I inspect the inside of my closet. Half the rail is taken up by the identical pairs of black pants and white blouses I wear to work. The rest of the contents consist of my blue mini dress, a pair of skinny jeans, four t-shirts, and some sweatpants.

I really don’t get out much these days.

I consider sending Brittney a picture of the situation and asking her to come up with some sort of fashionista miracle solution. Since the Flirtini Friday episode, Brittney, Trisha and I have started to talk all the time, our newly forged friendship solidified by the bonds of drunken embarrassment.

I hold back on asking Brittney’s advice, though. I don’t think even she could create a wow-worthy outfit out of what I’ve got to work with here. After a very quick process of elimination, I go with skinny jeans and a black t-shirt.

In simplicity, there is beauty, I tell myself as I dab on some makeup and fluff up my hair.

I check the time. I have five minutes until I have to leave to meet Jordan at Cuppa Joe, my favourite cafe.

I keep trying to tell myself that it’s ridiculous to be nervous about going on a date with a guy who has literally had my boobs in his mouth already, but my heart is still pounding faster by the second. Seeing him outside of work, and being sober this time, has me wondering if things will still be the same between us when we’re not our 19^th Street selves.

Pulling my coat on, I say goodbye to Amanda where she’s doing a book of math puzzles on the living room floor.

“Nerd,” I tease, prodding her with my foot. “Wake mom up if you need anything.”

My mom got back from her overnight shift a few hours ago and is now sleeping the afternoon away in her room.

I take the bus over to the artsy part of town, tapping my fingers on the edge of my seat. Part of me wonders if I’m an idiot for even agreeing to this date in the first place. I shouldn’t have made it so easy for Jordan to apologize. All he did was come up with a few heartfelt sentences and he had me half naked on a tabletop. While what happened in the cafe leaves no doubt in my mind that he wants my body as desperately as I want his, I wasn’t just being a flirt when I told him I didn’t trust him.

He was right when he said there’s a pull between us. Everything about him draws me in. Just seeing the heat in his gaze when he looked at me was enough to make me wet, and when we kissed he seemed to know exactly what I needed even before I did.

I try not to let myself believe that proves I mean something to him; a lot of very good kissers are very bad guys.

I get off the bus across the street from Cuppa Joe and immediately brace myself for a hard hit to my resolve when I see Jordan leaning against the wall outside.

He’s got his pea coat on over a pair of dark jeans, and when he reaches up to push back a few drool-worthily disheveled strands of hair, I fully expect a camera crew to appear from around the corner because there is no way this man is not shooting some kind of commercial right now. Nobody just stands against a wall looking that good in real life.

Pushing away thoughts of the time he had me up against a wall, I cross the street and approach him.

“So you do own clothing other than a suit,” I announce, hoping to come off as way more collected than I feel.

“And you don’t wear an apron every day,” he counters.

“Oh, I’ve got one on under my coat.”

The corner of his mouth pulls up into one of his uneven smiles, and all I want is for him to bend down and kiss me right then and there.

Pull yourself together, Hailey Warren, orders my internal drill sergeant, who is doing her best to overrule my inner temptress for the day.

“Shall we?” I say, leading Jordan over to the door of the cafe.

The earthy smell of coffee beans wafts towards us as we step inside. There’s a sticky-sweet heaviness to the air, a warmth that makes it feel like you could suck in a breath and taste caramel and powdered sugar on your tongue. All of the anxiousness in me melts away for a moment, dissolving into the clinking of glasses and the silky strains of music issuing from overhead.

I turn to look at Jordan. He’s checking out the inside of the cafe, and it makes me happier than expected to see that he’s impressed. Cuppa Joe is the perfect mix of cozy and edgy. The exposed brick walls and bare light bulbs hanging from the high ceiling give it an industrial vibe, but the look is softened by a few well-worn leather couches and the huge bay windows filled with cushions where I’ve curled up with many a latte before.

“I see why you like it,” says Jordan. “It’s got a very... hipster-meets-man-cave kind of feel.”

“Are you saying I’m a mix of hipster and frustrated dad?” I tease.

He shrugs, grinning. “I kind of like that in a woman.”

I let out a snort as we approach the long wooden counter. Mina, one of the cafe’s co-owners, is working the cash today. She has her sleeves rolled up past her elbows, revealing the twisting patterns of the flower tattoos that cover both her arms.

“Hailey!” she calls when she sees me. “Long time, no see.”

“You know me. Eat, sleep, work.”

Mina eyes Jordan as he continues to look around the cafe.

“No time for any play?” she quips, raising an eyebrow.

I just smirk as an answer.

“So what’ll it be?” she asks. “I have a new latte you might like. Our liquor license just got approved last month, so we’re a cruisin’ for some boozin’. Mel came up with the latest recipe. It’s got amaretto and vanilla.”

I give Jordan a questioning look. He turns to Mina and nods.

“I could cruise for some booze,” he says suavely.

“Two for the booze cruise,” I confirm.

We pay for the drinks and then take a seat on one of the couches, sinking back into the creased leather cushions.

“You must come here a lot,” comments Jordan. “They know your name and everything.”

“I used to,” I explain, the warmth of the air and the coziness of the couch making everything feel dreamy. “Now I don’t really have time. My mom mostly works the night shift these days, so I have to be home for my sister.”

“I always wanted a sister,” he tells me, “or a brother. Even a dog would have been fine. It was always just me growing up.”

His body is turned towards me, one arm resting along the top of the couch. I think about how easy it would be to slide closer, to let him wrap his arm around my shoulders and put my head on his chest. My hands almost twitch at the thought of creeping up under his shirt again and feeling the smooth ridges of his stomach, the heat coming off his skin.

“Just you and all your millions of dollars,” I say, trying to get the conversation back on track.

“We’re not that rich,” protests Jordan.

I give him a skeptical look.

“Okay, we’re rich,” he concedes, “but are you really telling me that growing up in a two million dollar house would be worth growing up without a sister?”

“Point taken,” I admit.

But growing up in a house where I could actually use a vibrator without my entire family hearing would have been nice, I add to myself.

Jordan is staring at me like I’ve announced I have a third nipple and I realize with horror that I just spoke my thoughts out loud.

“Oh shit!” I swear. “That last part was supposed to be in my head.”

He starts laughing so hard he has to lean forward to put a hand on the table. The sight of him so carefree, so completely in the moment, makes me forget my embarrassment and start to laugh too.

We’re both still trying to get ourselves under control when the drinks arrive.

“Must have been a good joke,” says Mel, Mina’s purple-haired girlfriend and the other co-owner of Cuppa Joe, as she sets the lattes down in front of us.

“We’re just taking pleasure in my own embarrassment,” I tell her. Mel laughs.

“I see my lovely Mina has convinced you to try my latest creation. Take a sip and let me know how they are. I want an honest opinion.”

Jordan and I both try our lattes. The almond and vanilla offsets the espresso just enough to be sweet but not overpowering. The smell alone is to die for.

“Delicious,” I inform Mel, putting my mug back down. “The amaretto is amazing in this.”

“Really, really good,” agrees Jordan. “I don’t drink much coffee, but this might be enough to convert me.”

Mel gives us a big smile and nods in thanks.

“You’ll be a coffee lover soon enough, if you keep hanging around with Hailey,” she tells Jordan. “We’re just waiting for the day she makes Cuppa Joe famous. I promised I’d name a latte after her then.”

She leaves soon after that and Jordan turns back to me.

“What did she mean about you making this place famous?” he asks.

I shift in my seat, glancing away to look out the window.

“Oh,” I answer, watching a bus go by on the street, “it’s nothing. Just this idea I told Mina and Mel about one day.”

I’d mentioned my blogging idea to the Cuppa Joe owners once, and they’ve been after me to start working on it ever since. They started their own business from scratch, and Mel especially is always slipping me names of website designers and other cafe owners she knows.

“Well now you have to tell me what it is,” coaxes Jordan.

I put my latte down on the table next to his.

“Well, I’ve told you how much I like cafes,” I begin, “and I guess my sort of ‘dream job’, if you will, would be to run a blog where I review different coffee shops, maybe travel around and give people tips on what to do if they’re in the area of a certain cafe.”

I’m too nervous to look at Jordan, and keep staring down at the foam in my mug.

“I mean, I should probably go to school first, have a fallback,” I add, trying to come off as a bit more reasonable.

“Why wait?” he asks, and the enthusiasm in his voice makes me feel brave enough to look back up. “That sounds awesome. Lots of people dream about having a passion they can make a career out of, and it sounds like you already have that.”

“You don’t think it’s illogical?” I ask, thinking of my mom and Steve’s opinions. “Isn’t putting my focus on something with such a small chance for success a bit naive?”

Jordan shakes his head. “Other people might say that, but personally I think the only expectations you should care about are your own. I’ve met lots of people with lots of degrees who still had no idea what they were doing in life. It’s rare to really want something. It’s even rarer to have the guts to go after it. If you’d like my opinion, I’d say start as soon as you can. School is always going to be there waiting.”

I’d never really thought of it that way before. In my mind, there had always been two paths: what I wanted to do, and what the sensible thing to do was. It didn’t occur to me that if I followed my impulses, the sensible route would still be there if things didn’t work out.

“Thanks.” I try to put as much sincerity into the word as I can. “If I do end up getting Cuppa Joe famous, I’ll make Mel name a latte after you too.”

We spend a half hour trading stories. Jordan wants to know more about Amanda and I fill him in on her Einstein obsession, math skills, and the original names she gives to her Barbies. He tells me about the nanny who looked after him as a kid, and I give him hell over the fact that he actually had a nanny.

We sit until the leftover foam in our mugs starts to go brown and stick to the ceramic.

“So,” I say, “you going to show me that weird music park now?”

After getting up and waving goodbye to Mina, we head out of Cuppa Joe and Jordan leads me a few blocks away to a park no bigger than the lot of a townhouse. Most of the ground is covered in concrete and there’s only one tree, so the place hardly feels like it can be described as a park.

The focal point clearly isn’t meant to be the flora and fauna, though. The lot is dominated by two larger than life statues, one of a keyboard and one of a guitar. They’re made of clear resin encasing a milky white interior, so that they seem to glow from the inside.

“Giant alien Rock Band!” I exclaim and Jordan laughs, motioning for me to come closer.

There’s an information sign with the artist’s biography and a description of the exhibit, along with instructions for downloading an app that lets you control the instruments.

“It’s genius,” Jordan tells me, pulling out his phone. “It uses Bluetooth and you sign up for either instrument, then have a certain amount of time to play it before it goes to the next person in line.” He holds his phone so I can see it and scrolls through the app. “You can record what you play, too. Sometimes they hold contests where you submit songs, and then anyone who has the app can vote on a winner.”

I shift my eyes from the screen of the phone to his face. He looks like a kid explaining how their favourite toy works. All the sarcasm I’ve come to associate with him is gone, replaced by an earnestness so visible it almost makes me feel the urge to look away.

“So do you want to try the guitar or the keyboard?” he asks.

“Guitar,” I answer. “You can watch me be a guitar hero.”

He passes me his phone, where an image of the white guitar is showing, the strings highlighted in different colours. I swish my finger over them.

In front of us, the resin neck of the guitar lights up from inside, flickering between green, red, and blue as a few discordant notes emanate from inside the statue. They almost sound eerie, echoing through the crisp air of the empty park.

“Really?” Jordan teases, the familiar sarcasm back in his voice. “You call yourself a guitar hero?”

“I was just warming up!”

I try to imitate a strumming motion on the screen, and the statue lets out a few faltering crescendos and decrescendos. I hear Jordan snort.

“I’d like to see you try,” I tell him.

“Prepare to be bested,” he announces, taking the phone from my hands, “for you are in the company of the Piano Man.”

“Riiiiiight,” I drawl.

A few seconds later lights begin pulsing in the keyboard and I recognize the theme of ‘Swan Lake’ as it starts drifting through the air.

“You actually play the piano?” I ask, a bit shocked. I was expecting him to bang out a few random notes like I did on the guitar.

“I was a rich kid raised by a nanny, remember? Of course I took piano lessons.”

He continues the song for a moment and then stops, the lights in the keyboard fading.

“Fine. You win,” I grumble.

I start walking through the park, running my hands over the instruments. Jordan follows behind me.

“So you’re a big fan of technology?” I ask.

“I guess, yeah,” he answers. “Mostly I’m into apps. There are just so many possibilities for what they can do.”

I think back on the papers I found in his office the first day we met.

“Those files you had, that day I was hiding under your desk,” I begin, and we both smile at the memory, “those were app designs? Did you make them?”

He pauses, trailing a finger along the giant keyboard. “I did. I went to school for it, at least for a bit. There’s this one project I got really into, but Knox Security has to come first.”

He gets that faraway look in his eye, and I try to pull him back.

“Well now you have to tell me about the project. I already told you about my secret dream.”

“Fair enough,” he laughs, and then takes in a deep breath to start his explanation. “I did an MBA in business, all financed by my father. I looked around and realized most of the people there also had rich parents to pay their bills. There wasn’t a lot of variety. I felt like there were so many other creative people with these great ideas for businesses who just lacked the thousands of dollars it takes to go to school. I don’t think knowledge should be inaccessible to people who want to learn.”

I nod, my eyes glued to him as he keeps moving his finger along the keyboard.

“So that’s where the app comes in. I want it to be a sort of everyman’s business school, a community where people share information and develop the skills they need. It’s still sort of vague and I haven’t got very far, but the concept is important to me.”

I keep watching him, impressed by the strength of his passion, and more than a little turned on by it too.

“So you’re a piano man and an app designer. Any other secret talents I should know about?”

He catches my eye and gives me an up-to-no-good look that instantly has my heart racing.

“None that I can show you in public.”

He turns just an inch farther in my direction and in the next second I have my arms thrown around his neck. I bring my lips to his, hoping that as we kiss he’ll taste all the words I’m too afraid to speak.

I’m scared to give you another chance to let me down.

He wraps one arm around me, pressing me hard against his chest.

I’m scared to let this thing between us keep going.

He cups my cheek in his other hand. I feel his thumb stroking the side of my face.

I’m scared that I don’t want it to stop.

He breaks the kiss, tilting my head up so that I’m forced to look into his eyes. His mouth hangs open, shoulders rising and falling with rhythm of his panting breaths.

“I don’t know what this is,” he says, his voice low and gravelly enough to send shivers up my spine, “but I’ve never had someone stuck in my head quite like you are.”

He brushes the hair from my face and strokes my cheek again. I close my eyes, forgetting everything but the feeling of his touch. My lips part as he runs his thumb across them. A flare of desire rips through me and I can’t help myself. I bite down on his thumb and then suck it into my mouth.

I hear him swear under his breath and he pulls my body tighter against his. I suck even harder, moaning as I feel him knot his other hand in my hair.

“Shit, Hailey,” he hisses. I let his thumb go.

“I want you.” My voice comes out hoarse and shaky.

He tugs my head back, making me whimper. I can hardly register anything other than my need for him right now, but I’m still surprised at how much the roughness of the motion thrills me.

“Jordan, please,” I whisper, not even sure what I’m begging for.

His eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them, his face so close to mine I can feel his breath hot against my skin in the cold air.

Before either of us can make another move, voices echo from a few feet down the road. He drops his hand from my hair just as a group of teenagers round the corner of the park. I step away from him and without speaking, we start walking side by side out of the park.

“Like I said,” he remarks, after we’ve gone about a block in silence, “not the kind of talents I can show you in public.”