RECOGNITION GAMES
391 Words
She ordered an iced matcha and sat at a small table by the window, pulling out a paperback. Every few minutes, she glanced up. Never directly at me — always somewhere near me. Like her eyes had magnets but her pride kept switching the polarity.
I let it ride for a bit. Sipped my coffee. Checked my phone again. Pretended not to care.
Then I stood and walked over.
“Excuse me,” I said, tilting my head with a lazy grin. “You look real familiar.”
She blinked up at me — calm, unreadable — and gave the exact fake smile people wear at networking events.
“I’m sorry… do I know you?” she asked, voice sweet but guarded.
I almost laughed.
Damn, she was going all in.
“Really?” I leaned a little closer. “Teni, don’t do me like that.”
Her eyebrows lifted, just a touch. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”
I leaned on the chair across from her. “You used to come to our house every weekend. I had to bribe you with cereal just so you’d stop talking my sister’s ear off.”
A flicker. Barely noticeable. Her eyes narrowed, and I caught the faintest twitch in her lips — the beginning of a smile, maybe. Or the end of her act.
“I think you’re mistaking me for someone who had time for teenage boys who thought they were fine.”
I raised a brow. “Oh, I was definitely fine. Still am.”
She rolled her eyes. “Arrogance suits you. I see that hasn’t changed.”
“Neither has your crush,” I said casually.
This time, she laughed — for real. And that was when I knew I still had her. Somewhere underneath the grown woman act and the iced matcha and the don’t-know-you defense — the girl who once turned red when I looked at her was still in there.
“Wow,” she said. “You’re really out here recycling lines from high school.”
“I don’t need lines,” I said, sitting down across from her. “You already liked me before.”
She sipped her drink slowly. “And I outgrew it.”
“But you recognized me.”
She didn’t respond.
She didn’t have to.
- Writer
