“Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m going to find out.”
* * *
“Hi,” I said, except I’m pretty sure he didn’t hear me. So I leaned down and waved just over his laptop.
That got his attention. He gasped a little and looked up. He was wearing pink—yes, pink—headphones with the words “Virgin Airlines” written on them. He pulled them off, slipping them down around his neck. As he did so, I caught what might have been some New Agey music. I didn’t take the big guy as an Enya type, but go figure.
“Hi,” I said again.
He smiled and sat forward and promptly knocked his iced coffee off the table. As it went flying, I reached down almost casually and caught it before it got very far. I returned it to its wet ring on the table next to his keyboard.
“You better be careful,” I said. “I hear iced coffee is hell on keyboards.”
He stared at the coffee that, just a few seconds earlier had been flipping through the air. He looked up at me, his mouth hanging open a little. I get that a lot these days.
“Er, right. Thank you...” his voice trailed off. “That was incredible.”
I shrugged. “Lucky catch.”
“No, I mean...that might have been the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Then you need to get out more,” I said. “This seat taken?”
He blinked some more, then shook his head. He had been prepared to work today. He had been prepared to lose himself in whatever it was that he was writing. He hadn’t been prepared to have a nosy woman with superhuman reflexes sit across from him.
I set his leather saddle bag on the floor beneath the table. Cool bag. I sat opposite him.
“I’ve seen you here before,” I said.
“I’ve seen you, too,” he said.
This actually surprised me. Never once had I seen him look up from his keyboard.
“Are you a writer?” I asked.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Either that or you really, really hate your laptop.”
He grinned. I grinned. We studied each other some more. My inner alarm remained silent. Always a good sign. We did this for another twenty seconds. The silence was not uncomfortable or unpleasant.
I continued studying him. Full lips, short beard, hint of gray in his beard. Lots of laugh lines. Could probably use some lotion on his skin. Strong hands. Nails chewed. Bad habit. He wore a v-neck tee-shirt. Chest hair poking out. A ring on his right hand. A thick squarish watch on his left. North Face jacket hanging on the chair behind him. Nice jacket. Nothing about him suggested that I knew him.
And yet...I did know him. I was sure of it. “You’re probably wondering why I’m sitting here,” I said.
He reached for the recently-saved coffee. As he drank, he continued to take me in, his eyes going from my hair to my face to my body, scanning. They might have lingered on my boobs a little. I’ll give him a pass. This time.
“I think I know why you’re here,” he said. I waited for it, expecting the worst. And by worst, I meant some cheesy come-on line. Instead, he surprised me by saying, “You think you know me, and it’s killing you.”
I nodded, impressed. “Something like that.”
“Or maybe you're here because you like my beard.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
“Really?”