Hope's Café

by Sana Abid

  "Wait, profits going up?" I laughed. "Did you even read the analysis of our numbers before coming here?"

  His face paled. "No. I have people to do that for me."

  "Well, let me tell you our profits are going down the toilet."

  "What?"

  "Yeah." I frowned.

  Tate jerked up on his feet, grabbing the red file on Liam's desk. His eyes scanned through the papers, his hand scratching the hair on his face. "I don't understand. The numbers look fine to me."

  "Can I?" I pointed to the file. Tate nodded and handed me the file. Just looking at the first page cleared up everything. "Well, yeah, this is a fake report."

  "Are you kidding me?"

  "I wish. Liam makes me go through the financial status of the company, and this is not what he sent me a week ago."

  Tate licked his lips. "Well, I guess this was almost a waste of a trip."

  "Almost?"

  "Yeah."

  "What good possibly came out of this?"

  "You." He smiled. Then his hand reached into his blazer's pocket and pulled out a business card. "You could have let your boss fool me, but you didn't. Integrity. I like that. Have this. If you ever want to switch sides."

  I stared at the tiny black card. "You want me to work for you?"

  "If you want to. I won't make you wear those awful shoes. Go on take it."

  I felt like a child taking candy from a grown up. "Thank— thank you so much."

  "Don't thank me. I should thank you." I blushed, dumbfounded. "Anything else I can do for you, Miss Halls?"

  "Actually…" I hoped I wasn’t pushing my luck with this man. "Yes." His eyes glimmered with interest. "Your brother, Jay. Have you talked to him recently?"

  His smile deepened. "I thought you'd never ask."

  Jay had seen Tate. Jay had talked about me. Jay wanted to see me. Me.

  I stood behind the front desk, impatient and excited as I stared at the wall in front of me. After Tate told me about Jay's unexpected visit with him, I couldn't help but to fidget every inch of my body. Sometimes it was tapping of the feet, sometimes it was the desk's wood against my fingernails, sometimes it was biting my lips as I checked the elevator every now and then until I heard yelling.

  "You can't do this to me, Stonepelt!" It was Liam, charging after Tate like an angry dog. He rushed past Tate and stopped him in his tracks.

  "I can and I will. Come on, Liam, we're both adults here," Tate said with a smirk, patting Liam's shoulder how he had done to Tate before. Boy did that get my boss pissed. His face was a tomato as big as James' giant peach.

  "Fuck you, Tate! Your company isn't even that good. I can find thousands of others better than yours."

  "Constructive criticism." Jay's brother smiled. "Always good to hear. See you later, Liam." With that, he came over to me, leaving the old man simmering in indignation behind him.

  "Maybe I should grab the fire extinguisher," I said glancing at my boss. Liam scowled at the both of us before making his way down the hall. "I can see fumes coming out of his ears."

  "That's a good one." Tate chuckled. Then he cleared his throat. "So, about Jay, did he?"

  "Yes," I breathed.

  "Oh." Tate blinked. "Damn. You know he's not supposed to."

  "I don't know what to believe," I admitted, "except that I know I want to see him again. To talk."

  "To talk, huh?" He scratched his neck. "I'll tell you what to believe. I know my brother. He knows me. He's a good guy. Everything you read about us—"

  "I didn't—"

  "Save it. Who hasn't Googled us?" I felt guilty for the pain in his eyes. "Everything about us, no one knows the truth, okay?" I nodded, unsure what to say. Tate nodded back, slipping his sunglasses on. "I'll leave you to it, Miss Halls."

  A week went by and still there was no sign of Jay, not even in my dreams. Tate had lifted my spirits when he spoke to me about his brother, but those spirits died down when he had left without telling me where and when I would see Jay. It was beginning to feel like I was waiting for a tree to bear a fruit on the same day it was planted: hopeless. The only thing I could do was wait, I guessed, and that was exactly what I did. After work, I would drive to Hope's Café and sit on the same barstool I did the night I met Jay. Each time Lisa would bring me a cup of coffee, shaking her head. Every time, it was a no. He wasn't there.

  It became crystal clear to me that Tate had lied to make a fool out of me. Jay never came to him, he certainly didn't talk about me, and he was never coming back. Well, screw him.

  That Friday after work, I didn't go to Hope's Café. There was nothing there waiting for me. So, what was the point? I didn't think I could handle another no from Lisa. And I definitely didn't think a cup of coffee could fuel my hopes up for the next day anymore. Instead, I called Eva.

  My heart pounded when the call went through. She hadn't blocked me.

  "Vivian." Her voice was soft. My throat burned as I fought tears back.

  "Hi."

  "Why are you calling?" she asked bitterly.

  "I don't know," I admitted.

  Eva broke in a cold laugh. "You don't know."

  "I miss you, okay?" I said squeezing my eyes shut to alleviate the pain of the past.

  "Vivian..."

  "I'm sorry. You were right about Ron. I can't believe I trusted that douchebag over you." Tears escaped my eyes drip, drip, drip like the raindrops of the night hitting the concrete sidewalk.

  "Took you long enough."

  "I wanted to apologize before, but I was scared." Silence. "Hello?"

  "I'm here." She sighed. I clutched the phone tighter in my hand.

  "If you don't want to talk—"

  "It's okay."

  "Huh?"

  "I said it's okay. I forgive you."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah, I'm sure you got what you deserve. Plus, I knew you'd realize how big of a douche Ron is one day."

  "A very big one." I laughed, wiping my nose with the ends of my sleeve. "I missed you."

  "I missed you too, Vivian."

  "And I didn't mean anything that I said to you last time. I swear."

  "Me neither."

  "Well, this is the best thing that happened to me this week. It's been a shitty week."

  "Want to come over and talk about it?"

  A smile crept over my lips. "Yes."

  "You're saying, you met Jay Stonepelt randomly at a coffee shop." Eva's turquoise eyes narrowed at me with a look of disbelief on her face.

  "Seriously," I told her as I swirled more whipped cream over my sundae. "The dude kept asking me questions, trying to read me and all."

  "What kind of questions?" she asked munching on her left-over strawberries. Ice cream and fruit were our thing. I missed doing this so much.

  I shrugged. "Like why I was closed off basically. He was annoying at first, then…"

  "Then, what?" Eva leaned over with a growing interest. "Did he do some crazy voodoo shit on you?" I thought against telling her about our field trip inside a book. Even I, who had experienced it firsthand, couldn't really describe it. Describe what it was. So, imagine her. She wouldn't believe a single word of it.

  "He told me to go upstairs."

  "What!" Eva yelled. "Please tell me you didn't fucking listen to him!"

  "It was a library upstairs."

  "So? Anything can happen anywhere!" Now that she pointed it out, it did seem pretty stupid to follow Jay upstairs.

  "God, you went up, didn't you?" She pinched the bridge of her nose.

  "I wasn't going to," I admitted, "at first."

  "Vivian—"

  "Nothing happened."

  "Sounds like a lie. "

  "Well, we talked about books," I said, licking the end of my spoon.

  "Books? Well, you don't hear that every day." Eva chuckled. "I think you're making all this up."

  "I'm not," I said. "Why would I randomly make up a story about Jay Stonepelt and not someone else? I mean he's cute and all but still.
Why him randomly?"

  "You have a crush on the creepy Stonepelt."

  "He's not creepy," I said defensively.

  "So, you're not going to deny the other fact." She smirked.

  "I don't have a crush." Heat blew across my neck like a hot fan.

  "Lying and you are not compatible, my dear." Her goofy smile teased me. "What happened after you two were upstairs? Did he kiss you?"

  "What?" I practically choked on my cookie dough. "No, absolutely not. I don't even know him." My cheeks were on fire by now and that fire spread all over my body in a matter of seconds, the way an entire forest is ablaze in a blink of an eye.

  "Ha, okay."

  "Nothing happened."

  "That's a lie," Eva said in a bland tone. "What did you see when you were up?"

  "After we talked about books, I turned around and he disappeared," I fast-forwarded.

  "He disappeared!" Her light brows arched in surprise.

  "Yeah." It wasn't the entire truth, but it was all I got.

  "That's fucking creepy as hell!" Eva yelled. "Vivian, listen to me. Do not ever go near him again. Like I Googled all sorts of shit about him. Just don't. We don't know what he's capable of."

  Well, I got a taste of what he's capable of, I wanted to say, but instead I said, "I knew you'd say that."

  "No matter how cute he is."

  "I tried to see him again at the café," I told her and, at the same time, prepared for her to explode. Why couldn't I just keep my mouth shut and enjoy this freaking sundae?

  "What!" She exploded like I had imagined couple seconds ago. "Why?" I winced seeing the Y- shaped vein throbbing on her tiny forehead. She was generally pissed.

  "To talk."

  "About books?" Her eyes were wild.

  "Yes." Well, about visiting them. "But he wasn't there, so I'm never going back anyways."

  "Good." Eva seemed to relax. "Let's stop talking about Jay Stone-cold, okay? He doesn't seem that kind of guy you'd want to be with."

  "Hmm." I rested my head on the sofa as Eva hit play for the movie, something about pirates. I wasn't paying much attention to it, to be honest. My thoughts were occupied by other things. The little blue house on the hilltop. My dream about Jay. Tate's job offer. Jay never showing up. The last one was probably for my own good, the rational side of me argued. But the desiring, craving, insane side of me wanted that same dream about Jay again. A dream more explicit, more erotic.

  A dream that had an ending.

  CHAPTER 5

  The next day I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, literally and figuratively.

  I didn't dream about Jay, not even his hands nor that green book of his. That alone was enough to set my mood off. Instead, I had a shitty nightmare about clowns taking over my house, each of them wearing a toupee and eating all of the cookie dough ice cream in my freezer. Then, I woke up late because of those clowns. I had to rush with everything: dressing up like a life-size doll for Liam, brushing the bird's nest in my hair, swallowing huge chunks of my cereal, brushing my morning breath away. It was all a pain in the –

  And by the time I stood in my usual spot behind the front desk, my chest hurt from all the stress and anxiety. Stress and anxiety made it hard to breathe right. Crunch time was my worst enemy.

  I knew coffee made matters worse. You shouldn't drink coffee when your freaking chest hurt, but I drank it anyway to take my mind off of things.

  "Vivian, you're late." Mr. Jensen walked into the lobby wearing his famous beige suit and a red tie that had pink flamingos on it. Today, his hair appeared extra greasy. Too much coconut oil, I guessed, to nourish his balding scalp. I felt horrible thinking that of Mr. Jensen. He was basically my second boss. Whenever Liam was busy, he was the one to take charge. "That never happens."

  "I know. I'm sorry," I apologized, setting my paper cup down. I wondered if that was even biodegradable.

  "It's fine." He pursed his lips, small crinkles forming on his forehead. "Boss wants to see you."

  "Me? Sure. He probably wants to talk about the new project. " I sighed. Talking was the last thing I wanted to do, but like a puppet listening to boss' orders, I came around the desk and made my way to the elevators.

  "Let's hope it's that," Mr. Johnson said behind me in a worried tone. What's up with him? I thought as the elevator doors closed in front of my face.

  "Sorry, what?" I asked blinking, not understanding what just happened.

  "You heard me. You're fired." Liam leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of him to show me he could say whatever the hell he wanted because—my sad luck— he was the boss.

  "But— but why? What did I do?" I said. Tears threatened to spill out like they always did when I was frustrated or plain pissed off. Of course, I had wanted to quit Miller Co. because how big of a jerk Liam was but not like this. Getting fired was not the plan. This was humiliating. How was it fair that he had the upper hand?

  "Don't play stupid with me," he said with a scowl. "Tate Stonepelt. First you stab me in the back, making Tate break his promised deal with me. Then, you take his offer to work with him? Do you really think I was going to promote you after the stunt you pulled?"

  "Ha, promote me? You've been treating me like your personal slave for the last three years. Where's your assistant, Liam? Why is it that I grab your fucking coffee and go over your shitty spreadsheets? Why do I go over the company's financial status?" My body shook with anger. "Oh, right because you don't have a fucking personal assistant. I haven't seen one and no one else has either!"

  "Get out," he spat looking like he'd been slapped in the face.

  "And for the whole Tate incident, are you really that stupid to think you can hide this company's losses forever? How long did you think it would take for Tate to realize everything?"

  "I'm going to call security!"

  "Don't." I let out a cold cackle, slipping the treacherous heels off my feet. "You can't fire me. I quit. I was planning to quit this shithole the day I got hired. Enjoy getting your own coffee—and by the way, you must be very, very stupid to think I'd go down the street for a fucking cup of coffee every day. Goodbye." Then I hurled the stilettos on his desk.

  The puddles were icy when I stepped on them barefoot. It actually felt quite nice, the coolness sending a jolt of electricity down my body. My thoughts refreshed from it. Walking through the rain was a great idea. Honestly, I needed to chill the hell out from the previous episode. I could just imagine the Universe clicking play before laughing at me as Liam fired me, probably with a giant as hell bag of popcorn on its lap.

  Well, it must have been a plot twist when I showed Liam what I was capable of. Take that, Universe! I smiled, dialing the number on Tate's business card. Who cares if Liam kicked me out? I had a great backup option anyway, working with Tate Stonepelt. Imagine that, I thought with awe, but that feeling faded away when the call didn't go through, and the lady in the annoying voice said, "I'm sorry, the number you're trying to reach is no longer available."

  "What the hell?" I tried again crossing my fingers as the bell rang a bunch of times. "Come on, come on, pick up the phone." I bit my bottom lip to keep it from quivering not only because of the cold rain, but also because I felt like I was going to burst out in tears. The bell eventually stopped ringing and for once I thought things were turning around—Tate picked up. But the second right after, there it was again, the robotic female voice.

  Then I really started to cry.

  You know the moment when your heart knows things could be a billion times worse, but your brain just can't accept that fact; instead it goes spiraling down and tells every cell in your body that everything is wrong, red flags and shit everywhere? Yeah, that's exactly how I felt. Why were thoughts so controlling? Why was that nagging voice in the back of our heads so damn persuasive into making us believe that, wow, we're truly in a dump— a hole, a ditch, a well—where we couldn't get out. Why?

  I felt the bones in my chest tighten, so my lungs didn't have
enough space to expand. Breathing was a difficult task. It hurt so bad, the emotional aspect more than the physical one, and damn did the physical hurt. My tears ran down with the rain and probably mixed in with the puddles which were swimming around my bare feet, the splashing sound drowning out the rain. My makeup must've been ruined by now. I didn't know why I cared for my stupid makeup at a time like this, but I ran my fingers under my eyes anyways as a reflex. Black ink came rubbed off on them and then washed away with the rain. I walked down the sidewalk having no intention of reaching a destination. The rain was eye opening, and it was the only company I had until it stabbed me in the back, too, and started to mirror a storm, once again putting me down with its heavy weight.

  I struggled to continue. Every step forward felt like ten steps backwards. Okay, fine, if the rain didn't want to comfort me either, I'd seek shelter. The closest shop: Hope's Café.

  I told myself I wouldn't go back, that I needed to move on. But for some reason the light of the shop that mesmerized me before beckoned me today in the same way. Before I could stop myself, my hand was already on the handle, pulling the door of the café open. Nostalgia hit me like a ton of bricks.

  There were a good amount of people in here doing whatever, how they did the night I met Jay. Again, I went unnoticed. I was a soaking wet girl in business attire and poor-quality makeup, which wouldn't stop running down with the drops on my face. I felt embarrassed even though no eyes were on me. Maybe being here was a mistake after all, a mistake that I was repeating for the millionth time. There was absolutely nothing here for me.

  The minute I turned around, I heard Lisa call out to me. Shit. This was a terrible time for a cheeky conversation. "Hey." I forced to smile, awkwardly standing by the door.

  "Haven't seen you in a while," she beamed, opposite from that sad smile that I was so used to from her.

  "Yeah, I've been busy."

  "I feel you. Come here. Have a cup of coffee." She gestured to the empty stool in front of her.

  "No thanks. It's been a hard day. I think I should head home—"