“What’s your name?”
“Why do you need my name?”
“It’s just procedure with specialty drinks. We write it on the side.”
“Oh…Chance.”
She wrote my name in black marker on the cup, and I walked over to the other counter where you’re supposed to pick up your order.
I watched the barista make a couple of the drinks in line before mine. What a friggin’ process between the steaming and the frothing. It better have been complicated for five-bucks a pop.
I heard the cashier’s voice. “Aubrey. What are you doing back so soon?”
My eyes quickly darted toward her then I immediately pulled my baseball cap down and turned around toward the back wall. Heart pounding. Chest constricted. Stomach nauseous. A rush of adrenaline.
Oh Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
My heart had never beat so fast. I heard her voice behind me. “My boyfriend came into my office to talk to me and knocked my drink down with his elbow. It spilled all over my desk.”
Fucking clutz.
“I’m sorry. Let me get you another one free of charge.”
“Thank you so much, Melanie. I appreciate that.”
It felt like the walls were closing in on me. The sound of the steaming milk suddenly seemed deafening. I wondered if I could get away with sliding away slowly with my back facing the wall until I was behind her and out the door. Just as I’d started to move, the kid making my drink shouted, “Chance!”
“Did you just say Chance?” Aubrey said.
At this point, I was just behind her.
Melanie, who probably figured Aubrey was just my innocent crush, decided that moment would be a good time to play matchmaker. She outed me. “Chance is the guy who paid for your drink the other day. He’s right there.”
Aubrey flipped around so fast that she accidentally backed into a display of plastic iced-coffee cups, knocking them down like dominos onto the ground.
Seeming unphased by the disaster she’d just created, she stood staring at me with her hand over her chest as if it were holding her heart in.
I took my baseball cap off and crossed it over my chest. With pleading eyes, I whispered, “Princess.”
Looking like she’d just seen a ghost, she slowly shook her head as if to say ‘this can’t be happening.’
I took one step toward her.
She held her hand out, stopping me in my tracks. “No! Don’t you dare come near me.”
My heart fell to my stomach, and it felt like my guts were twisting.
This was not how I pictured things going down.
I lifted both of my palms. “I won’t. But please, just hear me out.”
“You’ve been stalking me?”
“Not exactly.”
We were both silent. Filled with humiliation, I bent down and started picking up the cups she’d knocked over. Aubrey stayed frozen in the same spot.
Nosy Melanie spoke from behind the counter, “Why won’t you just listen to what he has to say?”
Aubrey’s chest was still rising and falling. She finally spoke, “Let me ask you this, Melanie. If a guy led you to believe that he cared about you, then fucked you and left before the next morning without so much as a sticky note goodbye, would you hear him out?”
“Probably not.” She laughed then added, “Well, if he had an ass like Chance, maybe.” One of the other female employees giggled.
Aubrey looked at me with daggers in her eyes and continued, “Okay…what if he never contacted you for two whole years after that, then all of a sudden showed up stalking you in your hometown. Would you hear him out?”
“Definitely not,” Melanie said. “That’s just weird.”
“I rest my case.”
Aubrey suddenly zipped past me and out the door. She was gone.
Feeling like she’d just ripped my heart out and fed it to me, I stood defeated in the middle of Starbucks.
After a minute of staring blankly outside the store window, I heard a voice inside my head that sounded awfully like Mum. “Grow some fucking balls and fight for her.”
And that marked the end of my subtlety streak.
I flew out the door and ran down the street, hoping I could track her down before she went inside her building.
There was no sign of Aubrey anywhere. Flying through the revolving doors, I spotted her as she was waiting to get into an elevator. Just as she disappeared into one, I stuck my hand in the doors to open them.
She was alone.
Tears were pouring down her face. She’d been crying.