I close the front door of our apartment and turn to lean my back against it, sliding down until I’m almost sitting on floor. The past hour is a blur. I closed up the store after fending off Trisha’s questions about what happened outside. I know I took the bus home after that, but I can barely remember the ride. I’ve been cruising on autopilot, just waiting to collapse onto my bed and finally have a chance to think.

“Hello Hailey!”

My mom pokes her head into the hallway from the kitchen, where I can smell spaghetti sauce heating up on the stove. She notices me slumped against the door and her face crumples with concern.

“Are you alright?”

“Oh,” I say, barely lifting my head, “yeah. Just tired.”

Mom doesn’t pay any attention to my answer. Instead she comes over to crouch down in front of me, still holding a wooden spoon in one hand as she reaches to feel my forehead.

“Hailey, your skin is freezing. Did you get caught in the rain?”

I nod as she pulls me to my feet and runs her arms over mine to warm me up.

“You really don’t look good,” she tells me. “Why don’t you go put some dry clothes on and lay down for a bit while I finish dinner? I have to leave for the centre at seven. You should rest until then.”

“I will,” I say, hanging up my coat. “You’re right. I actually don’t feel that great.”

I walk into my room and pull off my blouse and work pants. In just my underwear, I let myself fall onto the bed and pull my blanket on top of me, breathing in the scent of laundry detergent as I wait until warmth starts seeping back into my fingers and toes.

Jordan kissed me.

The word ‘kiss’ feels like an understatement for what happened between us. I’ve never had anyone touch me the way he did, pinning my hands above me and biting down on my lip so hard I almost screamed. The kiss was fueled by the thrill of contradiction: the cold air on my skin and his hot tongue in my mouth, the softness in the way he touched me and the scrape of the brick wall against my back.

I should be dancing around my room in my underwear right now. I should be smiling so wide my face goes numb as I wander around, spreading the light of my just-been-kissed glow wherever I go.

Instead I just feel dizzy. Of all the images of Jordan and I that I have to reflect on, the one that I can’t get out of my head, the one that feels like it’s burned into the back of my eyelids, is the look on his face when he stepped away from me.

His features flickered between expressions like a wavering candle about to go out. I saw the lust in his eyes, the hunger for more, but I also saw anger and pain. Then all the heat in his gaze was extinguished and the only thing left was an ashen look of regret.

I curl up into an even tighter ball, trying to relive the moments before he pulled away from me, to convince myself that I’m reading too much into things.

My thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Come in!”

Amanda walks into my room, squeezing a struggling Nemo against her chest. “Mommy says you’re sick. I came to check on you.”

For the first time since Trisha opened the back door of the cafe, I feel myself starting to smile. Amanda comes closer to my bed.

“Nemo wants to snuggle you.”

I look at the writhing Shih Tzu, who is clearly not in a snuggling mood. Amanda puts him down next to me and I start to protest, but he buries his nose in my blanket, snorts, then jumps about a foot in the air before leaping off the bed and bounding out of the room.

I swear that dog’s brain isn’t wired right.

“Guess not, Amanda Panda,” I say. “You’ll just have to snuggle me instead.”

She belly flops on top of the blanket, and even though she only stays still for about five seconds before poking me in the stomach and then steamrollering herself up and down my body like a human rolling pin, I’m reminded that being stuck living at home has its perks.

* * *

Another day, another mad scramble to supply coffee to the endless line of customers who make up the morning rush.

The twins still have yet to hire anyone to replace me now that I’m their new catering manager, so things are busier than ever. I have two meetings today, one at the Knox building and one at a bank across the street, but I haven’t even started packing up my cart yet.

“Two lattes to go!” I call, setting the order down on the pickup counter.

“Oh, Hailey!” Trisha calls, tapping my shoulder before I can head back to the espresso machine. She looks embarrassed and drops her voice, turning away from the customer in front of her. “Uh, what’s a doppio?”

“Double shot of espresso, straight,” I tell her. I drop my voice too. “Jeeze, does this guy think he’s in Italy or something? Ring it up as an espresso shot and add the extra shot charge onto that. Also, I have to go pack the cart after this order.”

Trisha groans in dismay and turns back to the customer while I fire up the espresso machine for what feels like the hundredth time today.

One busy half hour later, I’m laying out the final pack of napkins on the table for the Knox meeting. It’s a small one, with just two coffee dispensers and a tray of cookies. I’m finished well before the meeting and stall for time, straightening the already straight stacks of mugs as I work up the nerve to do what I’m about to do.

I still have Jordan’s umbrella. I’m going to bring it to his office and then I’m going to demand some answers.

Once I had a bit of time to think about what happened yesterday, the unease I felt turned to annoyance. I was trying to clear up the confusion between Jordan and I, and his answer was to throw me up against a wall, kiss the life out of me, and then run away without another word. I don’t know what I expect to happen when I go to his office, or what I even want to happen, but I’m not leaving things the way they are.

I head to the sixth floor and past the rows of cubicles to his door. I knock and hear him call for me to come in.

My original plan was to slam the umbrella onto his desk and say, “Here’s your umbrella. What the hell is your deal?” but that idea flies out the window when I see him sitting in his chair, looking up at me with a mix of surprise and trepidation that makes me feel like I should tone things down a bit.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” he answers.

Neither of us moves.

“You forgot this.” I place the umbrella on his desk. He reaches out to wrap a hand around it but leaves it sitting there.

“Thanks.”

We search each other’s faces for clues about what to say next.

“So about yesterday,” I finally begin, “what exactly was that?”

“It was a mistake.” He shifts his eyes from mine as he says it.

I feel the bottom of my stomach dropping out.

“A mistake?” I echo. My voice sounds hollow.

“You were right. We should just...”

He trails off and takes a deep breath. Then he raises his eyes again, and when I look into them, they’re empty.

“We should just pretend it never happened.” His sentence hits me like a punch to the gut, and I can hardly hear him as he continues. “It’s just that people here are a certain way. There are all these attitudes and expectations. You’re not like that, though. You’re different, Hailey. I wouldn’t feel right—”

“Being seen with the latte girl?” I cut him off, the words coming out shriller than I intended as I realize what he’s saying. He blinks up at me.

“What? No!” He bolts up from his chair. “That’s not what I meant. Not at all. I just don’t think I’m the right person for you. I’m part of this whole world here” – he swoops his hands around to indicate the inside of his office— “and you’re...I mean, Hailey, you’re—”

“Just the girl who brings the muffins,” I say, my teeth clenched. “I get it. I get exactly what you mean. I hope you get what I mean when I say fuck you, Jordan Knox.”

I march out of the office, leaving the door wide open and not caring about the curious heads that pop up over the edge of the cubicles like gophers coming out of their holes. Without a backward glance, I storm down the hallway and into the elevator. My hand shakes as I press the button for the second floor.

The meeting I’m supposed to be serving at has already started, but I walk straight past the door and head to the bathroom. I keep it together until I’m hunched over the sink in front of the mirror, and that’s when the tears start to fall.

At first I’m crying with the humiliation that courses through me in waves. After a few minutes, though, anger starts boiling in my blood and I curl my hands into fists, slamming them down on the counter. I’m angry at Jordan, but I’m even angrier at myself for letting him send me sobbing into the women’s bathroom.

I should have known. I should have known that anyone who wears a suit that expensive would turn out to be an asshole. I’ve spent two years serving coffee to Knox Security employees, and the only interest the men who work there have ever shown in me is to give me creepy smiles and stare at my ass when they think I’m not looking.

I don’t know why I thought Jordan would be any different. To him, I’m just a distraction from a boring job, a guilty pleasure to grope in the boardroom when no one else is around.

I’m just a fucking cupcake.

Turning the tap on, I splash cold water onto my face and try to get the puffiness under my eyes to go down. After a few minutes my face is still a bit blotchy and red, but I head to the meeting room anyways.

By four o’clock I’m finished unpacking the Catering Mobile at Dark Brown, after returning from my second meeting over at the bank. I’ve kept Jordan out of my mind by staying ridiculously busy. In between meetings, I scrubbed every baseboard in the cafe and re-organized the entire fridge.

After running the last of my catering trays through the dishwasher, I head to the storefront to check up on things before I plan to shut the espresso machine off a bit early and give it a long overdue deep cleaning.

Trisha is busy stocking some napkins, and Brittney gives me a nod from behind the cash.

“Do you mind giving the tables a quick wipe?” she asks. “I’m in the middle of brewing something and a few of them are dirty.”

I whip out the cleaning cloth I always have on me and take a dramatic bow. “At your service, Madame.”

I’m scrubbing at a particularly persistent stain when the bell over the door dings. I turn my head to see who it is, but don’t even have time to register the face of the person walking inside before he’s calling my name.

“Hailey? Hailey Warren?”

It takes me a minute to place him. He’s grown up a lot in the past three years. The image I associate with him is that of a lanky teenager, but the man standing in front of me has filled out. His shoulders look broad and strong under his navy suit jacket. The boyishness is gone from his face, and while he was cute back when we were dating, the only word to describe him now is handsome.

Or hot. He’s definitely hot.

“Steve?” I ask, even though I’m now certain it’s him: Steve Benoit, my ex-boyfriend.

“Hailey! This is crazy. I don’t even know what to say.” He comes over and holds out his hand for me to shake.

“Oh come on, Steve. Has it really been so long that we’re on hand shaking terms now?”

I open my arms a bit and we give each other a brief hug.

“So what brings you to Dark Brown Coffee Co?” I ask when we break apart.

“I started an internship next door about two weeks ago,” he tells me. “I finished my undergrad, spent the summer working for my dad, and then landed this thing just when I was starting to wonder if having a degree was actually going to get me anywhere. I’m applying to start my MBA next year.”

He sounds proud of himself and is probably expecting congratulations, but I barely heard past the first sentence.

“Next door?” I repeat.

“Yeah, at Knox Security. I’m in distribution.”

“Oh,” I reply, not sure why the news is such a shock to me. “I’m there all the time, catering meetings.”

“Really? Crazy! Maybe I’ll be lucky and you’ll cater one of mine.”

An awkward silence falls between us. I pick up my cleaning cloth.

“Well,” says Steve, after clearing his throat, “I should probably go order a coffee. It’s really good to see you, Hailey.”

I nod and give him a smile. “You too, Steve.”

He moves up to the cash and I head into the kitchen to grab the cleaning solution for the espresso machine.

“I’m cleaning this out now,” I tell Brittney and Trisha, “so make sure you let any end of day stragglers know we only have brewed coffee for the rest of the day.”

Trisha mimes wiping sweat off her brow in relief.

I load the machine up with solution and start pulling empty trays out of the display case while I give it time to sit. Looking up from my work, I find Steve standing in front of me on the other side of the counter.

“Can I tempt you with a baked good?” I ask.

“I’ll pass,” he says with a laugh, and then rocks back and forth on his heels, as if deciding whether or not to go through with whatever he’s about to say next.

“So, Hailey,” he begins, still swaying back and forth, “there’s this employee night out on Friday, some social committee thing they hold at a cocktail bar every month. Since you said you’re over at the Knox building so much, I just thought maybe you’d like to come along. People bring dates, girlfriends—”

My eyes must go wide with alarm because Steve blushes and backpedals a bit.

“Sorry, that didn’t come out right. Guests. People bring guests.”

I glance over to where Brittney and Trisha are doing a very bad job of hiding the fact that they’re eavesdropping. Steve notices too.

“You should all come!” he suggests with a hint of desperation. “Really, it’s just an excuse to escape 19^th Street and let loose a little. You would all be more than welcome.”

“Are you inviting us all on a date, or just Hailey?” asks Brittney slyly, and I remind myself to punch her later.

Steve gives a nervous laugh and tugs at his collar. I don’t think the conversation is taking the direction he intended. He turns and addresses me directly.

“Look Hailey, no pressure. I just thought it might be a good chance to catch up. I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to.”

“You’re looking at it,” I say, gesturing around the cafe before deciding to cut him a break. The words fly out of my mouth before I can consider what I’m agreeing to. “I’ll be there.”

I throw a look at Trisha and Brittney, who are both doubled over with suppressed laughter, and add, “We’ll be there.”

Steve looks relieved enough to jump up on the counter and start playing air guitar. “Awesome!” he all but shouts.

We confirm that we’re both still using the same phone numbers we had a few years ago, and Steve promises to text me the event details before leaving the store. The door hasn’t even shut behind him when my coworkers explode into snorts and guffaws.

“Thanks, guys,” I say, throwing them the most serious shade I can muster.

“Oh my god,” gasps Brittney, clutching at the counter. “That was most awkward date invitation I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s not a date,” I try to snap, but I start to laugh too.

“You should have seen your face,” Trisha chokes out between hiccups, “when he mentioned that people bring their girlfriends.”

“Yeah, yeah! You were like—” Brittney sucks in a breath and opens her eyes as wide as they can go, jerking backwards like someone who’s just been startled by a giant spider.

Trisha is now laughing so hard she’s gone silent, her face turning a bright red as she struggles to breathe. “My stomach!” she gulps, slapping the counter.

I roll my eyes and cross my arms in front of my chest, trying my best not to indulge them. I exhale loudly to cover up a snort.

“Who was that guy?” demands Brittney, finally calming down a bit. “Awkward or not, he was gorgeous.”

“He’s my ex-boyfriend,” I announce.

Brittney and Trisha find this hilarious for some reason, and start erupting into laughter all over again.

“Laugh all you want,” I say, heading into the kitchen, “but you’re both coming on our not-date on Friday.”