Red Shoes, Black Coffee (Red & Black #2)

3 | Macho man

Jed

The movement is a bitch today, with so many people visiting the coffee house. The tables are full, the people are getting annoyed, and Carla must have hidden in the staff room again, leaving me out here to handle all of this alone. I run from one end of the house to another, fulfilling orders and collecting payments. I was just coming back to the bar to take care of an order waiting but was stopped by a moving obstacle throwing herself my way. 

All I saw was a swirl of red and something bouncing off me, then falling to the floor. Extending my hand and catching the girl's hand, pulling her upright, was pure instinct. 

It wasn't until I pulled her close and the scent of dark chocolate washed over me when I realized what trouble God sent my way now. 

Five feet five. Slim figure. Pale skin. Freckles. Red hair. Clumsiness out of this world. The divine smell of dark chocolate.

There is only one person in the entire world that gets to me the way this one does. 

Right now, after fifteen months of separation, Ada Dearg has appeared in my way again, throwing herself at me like she did the first time we met. And now she's in my arms. 

Thousands of questions run through my head all at once, shooting straight to my heart, making it beat faster. I stand, frozen to the ground, still clutching Ada's forearm and keeping her close to me, preventing her fall. 

When she slowly lifts her golden gaze and locks it with mine, I suddenly regret that there is no one out there to stop mine. 

Because the second I look into those beautiful eyes, all of this happens again. And I don't know if I'll be able to survive the fall if she pushes me over the edge this time. 

"Y-you... Bu-but h-how..." Ada stammers, staring at me with wide eyes. Not wanting her to see just how she has just shattered my hard-gained composure, I put on a sardonic grin and come up with a sarcastic comment. 

"Seems like even after all this time, you still have a thing for trying to maul me, Fiona."

She blinks abruptly, as if getting rid of something that had fallen into her eye. The deliberate usage of her old nickname I'm sure she hasn't heard in fifteen months brings a frown to her forehead and a tightness to her lips. 

"How are you even here?" She asks in a tone free of stammering and warmth. 

Something that I assume is her phone dings in Ada's pocket, working like a bucket of ice-cold water for me. Letting go of her hand, I take a step back and regard her coolly.

Back to when we were together, no one used to ever text Ada. If her brother ever wanted something, he always called. Now she gets text messages on daily basis. 

I wonder if it's her new boyfriend that's sending them. 

"I asked you a question." She says, her chin lifting stubbornly.

I crash the little pang of jealousy, replacing it with as much indifference as I can muster. This girl in front of me is exactly who has been occupying my every thought and kept driving me mad for the past fifteen months and yet... She is not her at all.

Whom I miss is my Ada. This girl here...

She is not her. 

"I work here, if that's not obvious." I reply, willing a coolness into my voice. The words I've imagined saying to her if I ever got the chance to see her once more so many times before are apparently not what she wants to hear. "The question would be, what are you doing here?"