The streetlights outside the coffee shop blinked on as darkness eased down across the city.
Tessa was texting Melody, letting her know about the meeting she had coming up with Beck and, in between texts, was watching out the window, putting on her best I’m-not-really-waiting-for-a-guy face.
Then she saw him heading her way on the sidewalk.
After a short internal debate, she grabbed her things and went to talk with him outside, where it would be a little more private than here in a coffee shop with a bunch of other people around inadvertently eavesdropping.
She caught up with him beneath the yellowish, hazy glow cast down from the vapor streetlight above him.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey.” He fumbled to put his hands into his pockets, trying to look nonchalant. Wasn’t working. “So, how are Mrs. Hawkins and the baby?”
“They’re good. They named her Tryphena. I like it. It’s pretty.”
“Yes.” Then, “It’s crazy about Charlotte and your dad—he’s okay?”
“He’s fine. Yeah. He’s good.”
“Was he near the stadium when it happened?”
“I guess you could say he was in the general vicinity.”
This conversation drifted into a silence that felt even more awkward than the first time when they were talking in the living room at home.
“So,” she said, “you had an assignment today?”
“Paperwork. You were right, what you said last night about me having to spend my life filling it out. Sometimes it seems like that’s all I do.”
“Yeah.”
Traffic coursed past them on the street nearby.
Okay, just do this thing.
She took a deep breath and dove right in. “So listen. I’m not usually forward like that—like kissing you last night. I usually just sit around waiting for the guy to make the first move, but I was . . . Look, I don’t care that you’re a few years older than me. I feel like we had something—okay?—chemistry, whatever. And I’m sorry I ruined it. I hope I didn’t get you into trouble. That’s why I wanted to meet. So I could apologize. I’m sorry.”
He said nothing.
She wanted him to say something—anything—but he remained silent. “Okay,” she said at last. “It’s your turn now. You get to respond to what I just said.”
He hesitated. He was obviously searching for the right words. “You know that superpower you told me you wished you had?”
“To not be invisible to you.”
“Well, you don’t have to wish for that.”
“What do you mean? Why do you say that?”
“You’re anything but invisible to me. From the first time I met you I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
She stared at him dumbfounded. “But then . . . Why did you . . . ?”
“Pull away when you kissed me?”
“Was it just a professional-duty thing?”
“Well, there is that. And we can’t ignore the fact that there’s also an age issue here.”
“Seriously, that’s not a big deal. You can’t—”
“Would your dad be okay with me seeing you?”
“I’m old enough to decide who I want to hang out with.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. But if it matters to him, then it should matter to us.”
She had the sense that he was right, but she didn’t want to admit that he was. Patrick would almost certainly not approve of her seeing Beck, and bringing it up to him might very well end things with this guy before they even got started.
“I want to get to know you better,” he said, “but since we met while I was on duty protecting you, I feel like, well . . .”
“You need to talk to my dad.”
“I kind of do. Yes.”
She was about to counter that, but then the impact of what he was saying struck her.
He really wants to see you. To get to know you. He does. He likes you.
“So,” Beck said, “is he still in Charlotte?”
“Who? Patrick?”
“Yeah.”
“No, he just flew in. He’s on his way to the hospital to see Brineesha and Tryphena.”
Beck checked the time. “Maybe tomorrow we could connect and I could talk to him.”
She’d kind of been hoping he would ask to go and talk with Patrick right away, but it probably wouldn’t be ideal trying to chat there at the hospital when her dad was just hoping to see Brineesha and Tryphena.
“Sure,” she said. “Tomorrow. That would be good. What are you going to tell him?”
Beck stared at her in the gentle glow of the streetlight. “That I think his daughter is pretty amazing. That I’d like to get to know her better.” The way he looked at her seemed to somehow disarm her and fill her with courage at the same time. “And then I’ll tell him why I asked to be reassigned today.”
“What do you mean? It wasn’t because you didn’t want to see me?”
“Just the opposite. I did want to see you, but not while I was getting paid to do it.”
She thought, thought, thought, then—
Screw it.
She did not want to wait until tomorrow.
“Follow me.” She indicated toward her car. “You can talk to my dad tonight.”