All The Good Things

Chapter 3 - "I don't think you can even call us friends."

Over the next two weeks, Ash saw Zach several times but they barely interacted. He came into the coffee shop every couple of days but he would simply place his order then retreat to a back table. Ash, for her part, let him be. She was still deciding how she wanted to make her next approach.

She now felt certain they shared at least four of Professor Huxley's classes and she was beginning to wonder if he had some sort of stealth mode power that made him hard to find in crowds. She always looked for him when she entered the lecture hall but never found him. She would watch for his arrival but only ever caught sight of him leaving when the class was done.

But with the little time, Ash formed her next strategy for talking to Zach. When he showed up at the coffee shop she let him get settled at his table before she took her fifteen-minute break, grabbed a blueberry muffin, and walked over to his table.

"Alright, I only got fifteen minutes so we'll have to use the Sparknotes version today," she said. She took the seat across from him and placed the muffin in front of him. He looked up slowly, unfazed by her abrupt greeting.

"What's this?" he asked.

"A blueberry muffin."

The corner of his mouth pulled back in just the slightest. "I know what a blueberry muffin looks like. I'm talking about this." He motioned to her sitting at his table.

"Well, I figure since we're now friends we should get to know each other a little better."

He looked at her blankly.

"I'll go first," she offered. "I'm in my third year of college. I'm majoring in psychology, specifically behavioral psychology. I'm a barista, but we already went over that," she winked at him as she spoke quickly.

"I also work part-time in the main office. I don't like animals, I don't like cake, I don't like pizza and I'm a Leo. I don't really buy into the whole 'astrology thing' but you might."

She paused to catch her breath and watch his reaction to everything she had said but his expression never changed.

"Alright, onto some lighter topics. I don't know my mom. She left when I was two. My dad was an alcoholic. My favorite color is green, I like my coffee iced with milk, and mint-n-chip is my favorite flavor of ice cream."

She sucked in a deep breath and checked her watch. "I have seven and a half minutes left. Go."

She pointed at him but he simply looked back at her. She gave him a whole thirty seconds before she slapped her hands on the table.

"Fine. I guess we can both see you are the shy one in this friendship."

Ash watched as Zach pursed his lips together to hold back a smile. She noted his entertained reaction but kept the observation to herself.

"I'll help you out." If he wasn't going to give her anything then she would make guesses and see if she could discover any information based on his reaction. She leaned forward and looked directly into his eyes. He didn't shy away from her intense gaze.

"Let's start with the basics. You grew up on the West Coast." She took in every corner of his eyes and mouth, the movement of his eyes and eyebrows. His features gave her nothing but she wasn't going to let him win that easily.

She leaned back and nodded like she had seen something. "No, it's the East Coast?" She paused for a moment. "Or was it the South?" She shrugged. "How important is it really for me to know where you grew up? Moving on. You have an older brother and a younger sister. No, three older brothers." She smacked her head like the right answer was so obvious. "No. Three younger sisters and one is adopted."