Page 80 of Famous for a Living

A chuckle moves around the room.

He ignores it. “Wanna take a shot at the machine?”

I look up at it with interest, then to the line backing nearly to the door. “I’d love to. Doesn’t seem like you guys are slowing down, though.”

“This ungrateful lot? They can wait.”

He laughs jovially, and I find myself drawing near to him and his confident, easygoing attitude. And I would indeed like to take a shot at the espresso machine, actually. I always wonder what it would be like when I see baristas dashing about, pressing buttons and cranking knobs.

But there’s something in the way Zaiah slowly pulls into himself, his hands moving uncertainly into his pockets.

It’s a new look from him, that uncertainty.

Endearing in a way. Makes me feel protective, even.

Although, of course, there’s nothing to feel protective over.

I will be returning home in a matter of months—weeks, perhaps, from the way my image seems to be gluing itself back together.

Still.

I am stepping backward before I know it, and in an instant, I sense the pressure drop out of the air like a balloon.

“I’d love to . . . sometime.” I leave it with an obscurity that can mean anything from “I really would love to but I have to go” to “If this is your invitation to something more, I’m halting it now.”

“But I have to do some rescuing,” I say. I tick my head over my shoulder toward Mina. The man is now hanging over her shoulder while she holds her phone.

I squint. No, that’s not her phone. It’s his.

“I can’t remember offhand when the next meteor shower is, but I definitely know the best spots around the park,” she says.

And there he is, smiling down at her like a vampire floating overhead.

Good grief.

Kevin! I glare at him as he stands beside her, nervously twitching but making no attempts at interception.

“Just call me next week,” Mina says. “I’d be happy to help you scout out the best ones for when your fiancée visits. What a sweet idea! That’s exactly how I’d want to be proposed to myself.”

“Hang on.” I hand off my mug to Zaiah. “I gotta intercede before Mina gets herself kidnapped. It was nice meeting you, Mark.”

As I elbow my way through the crowd, I notice Zaiah has jump-started toward the duo as well. And while he may have the height advantage, I have had years of experience slipping through crowded rooms. I reach the table first, snap the phone out of Mina’s hand just as she’s passing it back to the man, and bare my teeth while I methodically delete her number.

My eyes stay trained on his. My grin is overbright. “Hi,” I say, fingers mechanically flying across the screen. “I’m going to give you one chance to tell me who you are”—I swipe my own phone out of my pocket, snap a picture in the time it takes him to blink, and tuck it back inside—“and why you are asking a teenager to get in a car with you at night in the middle of nowhere—”

“I’m not a teenager,” Mina cries. “I’m nineteen—”

“That counts,” Kevin interjects. Oh sure. Now he’s all talk.

“And Paul’s just about to get engaged!” Mina adds.

“Well, Paul. That’s terrific. Marriage is a beautiful institution.” I put my hand on the back of Mina’s chair. “Now never talk to Mina again.”

His receding hairline turns the color of beets. “This is a public establishment.”

“Nah, bro.” Mark wheels up beside Zaiah. “I run this place. You’d better move along.”

Paul’s eyes swivel from Mark, to Zaiah, to me, his previously pale skin turning redder by the moment.