I couldn’t do it. I’d promised Becca I would be cool, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. I grabbed my keys and stormed out of the house. The most popular coffee shop in town was on Main Street, and I was betting on him taking her there. And damn it, she liked that place. Score one for him. Fuck! Why couldn’t he have taken her to a stupid Starbucks?
I tried to convince myself Beans and Buns was better because I could easily drive past the coffee shop without it arousing suspicion. A person couldn’t get anywhere in town without driving down Main Street.
As I neared downtown, part of me hoped to get caught at the red light so I would have longer to look in the coffee shop window. But the other part of me knew that my Jeep stood out, and if Becca was facing the window, she would see me. While I could justify driving down Main Street, I couldn’t justify craning my neck to peer in the window.
Damn it. The only sensible thing to do was park and go check it out on foot. Not only would I get a clearer view, but it would be easier to keep from being seen. Since it was a weeknight, I was able to find a place to park quickly. I strode down the opposite side of the street and casually leaned against a light pole across from the coffee shop. I spotted Becca right away at a table right inside the door. Luckily, her back was facing me.
Okay, so now what?
They were there, drinking coffee, and—fuck. Are they eating off the same plate? At first, I had the unflattering thought that he was too cheap to buy her her own damn sticky bun, but then she shifted, giving me a better view of the table. Nope. He definitely wasn’t cheap—the plate was more like a platter, and it was overflowing. It was the sort of thing I would have done, which made me hate the guy more. Is he trying to impress her by buying the whole damn menu? Asshole. I didn’t care if he liked me. I didn’t like him, not one bit. But the real question was if Becca did. God, what if she likes this guy?
He turned his head toward the window, and I jumped back behind the light pole, knocking into someone.
“Sorry,” I said immediately, stooping to pick up the person’s bag that had fallen without even looking to see who I’d bumped into.
The person giggled. “That’s okay.”
I looked up and into the eyes of a girl who looked like she was in high school, maybe a freshman in college at the oldest.
“Sorry,” I said again, handing her the bag. She smiled at me, and another giggle slipped out, reminding me of Jake’s sister Ashley. Shit. With one last look at the coffee shop, I hightailed it out of there. On the walk back to my Jeep, the absurdity of what I’d done hit me. I was a bona fide creeper. Not only that, but if Becca learned that I’d spied on her, she would never forgive me. In the end, it hadn’t even been worth it because I didn’t feel any better about the situation.
When I got home, I made myself a whiskey and Sprite, heavy on the whiskey. I normally stuck to beer, but that wouldn’t cut it that night, not after I’d spied on Becca on a date. It wasn’t my pathetic actions that bothered me, though—it was the fact that Becca had been on a date at all.
One drink led to a second then a third as I watched the clock. How long does it take to drink one damn cup of coffee? She should have been home by now.
I didn’t need to know Blake to know that he wasn’t good enough for her because no one was good enough for her. Becca was special. I’d known that since the day I met her. Roman had brought me to his house for the first time, and Becca had been pissed at him because he’d downloaded some things he shouldn’t have on their shared laptop. It had been so full of viruses, Becca couldn’t fix it herself, and Roman had refused to cough up the money to have it professionally cleaned, even though it was his fault. When we later tried to go on his Xbox, we found that she’d hacked all of his accounts and locked him out. She’d