug bastard wasn’t just good looking- he smelled nice, too.

“Before you throw it out the window, let me see what I can do.”

Sure enough, Keon had the screen unfrozen with just a couple of clicks. I stared at him with my jaw dropped as he walked back around to sit in one of the chairs in front of my desk.

“How did you do that?”

He flashed a smirk that I was sure broke hearts left and right. “I have mad skills, Steph. On top of being your best employee, I also can work most electronics.”

“Don’t make me fire your ass,” I grumbled, unable to hide the slight smile that hit my lips. “How was the removal?”

Keon’s face fell. “Heartbreaking but those kids deserve better. I got them all settled into the Fowler household. I’ll work on finding them a permanent placement tomorrow.”

I sighed and glanced out my office window. The city was bustling twenty-three stories below as people started to wrap up their workdays. Up in our office, it felt like the days never ended. Even when we went home, we still had work with us one way or another. Some cases were so bad or pathetic that they stayed in our minds. Some caseloads were so much work that we fretted over them constantly. Sometimes we had on call shifts to cover so we really did take work home. Sometimes we got random calls about our kids vandalizing Italian restaurants. It was never ending.

But I loved it.

I had worked for the State of Arizona for over five years in the Department of Child Safety. I’d started as an intern with a fresh undergraduate degree and was hired on full-time once I finished my graduate degree in social work. Being a caseworker in the Prevention and Support department meant that we dealt mainly in child abuse and neglect, two things we saw way too much of.

I had been promoted to supervisor just six months before even though I was a lot younger and had less seniority than a few of the other caseworkers. I had initially been worried that the others would be resentful towards me because of it but the transition to my new role had gone well and I felt like I had finally settled in.

Keon was a newer hire, a part of the first group of candidates I’d had my hand in hiring and training five months before. He had quickly become a standout and gave every case his all. I was very proud of my protégé.

“I’m just glad Judge Randall is overseeing it instead of Miller. Three different times he sent the kids back to that home and each time was worse than the last. I understand wanting to keep kids with their parents as much as possible but he put them at risk every time he ordered us to give them back.”

“I know,” Keon replied quietly. And he did. The Whalen kids had been my case before I made supervisor and I’d transitioned it into Keon’s care when I lightened my caseload. Their mother was a drug addict who routinely cooked and dealt meth in her home. The kids needed to stay away from her until she got her life together. If she got her life together. “Are you staying late tonight?”

“Nope. I actually need to leave here in about twenty minutes.” I saved my document and glanced at the to-do list I had taped on the side of my screen. “Who’s still here?”

“Me, Rachel, Denise, and Francis. Well, and Robin because the two of you work way too much.”

I chuckled at the mention of my boss, the manager of our department. If anyone worked more than I did, it was Robin.

“Go home, Keon. You’re on call tomorrow, right?”

He nodded his head and stood from his chair, flashing me his charming smile. “Don’t have to tell me twice. See you Monday, Steph.”

Thirty minutes later, I turned off my monitor and packed up my things. Once my heels were back on my feet, I stood and poked my head into the office next to mine.

“I’m leaving.”

My boss, Robin White, looked up at me with an expression of fake shock. Hell, it could have been real shock, honestly.

“Are you sick? Is it the apocalypse? Stephanie Gibson is leaving on time for once?”

“Hi, pot. I’m kettle.” I grinned at her and she chuckled softly. She had about fifteen years over my twenty-six and was a wealth of knowledge. With her chestnut colored hair and brown eyes hiding behind a pair of glasses, she could manage to look friendly or intimidating depending on what was happening. She had been one of my mentors in the department and I credited her with everything I knew.

“Touché.” With her hand up in a wave, she then used it to shoo me away. “Have a great weekend, Gibson.”

She wasn’t the only one with something to say as I walked through the office. My employees all seemed shocked to see me leaving before them. I waved off their jeering and bid them all a good weekend as I headed to the elevator.

Alyssa’s car was in the garage when I got home but the house was silent, telling me she was sleeping. As quietly as I could, I started getting myself ready for dinner. I picked out a red dress that had three-quarter sleeves and a skirt line that hit my knees. It was classy, showing very little cleavage, but tight enough to accentuate my hips and boobs.

I curled my hair and did my make-up a bit more elegantly than normal and gave myself a satisfied nod in the mirror. I had just slipped into a pair of red heels when the doorbell rang. I rushed down the hall and grabbed the doorknob before Troy could ring it again and wake up Alyssa.

When I pulled the door open, I couldn’t help but smile.

Troy Walters had been pretty awkward when I first saw him at fifteen-years-old, but he was still the most handsome boy I’d ever seen. His family had just moved up from Tucson and he had been assigned to me as my partner in our English class. His chocolate-brown hair had been so long that it hung in his matching eyes and his smile had been devastating when he turned in on me. After only two weeks of working together, he asked me out on my first date.

More than ten years later, he wasn’t awkward by any stretch of the imagination. He had played football all throughout both high school and college and hadn’t lost the linebacker build thanks to his strict gym regimen. He was big- about seven inches taller than my five-eight and muscular all over. The hair on his head was shorter than it had been in high school, cropped short on the sides and slightly longer in the middle, and he filled out the midnight blue button-up shirt perfectly. It was tucked into a pair of black slacks that had a slight hint of sawdust on the cuffs that he’d likely tracked home from a job site.

He was insanely attractive.

“You look amazing, babe.” His lips were tipped up in a smile as his eyes roamed my body. “You ready to go?”

I nodded and grabbed the black clutch that I’d thrown all of my stuff into earlier. “Let me get my jacket.”

The second I had my jacket in my hands, Troy was taking it from me so he could hold it open. I slipped my arms in and moved so I could press a kiss to his cheek.

“Thanks, handsome.”

With his hand on the small of my back, Troy led me out to where his too-big truck was parked on the street. He took my hand and helped me climb up into the monster before shutting my door and coming around to the driver’s side. He glanced over at me as we drove.

“How are you? How’s work?”

I shifted slightly so I could look at his profile. “It’s good. Busy.”

“Everything still going okay with the new position?” he asked and I nodded.

“Oh yeah. It’s been great. We’ve streamlined a lot of stuff, too. I feel like I’m making a difference in the department.”

“Yeah?” He flashed me a smile. “I’m not surprised. You’re damn good at that job.”

The praise from him in regards to my profession was still shocking. Just a year before, talking about work had become taboo because it always led to an argument. It was a definite improvement.

“Let’s hope so. Now tell me about this deal so I’m prepared.”

Troy dove into a quick explanation about who was going to be at dinner. His twin brother and CFO, Liam, would be there but I obviously knew him. Two men from Arizona State University were supposed to attend, though. Troy was hoping to become the university’s primary construction company and I knew it would be a huge win for him.

We pulled up in front of Brimstone, a fancy restaurant that I had eaten at once before when Troy had been wining and dining potential clients. He stopped his truck in front of the valet and someone opened my door, offering me a hand so I could climb down. Troy immediately gave me his arm once he had come around the truck and we walked inside together.

He told the hostess his name at the podium and we were immediately led back to a table. Liam was already there and a grin hit his face the second he saw me. He stood from the table and wrapped me in a bear hug that was so tight I could hardly breathe.

“Stephy.” When he finally released me, he looked down at me with a slight shake of his head. “I’ve missed you.”

Although they were identical twin brothers, I had always thought that the two of them looked insanely different. Liam’s brown hair was shaved down on his head in his usual cut I’d deemed the military buzz. He also was sporting trim facial hair that hid his lips but somehow always managed to have a playful expression on his face. He also wasn’t as muscular as his brother but he still had a pretty good build. Together, they were a panty-melting duo.

He let me go so I could hand off my coat to someone and so he could introduce me to his date, a woman who was completely unfriendly. Liam wasn’t one for serious relationships, though, so I knew I would never see her again.

I had just sat down when two men showed up. We moved back to our feet and Troy placed his hand on my back again after shaking theirs.

“Gentlemen, this lovely lady is Stephanie Gibson. Steph, I’d like you to meet Anthony Culver and Bryan Hammond, the director and assistant director of facilities at Arizona State University. Stephanie is also an alumnus.”

I shook their hands and sat back down. Everyone chatted a bit as drinks were ordered and when Troy leaned over to ask if I wanted an appetizer, I gave him an incredulous look.

“I always want an appetizer. Besides, I only had Pop-Tarts for lunch.”

My health-nut ex-boyfriend rolled his eyes. “That processed food is going to kill you, maybe even before your magic metabolism dies.”

I offered him a brilliant smile. “Just for that remark, I’m going to eat some of that microwavable mac n cheese tomorrow.”

He groaned, pressed a kiss to my forehead, and turned his attention back to the guys.

Two hours passed while conversation flowed around the table. I was able to keep up with the guys in regards to anything ASU related but I zoned out during the business talk. I nursed a glass of wine while the men went through three glasses of scotch, and I finished off Troy’s key lime pie when he didn’t eat it all.

“You’re both good kids,” one of the men said as he placed his empty tumbler on the table, shifting his gaze between the Walters men. “Your work speaks for itself and your bid was a very fair one. We’ll make it official next week but it’s safe to say that Walters Construction will get the two year contract with ASU.”

I let out a squeal and squeezed Troy’s hand excitedly. He looked over at me with a huge smile and gave me a quick, hard hug before turning back to the other men.

“Thank you both so much. You definitely won’t regret it.” He stood and we all exchanged handshakes, thank yous, and congratulations. Troy’s arm remained around me the entire time and the excitement was coming off of him in waves. We said goodbye to them at the podium and Liam gave Troy a congratulatory hug. The two laughed as they separated and Liam shook his head.

“This is huge, bro. It’s going to take us to so many new places.” He turned his gaze on me and tugged me to his chest. “It’s good seeing your fine ass, Stephy. See you soon?”

I just nodded and watched Liam and his date leave while Troy and I waited for my jacket. As soon as they were out of sight, he wrapped me up in a tight embrace.

“Shit, I can’t believe it.”

I laughed as he pulled away and shook my head. “I can. You deserve this.”

We stared at each other for a moment and suddenly, Troy’s mouth was on mine. I was shocked for a second or two, but recovered quickly and kissed him back. He tasted like scotch, limes, and familiarity. Although we’d been broken up for a year, the two of us had gravitated back to one another a few times, having sex without a relationship. The last time had been around Halloween, about two months before, and my body was screaming for attention.

My arms were looped around his neck and his around my waist, both of us holding onto the other tight. After a moment of kissing in the lobby of the restaurant, Troy pulled back and looked down at me while breathing heavily.

“Come home with me?”

I hesitated slightly before nodding my head. “Yes.”