The Sun and the Moon [Wattys 2015 winner]

Chapter 3: Happy Trail

I somehow managed to survive in the coffee shop for an hour or so, going through files and actually getting some work done. I didn't believe it was possible with Ryan the Sun God there, but having picked a spot where his gravitational pull was not so strong, I found myself absorbed in my work.

It helped that the Yelp reviews were right. The coffee here was unbelievable. I'm a caffeine addict and had sampled my fair share of the drink, but this stuff was quite simply the best I had ever had.  It blew everything else out of the water.

In my workaholic state, I hadn't noticed that the coffee shop had cleared up. I had noticed pretty quickly, however, that Ryan was going around the tables, picking up dishes and cleaning with a white dishtowel, wiping off tables.

So I thought, maybe I'll wait for him to come to my table.

But then what would I do?

Checking the clock on my phone, I realized that I had a little over twenty minutes to get to the courthouse, which was only a few blocks away, so I decided to pack up. I slid my laptop into my briefcase and put away the files. I packed them up neatly. Then I looked through them again to make sure that I had everything. Then I checked my phone. And Twitter. And my email.

Okay, so I stalled a little. I wanted to talk to the Sun God again. Even though I figured I would be stupidly mute in his presence again, I still could not help myself.

I knew that I should be the badass, confident woman I was and go find him myself, not wait for him to come to me.

Yeah, I would get right on that. In another life.

While I was busy trying not to hyperventilate, I looked at my phone. Damn. No new messages from 23 seconds ago. And there he was two feet away from me.

"Everything okay?" he asked with a smile, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows. And once again my mind left the premises and I stared blankly at his sensual mouth. And lips. Teeth. Smile.

Wait. He asked a question. Normal people responded to questions.

This was not normal behavior for me. Being asked a question was normal. Answering it was normal. Being snarky was normal. Being stunned by a man, not.

I rallied and said, in my most loquacious manner, "yeah."

Then I rallied again and said the most banal thing to ever come out of my mouth: "The coffee is really good here." And then I cringed and waited for the blowback from him when he realized that I had nothing intelligent to say to him.

Surprisingly, he looked even brighter. "I source it from small, family farmers in Kona and roast the beans here. You gotta have a passion, you know?"

Passion. What did he mean by passion? I did not have passion in my life.

But maybe passion was what I really needed?

"Passion," I said out loud without meaning to.

Now he was a foot away from me and I could smell him. Damn, he smelled good. Clean, but musky. Mansmell. Now that's a word too, I thought. Manflesh and mansmell.

He lowered his voice and said the sexiest thing ever: "I'm all about passion. And coffee is not my only one."

So if there had been any question before, he had me. I wanted to know about all of his passions and I wanted to know, like, yesterday.

Then I thought about what else he said. Was he the manager? Why was he wiping down tables if his job is to source coffee?

"You source coffee?"