A Timeless Place

Chapter 2

Unwanted Companions and Pacts

After school finished, Eli and I walked to Chance café in silence. The bell tinkled as we walked in and Eli went behind the counter, fastening her apron on. I slid into my favourite booth, the furthest to the right of the café, and took out my Trigonometry textbook, working on the exercise that was set as homework while Eli served customers.

The incident with Tyler was left unmentioned for the rest of the day during lunch and double Chemistry class. Eli nor I mentioned Tyler, let alone anybody else associated with him, including both Wes and Jordan. Eli told me she had long gotten over Tyler less than halfway through the summer and I had believed her. But watching her freeze in his presence every time told me differently.

"You're doing that wrong," someone said from behind me.

I jumped in surprise. Turning around, I saw Wes standing behind me, looking down at my mathematics homework.

"Excuse me?" I said.

"You need to use the cosine rule, not the sine rule," Wes said slowly, as if explaining to a child.

I looked back at my working out. I wasn't really concentrating on what I was doing as my mind was still preoccupied with the image of a heartbroken Eli, trying to smile behind the tears covering her face that summer night.

"Oh," I said distractedly, erasing my working out.

Wes slid into the booth I was occupying, sitting across the table in front of me. I raised an eyebrow at him as he sat there so casually, as though we did this every day. He smiled at me as he crossed his hands in front of him on the table.

"Since when did we become buddies?" I asked him, giving him a pointed look.

"Can I not sit next to my project buddy?" Wes replied innocently.

"No, the coffee incident yesterday said enough," I glared at him.

He laughed heartily in response, like he was reminiscing on some good old joke said a long time ago. I gave him a weird look and looked around the café- were there no other tables he could sit at?! There was only Eli and Jordan behind the counter. There was a man in a suit by one of the small tables, a latte in front of him as he furtively typed into his laptop. There were also two guys in their mid-twenties sitting by the window discussing something, both grasping cups of mango smoothies. One of them was discreetly checking out Eli, glancing at her every few seconds in the hopes she'd look back by 'coincidence'.

"Jordan," Eli called. Jordan jumped in surprise, looking over at Eli quickly. "Could you grab a few more caramel slices from the back fridge?"

"Sure," Jordan replied quickly.

"Obvious, isn't he?" Wes replied, smirking after his friend.

"What is?" I questioned.

"Jordan," Wes only replied simply.

"What about Jordan?" I asked curiously.

Wes looked over at me and smirked but said nothing, "You're less observant than I gave you credit for, Kitty."

"Hey!" I replied indignantly. My fingers were just twitching to slap that smirk off his face. It was really infuriating, that smirk. He said nothing in response. "Whatever, where's your girl for the day, anyway. Or should I say- girl for the hour."

"Oh, so you noticed that," he said, smirking my way.

"Well it's not everyday someone asks for a carb-free coffee," I commented. "Oh wait, in your life, it does apparently."