Once Upon A Coffee

Part 7: Second Chance

By ten after seven, Dillon was certain Avery wasn’t going to show.  He couldn’t really blame her if she didn’t.  From her perspective, he’d lied.  And then he’d deliberately gone about distracting her from her real date like some adolescent nut job.

Classy, dude.  

Why had that seemed like a good idea?  Class clown wasn’t exactly a selling point for a mature relationship.  Not that he’d given a lot of thought to looking for a mature relationship before now.

Once he’d turned in his project on Monday—after two almost all nighters—he still hadn’t been able to get Avery out of his head.  He knew he’d behaved badly, and his mama had raised him to apologize for bad behavior, so before he crashed, he went in search of a florist who was willing to deliver all the way to the Wishful City Hall.  The gesture was a Hail Mary, and he wasn’t sure what he hoped to accomplish by talking her into dinner.  He just…wanted another shot at making a better first impression.

Too bad life didn’t give you do overs on those.

He’d already unwrapped his silverware and drained his water glass—which did absolutely nothing to whet his parched mouth—when Avery appeared at the hostess station, looking gorgeous and…not entirely pleased to be there.  Nerves and something like hope bumped up beneath his breastbone.

On his feet in an instant, Dillon rounded the table to pull out a chair as she crossed to him in a light blue dress and a pair of tall, strappy shoes that drew his eye unerringly to her well-toned legs.  

Behave, he ordered himself.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said.

She gave him a long look with those catlike green eyes.  “I almost didn’t.”

“Then I thank you for changing your mind.”  He gestured to the chair, and after a moment’s hesitation, she sat.

Dillon’s hand brushed her bare shoulder as he pushed in the chair, and he felt the zing of it up the whole length of his arm.

Don’t screw this up.

The waiter appeared for Avery’s drink order.  Dillon took the fact that she ordered a glass of chardonnay as a sign that maybe she meant to stay.  Or maybe she just wanted something with a little bite to toss in his face.

When they were alone again, she said, “Was anything you told me actually true?”

Dillon didn’t hesitate.  “All of it.”

She lifted one dark brow in askance.  

“I never lied to you, Avery.  You just showed up and sat down and started talking.”

“And you managed to talk back for almost an hour without mentioning that I’d made a mistake.”

“I’ll own that.  But you’re interesting and beautiful and I didn’t want you to leave.  So I might have sidestepped the truth to avoid lying.”  

She didn’t soften at his feeble attempt at charm.  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Just telling it like it is.  You started the whole thing when you brought me coffee.”

 “That was all Daniel’s doing.”

If this worked out, Dillon totally owed the barista a beer or something.

“Nevertheless, a wise man doesn’t turn away a beautiful woman with delicious stimulants.  Even if he did have a behemoth group project he had to finish by himself on a deadline.”

“Is that why you were there that day?”

“My roommate was surgically attached to the Xbox.  I needed some quiet, so I came down here to work.  Or try to work.  Then you showed up.”

“You could’ve said so.”

“I thought about it for about thirty seconds.  But you were way more appealing than theories of macroeconomics.  You didn’t ask who I was, and by the time I realized you thought I was somebody else, I was enjoying our conversation.  Something I hope we’ll be able to do tonight.  Unless,” he added, “things went awesome with your real date over the weekend and you’re just here out of pity.”

Her lip began to tremble, and for a long, horrible moment, Dillon was afraid she might cry.  Both arms wrapped around her middle, she bent double, her shoulders beginning to shake.

Oh God, what did I say wrong?

 A burst of sound escaped.  She slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes going wide.  Then she was laughing, wincing, unable to stop as she said, “Oh my God, it was awful.  And you were just sitting over there deliberately provoking me.  What was I supposed to do?”

Dillon gave her a sheepish smile.  “Sorry about that.  I couldn’t help myself.  We’d been having such a good conversation and then you looked so…awkward with him.”

“That’s kind of a rule with blind dates.”

“It wasn’t with us,” he pointed out.  “There wasn’t a single lull in our conversation.”

“We didn’t have a date,” she clarified, pokering up.  “We had an…encounter.”

Warming to the debate, Dillon argued, “We had beverages and conversation.  I say that qualifies as a date.”

“It was a pseudo date,” she allowed.

“Well then,” he said, “let’s see if we can do better on the real thing.”

“On one condition.”

Dillon resisted the urge to pump his fist in victory.  “Name it, milady.”

“We start with the important things.  Like your actual name.”

He grinned and offered his hand.  “Dillon Lange.”

She finally smiled as she reached across the table to take it.  “Avery Cahill.  It’s nice to meet you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be on the lookout for more Avery and Dillon in the first novel of my Wishful series, To Get Me To You, available wherever ebooks are sold!