Page 13 of Change of Plans

Instead, I stood there like I’d forgotten what words were and just stared at him.

The faintest hint of a genuine smile pulled at the corner of Diccon’s mouth, and his eyes danced with something soft and sweet. “The usual?” he asked.

It was my big moment to make things right, but the ghosts of a dozen relationships and crushes gone wrong in the past kept my lips glued together and my heart beating in my throat. “Yeah,” I croaked out at last, unable to say anything else.

Diccon nodded solemnly, though his eyes still sparkled. “The usual,” he called out, more like making a serious announcement than celebrating my order.

“The usual,” Brian repeated with equal solemnity and in a way that made me certain he knew the story of what had happened last night.

“The usual,” Hannah said with just a hint of disapproval.

And that was it. I stood there for a few seconds more, getting out my card to pay after an embarrassing delay, then finally shifted to the side to wait for my coffee once the guy behind me cleared his throat in annoyance.

Diccon watched me as I moved, but he couldn’t exactly take off his apron, close the counter down, and take me aside to talk to me. He dealt with the next customer while I shuffled my feet at the corner of the counter, wondering why I was so completely inept at basic human interactions with a guy I liked.

It felt like a special kind of defeat a minute later when Brian handed me my coffee with a sympathetic look, when I left the café to continue on to the office, and when I took my first sip from the paper cup, only to discover it actually was my regular coffee and not the special blueberry blend Diccon had teased me with the day before. That really felt like the end of things.

I tried not to let it get me down as I hurried down Easton Road to the office. I already knew I was a failure in the charisma department, so that wasn’t anything new. I resigned myself to file the beautiful day with Diccon aside in my mental box of memories that weren’t half bad and to maybe find a different coffee shop next week.

Those thoughts were cut short when I stepped into the offices of Gershwin and Anglesea to find a crew deep in the process of tearing up all the carpets and taking what remained of the wallpaper down. The place looked even worse than it had the day before. I knew the office would be closed, but I hadn’t imagined it would be that bad. I’d hoped to pick up a few things from my work area and to find a clear spot to set up shop, but that wasn’t happening.

“Didn’t you get the email Chuck sent out?” Pam asked as I stood there, coffee in one hand, satchel weighing down my shoulder.

“I forgot to check this morning,” I said, an uneasy feeling growing in my gut.

“Well, as you can see, they found someone to clean up the office and do a quick renovation,” Pam explained as she gathered what looked like files from our workroom into a large backpack. “But Chuck still hasn’t found us a temporary workspace. Christopher and David have headed to the library to see if they can use one of their conference rooms for the day, but the rest of us are working from home.”

“I see,” I said, looking around at the disaster as I crossed to my workstation to pick up the file I needed. It felt a little too close to home, if I was honest.

“Just log on to the office system from wherever you’re working, like the rest of us,” Pam said as she finished with the backpack and slung it over her shoulder. “I know you’re super busy with the Jameson Industries project. Do you have any client meetings scheduled?”

“Not until next week,” I said, still a little overwhelmed.

“Okay, then. Go have fun working remotely. I’ll call you if I need you for anything.”

That was pretty much that. My coffee wasn’t even cool yet as I left the office and headed back to the street. Once I was there, I stood still for a second, knowing what I had to do but dreading it more than a little.

I had to go back to Common Grounds. This was the Universe’s way of telling me that. Not only had it been an ideal place to work the day before, I needed to actually face Diccon and apologize for running out on him. Once fate decided these things, you couldn’t really argue with it.

So that’s what I did. After taking a deep, bracing breath, I marched back up Easton Road, then around the corner onto Glenside Ave. I spared a quick look for the empty lot beside the café, consoling myself with the idea that at least something beautiful would stand there soon that might help out business at Common Grounds, and pushed through the café’s front door.

The morning rush was still underway as I slipped in, avoided the line, and went straight to the table where I’d set up shop the day before. Diccon was busy, but he definitely noticed my arrival. I did my best not to look his way so I didn’t distract him, but it happened anyhow.

Our eyes met. I couldn’t tell whether Diccon was happy to see me again or if he was smiling for the woman who had just stepped up to order her coffee. I couldn’t dwell on it at any rate. Technically, I was at work, and I needed to focus on that.

I actually did manage to set up my laptop, log in to the system, and start checking my emails without pausing everything to just stare at Diccon from across the room. I’d even zeroed in on responding to an email from a client that had been sent the night before. I could do this, be in this space, and concentrate after all without losing my mind.

That lasted until the morning rush died down and Diccon came out from behind the counter, heading straight for me.

“Forget something?” he asked, leaning against the edge of the booth with his arms crossed and a cheeky grin on his gorgeous face, just like he’d done the day before.

“I…um…the office is still a mess,” I managed to say, forcing myself to look at him instead of folding my arms on the table and hiding my face in them.

Diccon’s smile grew. “Yeah, I figured it would take more than just one day to repair that kind of damage.”

Whether that was an invitation to repair the damage I’d done last night or not, I leapt at the opportunity.

“I’m sorry I ran out on you,” I said in a low voice, peeking around to make sure half of Glenside wasn’t listening to our conversation. “That was a crappy thing to do.”