Page 52 of Spicy Ever After
She tilts her head to one side. “They sell ground coffee, too? Not just by the cup?”
“Ground coffee. Roasted beans. Cold brew. Whatever your heart desires.”
Her smile brightens those hazel eyes. “My heart desires a café au lait with lots of sugar. Can they do that?”
“Count on it.”
I love that she just says what she wants. The last few years haven’t left a whole lot of time for dating, but the last woman I went out with would never say what she preferred. She deferred to me on everything.
Her name was Annie, and we went out for a few weeks last year. She was pretty. Easy to be with. And she smelled great. But everything we did was up to me. Where we went. What we ate. Hell, even how we kissed. Whenever I’d ask for her choice, she’d say, “Whatever you want.”
At first, I thought she was just really easy going. But a few dates in, I started to notice that after she’d say whatever you want, she’d get quiet when I picked something she didn’t enjoy. But she wouldn’t say anything. Not I don’t like heist movies, or I’d prefer pizza instead of Chinese, or I don’t like having my ears kissed.
She wouldn’t communicate.
I think she expected me to read her mind or just… know. When I asked her about it, she acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about. And the last time we went out, I picked Top Golf, and we hardly spoke the entire night.
“I’m hungry too,” Hattie says. “Can we hit Beignet Box?”
Hattie is a fucking breath of fresh air.
“Yeah, I love Beignet Box.” I scan around and spot the food truck in the north corner of the park, in the shade of live oaks.
Ten minutes later, we have coffee and a paper tray of powdered-sugar-dusted beignets. We head for the pond and a pair of empty Adirondacks.
“Oh, yeah,” Hattie purrs in pleasure as we sit.
“Beignet?” I ask, holding out the tray.
She raises her coffee, shaking her head. “Not yet. If I take a bite before I have some of my coffee, the coffee won’t be sweet enough.”
“Fair,” I say, setting the fried dough between us on the arm of my chair.
She holds her coffee closer to me. “Cheers.”
Grinning, I tap my cup of black Perfect Roast with one sugar to her café au lait and five sugars. “To Hell-Yes-It’s-A-Real-Date-Coffee-Dates.”
Her smile. Damn.
She takes a sip, shuts her eyes, and hums softly, her head tipped back and that stunning smile aimed at the sky.
I want to snap a picture. Right now. But I commit the moment to memory instead.
I take my own sip.
“So good,” I mutter.
“Right?” She blinks her eyes open and looks back at me. “I should’ve bought a bag of ground coffee. This is way better than what we make at home.”
“What do you make at home?”
Hattie wrinkles her nose. “Is it weird if I say I don’t know? Maybe Community? Or Mello Joy? I don’t know.” She shakes her head, clearly a little embarrassed. “It’s usually made by the time I get up and?—”
She stops.
“And what?” When I realize she’s ducking the question, I backtrack. “Hey, it’s not weird if you don’t know. Before my mom got sick the last time, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you the brands of half the shit we used.”
Hattie presses her lips together, clearly pondering this. “And then you knew because you had to start doing the shopping?”
