When We Were Young

Strange

She awoke the next morning to her cell phone buzzing on the bedside table. She picked it up to find a text from a phone number that she didn't know, an international number.

"There you are," she said to herself, so giddy that had she been more awake, she would have jumped up and down on her bed. She unlocked her phone to find quite a few messages there, from that same number. He'd sent them in the small hours of the morning.

I can't sleep

Text me when you wake up

If I don't answer, I might be at the gym

I'm done at the gym

Ray, you're killing me. When are you waking up?

She flopped back onto her pillow, grinning from ear to ear and tapped out a response.

Good morning sunshine

How was the gym?

It took mere seconds and a response came through.

My god, I thought maybe I had the wrong number

Nah. I was just out cold

Had a few glasses of wine with my mom last night

She says hello

She had to refrain from rapid-firing text messages at him. She wanted to tell him about her life, about New York, the bookstore and any other little thing that popped into her head. She wanted to pull him into the fold, to tell him to drop everything and come over, to lounge around her apartment, read books and drink coffee. For fear that she might scare him away, she held off and waited for his response.

In a dreamy daze, she climbed out of bed and wandered to the bathroom, then to the coffee maker and switched it on, all before looking at the clock on the stove. She'd overslept by nearly an hour and would surely be late to open the shop.

"Shit!" she shrieked as she dashed to the closet and grabbed the first thing she laid her eyes on, jeans, a black camisole and a loose, lightweight olive green zip-up hoodie for the mild, spring weather. In a matter of seconds she went from wistfully thinking of Ben and lazing in bed, to crashing around her apartment and down to the street like a psychopath. To make matters worse, the morning rush was on and taxi cabs were in short supply. The subway was too far and she was in desperate need of coffee which there was certainly no time for. At a crosswalk, she paused and checked her phone, to find that Franklin had rung her twice in five minutes. She called him back and he answered after one ring.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes! My god, I woke up late. I'll be there as soon as I can get a cab."

"Hurry though. There's someone waiting."

"Okay, okay. I'm coming."

"Do you want me to tell him to leave?"

"Franklin, you can't just tell a customer to leave."

"But...it's Brock," he whispered and Sabrina cringed. The last person she wanted to deal with was him. At least she could set the record straight and tell him - kindly, of course, that she was happy to be his friend but that she just wasn't interested in him that way. She groaned into the phone and told Franklin she was going as fast as she could. After two blocks of running, she finally threw herself into a vacant cab and dialed Ben as soon she settled in the backseat.

"Ray," he answered right away, his voice as smooth and deep as the coffee she wished she'd had time for that morning. "How are you?"

"Oh, you know...about an hour late for opening the store--"