“I’m an adult, and I promise not to throw any huge parties or anything.”
He scowled. “Glad to know you’re going to miss me.”
“You know I will. Look at it this way, I’m a built in house sitter.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Case.” He pushed his wire rim glasses back up on his face. He usually wore contacts, but he didn’t bother with them when he got busy with research. I couldn’t relate. I had 20/20 vision.
“I won’t, but I’ve got to go. I’m late to meet Remy for dinner.” I stood up.
He hugged me. “Call me if anything comes up. I’ll still get service in Russia.”
“Good to know. If you decide to run off with a Russian girl, at least send me a letter so I can live vicariously through your adventures.”
He laughed. “You’re so weird.”
“Maybe I learned it from you.”
“Or from Vera. You get more and more like her every day.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” I turned and left. I wasn’t in the mood to discuss my older sister.
***
“I still can’t believe Eric did that to you.” Remy brought Eric up for the third time that night. I’d told her more as a warning than anything, but she wasn’t letting it go. She’d told the whole restaurant about it at dinner. Remy had the kind of voice that carried. It didn’t help that the whole way over to Jess’ I felt like someone was watching me. I was losing my mind.
“He’s an ass. Why does it surprise you?” I took a long sip from my red cup and set it aside on the end table. Like everything else in the apartment, the furniture was steps above the usual college grade stuff the rest of us lived on. Maybe their parents’ paid for the place. The rent had to be steep. Two bedrooms, with an eat-in kitchen and a giant living room, the square footage was almost unheard of in my group of friends. Add in that it was a doorman building, and you were talking serious cash.
“Still…why now? Why wait six months?” Remy always liked to find an ulterior meaning in things. If a professor called on someone first, it was because he played favorites. If a customer ordered a different drink, they were going through some existential crisis, and so on.
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s just bored or hard up for girls or something.” I did find it surprising that he’d gone as far as picking an actual time. His teasing had been more general before. Maybe now that we’d been working together so much, he felt he could be more forward. No matter the reason, I didn’t like it.
“Who’s hard up for girls?” Jess asked, flipping her blonde hair off her shoulder before settling on the arm of a red love seat. She was one of those ultra-pretty girls who knew it. She could get any guy she wanted, but she’d settled on her high school sweetheart. Emmett seemed like a nice enough guy, and he was definitely crazy about her. I had a feeling there was a sparkly ring in her near future.
I crossed my legs, already antsy to get up off the couch and move again. “Just this jerk at work.”
“Is he cute?” Jess laughed. “Just kidding. If he’s bugging you, why not tell your boss?”
“He kind of is my boss, and the only one he answers to is his uncle.”
“Oh…that’s not good.” She gave me a sympathetic look.
“What? Marv is Eric’s uncle?” Remy had a similar reaction to me. At least I wasn’t the only one who’d failed to pick up on that detail.
I nodded. “Weird, isn’t it?” Then I turned back to Jess. “It’s not good at all. I’m hoping it was only talk and he doesn’t actually show up tomorrow night.”
“Just have Rhett send him away,” Remy suggested.
“He’s leaving in the morning for Russia.”
“Oh yeah. I forgot about that.” She twisted off the cap of her beer.
“Just make sure you’re out then, Casey. Make plans so when he shows up, you aren’t home.” Jess nibbled on some tortilla chips.
I liked the suggestion in theory. “Do you have any big plans I can jump in on, Remy?”
She blushed. “I actually have a date.”
“With who? Is it that guy from your chem class?” Jess asked. I’d had no idea Remy liked a guy from chem. I was really out of the loop.
“Yeah…believe it or not, I asked him out.”
“Nice. Way to make the first move.” I patted her on the back. She was usually nervous about approaching guys, so it was a pretty huge step for her. “I’ll find something to do.”
“We could make plans,” a somewhat familiar male voice asked.
I craned my neck behind me, curious who the voice belonged to.
“Toby? Hi.” I tried to take my jaw off the floor as I scrambled from the couch. My favorite customer was standing in front of me. Had he just asked me out?
“You’re Casey, right?” He studied me, his brown eyes giving me no hint of what was going on in his head.
“Yeah.” I was honestly surprised he knew my name.
“You two know each other?” Jess asked, looking from Toby and then back to me with a very amused smile on her face.
“She serves good coffee.” Toby smiled. It was one of those forced half smiles of his, but it was something.
“He means I can pour coffee into a cup.”
Jess laughed, and the slightly high-pitched tone of it made me think of tiny pixies or fairies. “What a small world.”
“I guess so.” He shrugged. “So what do you say? Want to make plans?”
“Why?”
His face scrunched up in thought a little. “Do you usually make guys explain their interest this early on?”
Jess laughed again. This time louder. “I guess Casey’s playing hard to get.”
I sipped the orange substance resembling a screw driver that was currently in my plastic cup. “What would you want to do?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we can do dinner.”
“Oh. Sure.” Was I really planning a date with Toby? “Where should I meet you?”
“I can just pick you up.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”
“Really, I don’t mind at all,” he insisted.
I needed to find out how well Jess knew this guy before I shared my address. I glanced at her, and she pretty much read my mind. “Did you know that Toby and I went to high school together? He dated my best friend.”
Toby paled. “Here’s my number. Call me when you decide.” He slipped a thick, cream-colored business card into my right hand. In the process, his fingers touched mine and we looked at each other. I wondered if he enjoyed the momentary contact as much as I did.