The Millionaire and the Writer (Free Story / Slow Burn Love Story)

Daniel It would’ve been better if she had just flown out the night before instead of waiting until the very last minute to cancel on me. I ran my tongue along the back of my teeth, doing my best not to glare at anyone as I walked across the street. Sarah really had it coming if she thought she could get away with bailing on me twice in one week. I had a long list of clients who wanted to get into the new townhouse and if she kept up her flighty behavior, I was going to eviscerate her the second I saw her. I sighed and a cloud of white mist billowed in front of my face. What was the use? I’d never do anything to her. She was the best contact I had from the south side. Without her, I wouldn’t have sold the last two apartments and Bill and I would be completely broke. Well, not broke, but our egos would be bruised. At least this townhouse was generating more interest than the apartments. It was in a family-friendly neighborhood, close to a couple of parks and a private school. All I had to do was get two buyers in a bidding war, then Bill and I could finally think about buying out that small apartment building down the street from our office. The things we had planned for that place. I bit some skin off my lip, wincing at the prick of pain. It was a good thing I spent most of my time behind a desk at the office rather than in front of prospective buyers, especially since Sarah was beginning to get on my last nerve. If flipping, selling, and buying real-estate was my full-time job, I’d implode from all the stress. Thank God I had mountains of paperwork to do at the office. I glanced at my watch. Barely past 8:30AM. I groaned inwardly. I had to ask off work just for this showing and now look where I was: among the hustle and bustle of the morning that I usually avoided by going into the office an hour before everyone else. I wanted to die – or throw myself off into the street, whichever would get me away from everyone faster. I expertly avoided a couple as they walked out of the coffee shop by standing just to the right of the glass door, then ducked inside before anyone tried to hold the door open for me. The warmth and smell of freshly ground coffee cascaded over me. I inhaled and exhaled slowly. If I could sit at this coffee shop and do my work, I would never be stressed. I strode over to the back of the line, already deciding on a café latte before pulling out my phone. I usually ordered one of two drinks: café latte or iced vanilla coffee. I always added cream and sweetener when I got back to the office because I wanted to avoid a complicated drink. And I was just very particular about the amount of– I stumbled forward as someone tried to walk behind me. “Sorry, man,” they said. I instantly checked my pockets for anything missing but found everything in its place. As I whipped my head around, all I found was the blur of a person flashing past me toward the bathroom. I clenched my teeth together. I could not afford to be nervous in the only place that brought me peace aside from my apartment. I swallowed, and as my eyes traveled over the line of windows at the front of the shop, they landed on a young woman in the left corner with an extremely perplexed look on her face. Her mouth was half open; her eyebrows were scrunched so close together I could have sworn she had a unibrow, and she looked like she was squinting to see into a single particle of dust. I stifled a laugh as she pinched her lower lip between her thumb and index finger and made her face resemble a fish. I couldn’t help the smile growing on my face. She looked absolutely ridiculous. “Hi, what can I get for you today?” I blinked out of my bubble and stepped toward the counter. “Hi, can I have an iced–I mean a vanilla–I mean a–” I stopped and closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. “You want a café latte?” the cashier asked. I looked at her incredulously. “How did you know?” She smiled. “You come in every Tuesday morning and order the same thing, though you are a bit later than usual today.” I stared at her in shock. Did complete strangers actually remember my face? “Will that be all?” she asked as she tapped the screen a few times. “Uh, yeah,” was all I could offer. “That’ll be three eighty-five.” I held my phone just above the payment screen. It chimed and I immediately moved down the long counter to the barstools across from the front door. I stood next to them and shoved my hands into my coat pockets, doing my best to ignore the people walking in and out. What in the world had gotten into me? How could I have messed up an order I’d said over a hundred times? It was simple. Café. Latte. How the hell could I have messed that up? Oh, God. What if I messed up tomorrow? What if the cashier tomorrow didn’t know what I wanted and we stood there in complete silence? Then the people behind me would get angry and start– “Excuse me,” someone said and leaned around me to grab a stack of napkins. I backed up a step and looked down at the person. My heart stopped. It was the young woman from the window seat. I hadn’t noticed before, but her hair had little fly-aways all along the hairline as if she had been running her hand over it again and again. Her ponytail slid over her shoulder as she leaned in front of me. “Sorry,” I said and gave her more than enough room so that she wouldn’t have to squeeze by me. She didn’t seem to notice me, though, as she grabbed what she needed and walked back to her table, laptop wide open and a half-eaten piece of cinnamon cake sitting at the edge. She squatted next to the table and that’s when I saw the other half of the cake on the floor with a fork. What had she done to drop that entire half onto the floor? I wondered if she had been so outraged by something that the cake and the fork just flew out of her hand. I sucked my lips in between my teeth, trying not to smile. “Daniel!” I snapped back to attention. A barista set my drink down on the counter in front of me then turned back to the chaos of the line. I slowly picked up the cup, allowing the warmth to almost burn my hand. Had they forgotten to give me a sleeve? I glanced over at the woman again. She had set the tainted piece of cake on a napkin next to the plate and was now breaking off pieces from the good half with her fingers. The plastic fork had been set on the table next to her where no one else sat. She seemed to be so engrossed in whatever was on her laptop that eating the cake was extremely unimportant. My legs suddenly started moving me over to her table and I clipped to a halt next to the scene of the fallen-cake crime. “What are you looking at?” I blurted out. Then I froze. What. Was. I. Doing. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. Was I breathing? Why was I standing there? Why had I even come over in the first place? Why was I even asking her such a thing? She couldn’t possibly find it in herself to talk to a complete stranger who was asking about something as personal as what was on her laptop screen. She wiped her fingers on a napkin without looking at it then glanced up at me. Her eyes were almost gold in the sunlight. “What?” she said. Oh no. How was I supposed to respond? “Uh...I just, was kind of curious about what you're looking at that’s making you so...confused.” "Confused?” She relaxed her hands into her lap, waiting for me to elaborate. My hands were burning from the coffee. I was afraid I would squeeze the cup so hard it’d burst all over me. When I didn’t say anything else, she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh!” and slapped a hand against her forehead. “Confused! Yeah,” she smiled, “I was probably making a weird face because I’m writing a facial expression.” I lifted an eyebrow, desperately trying not to suffocate. “A facial expression?” “Yeah, I’m writing something.” She laughed nervously. I dared to ask another question. “What are you writing?” “Oh, it’s nothing someone like you would be interested in.” “What do you mean?” “Well,” she trailed off as her eyes traveled up and down my body once before she spoke again. “You’re probably not into fantasy books, are you?” I thought for a moment. What kind of fantasy was she talking about? “Anyway,” she said dramatically, “I’m sorry if my weird face bothered you.” “It didn’t bother me. It made me smile.” Her eyes widened. “Oh.” She pursed her lips and nodded slowly. “Well, in that case, I’m glad I could make your day!” She grinned from ear to ear. I smiled. “That’s a little presumptuous of you to say that.” I pulled out the chair adjacent to her and sat down. I couldn’t help but want to hear her talk more. She seemed to have this brightness about her I hadn't seen on anyone else. “Woah,” she put her hands up in front of her and I froze. But then she said, “Big word.” “Big word?” I exhaled. “Am I not allowed to use big words?” “Well, if you had a better vocabulary than me, I wouldn’t be surprised. I consider myself the lowest on the totem pole of my graduating class.” “And which class would that be?” She squinted at me. “You’re not trying to ask me how old I am, are you?” My smile dropped immediately. “No, I was just asking. I didn’t mean to pry.” She squinted for a moment longer. “Alright, mister suit-and-tie, I’ll give you your answer, if you give me one of your own.” “My own what?” Did she just call me, mister suit-and-tie? “Answer to a question.” “You haven’t asked me anything.” “And yet you’ve already asked me so many questions.” My eyes darted toward the window, seeing only a black hoodie on someone before darting back to her. What did she want to ask me? “What do you do for a living?” “I’m in investment, amongst other things.” “Amongst other things. Very vague.” “Well I’d explain in more detail but I’m not sure you’d be interested in such unappealing things.” She smirked. “You’d be surprised at how many unappealing things I’ve subjected myself to.” She tipped her head to the side and looked away. What did she mean by that? “I got my bachelor’s degree three years ago, by the way. I’m sure you can do the math on my age.” That meant...she was twenty-four or twenty-five. Wow, that was young. I averted my gaze to the fork she had left on the table. I pointed at it. “How exactly did your cake and fork end up on the floor earlier?” “You saw that?” she exclaimed. “No, no. I just saw the aftermath.” “Oh, thank God. That would’ve been an embarrassing sight to see.” She leaned toward the table and picked up the fork. I casually pulled down my sleeve to cover my watch. I didn’t want anyone to see who it was from. “You probably have places to be,” she said and set the fork next to her plate. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your investment and other things job.” “I actually took the morning off.” If she’d let me, I’d sit here and talk to her all day. “Oh. Well then, I guess you can afford to sit with a lowly writer like me.” She turned to her laptop, then, and began clicking around. Was she trying to get rid of me? “What facial expression were you writing about earlier? The one that made you make that weird face?” I took a sip of my coffee. It was already lukewarm. She raised her eyebrows at me. “It's a secret.” “What do you mean?” Crap, was that too nosy? “Writing is a very personal thing. I don’t just share it with anyone.” She looked back at the screen. “Don’t you want to be published one day?” “Maybe.” “Maybe?” She paused. Then she said: “If I didn’t know any better, mister suit-and-tie, I’d think you were hitting on me.” I immediately retreated into myself. I hadn’t intended to hit on her. It had never crossed my mind, actually...nothing had crossed my mind. I simply walked over here and began stuttering like a fool without a single cautious thought or action. Why was I even talking to her in the first place? Did I want to hit on her? Why would I? I just wanted to talk. She seemed kind of interesting. Much more interesting than being angry at Sarah for ditching me again. And I didn’t even want to think about the open house Bill and I had set up in case of this happening. The sunlight had faded behind the clouds and the woman’s face was now cool in the overcast glow. My hands were getting colder by the second. I cleared my throat awkwardly. “I guess I should go,” I said, not really addressing what she had insinuated, not that I had anything to say, though. For all she knew, I was a creep trying to pry into her personal life. “Okay.” She rested her chin in a hand and watched me stand up. I put the chair back in its place and slowly turned around. Before I could take two steps, though, I realized I hadn’t asked her what her name was. I really wanted to know but how could I just casually ask something like that? The whir of the espresso machines egged me on as I pivoted on a heel to face her. “What was your name again?” She looked a little hesitant to answer, so I said, “I’m Daniel, by the way.” Was I pushing too hard to know her? She probably, desperately, wanted me to leave her alone. I didn’t blame her, but I had to know her name. I just, had to know. “My name’s Elaine,” she finally said. A sliver of sunlight streamed through the window again and I could see a few particles of dust dancing around her head. “Have a good day dealing with all of those vague, unappealing things.” I licked my lips, holding back a smile. “Thanks,” I said. “Try not to drop the other half of your cake.” Her cheeks turned a little pink. I nodded then turned and wove between a few people before walking back out into the crisp morning. No matter what was about to happen that day, somehow, I felt like everything was going to be okay.