Once Upon A Coffee (Meet Cute Romance 4)
“Well, there’s definitely something to be said for serendipity,” Avery admitted. “Whether it’s facilitated by outside sources or not.” She thought about the wish she’d made in the fountain and smiled. Maybe the old fountain still worked after all.
Ross lifted his mug in a toast. “To serendipity.”
Avery clinked her mug to his.
Conversation shifted back to books. They both had diverse tastes—she liked urban fantasy and romance, he liked sci-fi and more traditional fantasy—but there was sufficient crossover that they had plenty to discuss. Avery had to appreciate a man who could as readily debate George R. R. Martin’s no character is safe policy as whether The Hunger Games was a reasonably accurate political forecast for the distant future. But she really knew she’d found someone special when he confessed to being one of the original backers of The Veronica Mars Movie and said he owned the entire series on DVD.
“Season one is as close to a perfect series of television as I’ve ever seen,” he declared.
New guy checked his watch and fidgeted, tapping a pencil lightly against his sketchpad. The sound wasn’t quite loud enough to be truly annoying. He looked nervous. Waiting for somebody, she guessed. Knowing very well how that felt, Avery silently wished him as much luck on his date as she was having on hers.
“Hey,” said Ross, “I saw an ice cream parlor a bit down the street. How do you feel about banana splits?”
“They are one of the singular joys in life,” said Avery. “Extra peanut butter?”
“Naturally.”
“Then why don’t we relocate,” he said.
“I support this plan,” she said. Ice cream was always a good idea.
Ross shut the laptop he’d shoved aside sometime during their conversation and began to gather up the notes scattered across the table. As he started to stuff his bag, Avery’s attention strayed to the books he’d brought. A compulsive reader, she angled her head to get a better view of the titles. Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in an Age of Diminished Expectations. The Return of Depression Economics.
How odd, thought Avery. “Economics?” she asked. “Are you taking business classes on top of the requirements for your architecture degree? Doesn’t that make you a glutton for punishment?
Ross stopped stuffing his bag and gave her a sheepish look. “Ah, about that.”.
“Excuse me.” The newcomer
stood by their table. “But are you Avery?”
Avery had a very bad feeling as she cautiously answered, “Yes.”
“I’m Ross,” he said, with a look that clearly said Party Foul to her companion. “Your actual date.”
~*~
Avery’s face cycled through a number of different emotions—distress, embarrassment, maybe even disappointment—before she finally pinned him with a horrified glare. “You’re not Ross?”
Dillon gave a what-can-you-do? shrug. “Guilty.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she demanded.
“You didn’t ask,” he said. Wrong answer.
She shot to her feet, hands fumbling for her book and coffee as she looked to her real date. “I’m so sorry for the confusion! I got here early and we simply don’t get that many new faces in town. Daniel said—well it doesn’t matter. We made assumptions. I thought he was you.”
“No harm, no foul,” said Ross, though the glance he shot back at Dillon suggested otherwise. “Shall we?” He gestured for her to precede him.
“Thanks for the coffee and conversation,” said Dillon.
Avery made a little hrmph by way of reply. She left her daisy behind as she followed Ross.
He expected they’d head downstairs, but instead, they settled at a table on the far side of the room.
Well hell, thought Dillon. He’d certainly blown that. As soon as the other guy had come up the stairs, Dillon had suspected it was probably her real date. He’d had crazy idea that if he could just get her out of there…
What, he thought, that she wouldn’t be pissed when you told her the truth later? That she felt that spark, too?