Bell five days a week, and tonight she’s back at it, so I get comfortable in my quiet little corner of Caffeine Land and open a book.
I’m only a few pages in when my phone vibrates on the table. I flip it over to look at the new Instagram notification.
Miller Adams started following you.
I stare at the notification, allowing the meaning of it to soak in for a moment. Did Shelby break up with him again? Is this his way of getting back at her?
I feel a smile attempting to form on my lips, but I bite it back because I’m kind of getting whiplash. Get in my truck. Get out of my truck. Let’s be friends on Instagram. No, let’s not be friends. Okay, yeah, let’s be friends.
I won’t allow myself to feel happy about this until I know what the hell he’s up to. I open our Instagram messages, since I deleted his number, and I send him one.
Me: Get your heart broken again?
Miller: I think I did the breaking this time.
There’s no biting back my smile this time. It’s too big to fight.
Miller: What are you doing right now?
Me: Nothing.
Miller: Can I come over?
My house is the last place I want him.
Me: Meet me at Starbucks.
Miller: On my way.
I set my phone down and pick up my book again, but I know I won’t be able to concentrate on the words while I wait for him. It doesn’t matter, though, because five seconds later, Miller is pulling an empty chair over to my table. He sits, straddling the chair backward. I pull my book to my chest and stare at him.
“You were already here?”
He grins. “I was standing in line to get coffee when I messaged you.”
Which means he probably saw me grinning like an idiot. “That feels like an invasion of privacy.”
“It’s not my fault you’re severely unaware of your surroundings.”
He’s right. When I’m here, I don’t have a clue what’s going on around me. Sometimes I sit here for two hours reading, and when I close the book, I’m surprised to look up and see that I’m not at home.
I slide the book into my bag and take a sip of my coffee. Then I lean back in my chair, my gaze rolling over Miller. He looks better. Not so heartbroken this time. He actually looks content, but I have no idea how long that’ll last before he realizes how much he misses Shelby and unfollows me on Instagram again.
“I don’t know how I feel about being your backup plan every time things go south with your girlfriend.”
He smiles gently. “You aren’t a backup plan. I like talking to you. I don’t have a girlfriend anymore, so I no longer feel guilty talking to you.”
“That’s essentially what a backup plan is. Priority doesn’t work out . . . move on to second tier.”
A barista calls Miller’s name, but he stares at me for five long seconds before he scoots his chair away from the table and goes to retrieve his coffee. When he comes back, he doesn’t revisit the conversation. He changes the subject entirely.
“Feel like going for a ride?” He takes a sip of his coffee, and I have no idea how something as simple as a cute guy sipping coffee could be appealing, but it is, so I grab my bag and stand up.
“Sure.”
Aside from a few dates I went on with a guy named Aaron last year without my parents’ permission, I’ve never been on a date with anyone else. Not that I consider whatever this is we’re doing an actual date, but I can’t help but compare it to what little experience I’ve had in the past. My parents have been extremely overprotective, so I never even bothered asking if I could go out with a guy. The rule has always been that I could date at sixteen, but I’ve been sixteen for almost a whole year and have avoided it. The idea of bringing a guy into my house to meet my parents always sounded dreadful, so if I wanted to hang out with a guy, I usually just did it behind their backs with Lexie’s help.
I do know enough to know that silence is your enemy on dates. You try to fill that silence by asking trivial questions that no one really wants to answer, and then, if you can get past the terrible answers, you might get to make out at the end of the night.