Page 11 of The Likelihood Of You

I wave them off as their car drives away, curious why they left together. They've never left together. If I weren't so distracted, I would've interrogated them about it.

I leave through the side gate and down the back alley towards lower Manhattan to avoid the few paparazzi thatlinger outside, but one or two still find their way around there. I turn my head as a few flashes from across the street catch my attention, reluctantly lifting my hand to acknowledge their presence and offering a small smile as I do before slipping on my cap and sunglasses and disappearing down the alleyway.

The walk from the production lot to Pin’swouldn’t have beent long if I’d taken my usual shortcut, but since today is the first time in a while that the streets are somewhat free of hustling tourists and overworked commuters, I decided to take the long route.

It takes me through a passage of Central Park, unknown to most people because you can barely make it out on the maps. There’s a bench along this path, hidden away, but visible if you look hard enough through the shrubbery. It’s seated cosily next to an oak tree on one side and a small sprinkling of white and orange wildflowers on the other. I’d usually take a few moments to myself and sit on the bench and watch my private little corner of the world go by, but it’s getting dark, and I need to get coffee before the Pin’s closes, so I pass by it and carry on my walk.

Out of the park, I come to a stop at a crosswalk. I glance upwards towards the street ahead of me and take in the storefront of The Rolling Pin, decorated with bright orange pumpkins and an illusionof falling maple leaves stuck to the window- an idea my Moms had with their first store back home in Boston, to welcome the fall.

I couldn’t tell you how happy I was when my Moms called and told me they were opening a store here. I’d been living off their pastries since I could walk and partaking in their coffee creations all my way through college, so having a local store to keep me dosed up on carbs and caffeine through my twenties was pure bliss.

It was also great to keep the cast and crew happy whilst Wes sucked out their souls. There was nothing a tray of two dozen glazed doughnuts couldn’t fix.

The streetlight before me switches to walk, and I stagger across the road. I stop just outside the window, looking into the hustle and bustle of the closing hour, trying to distract my mind from the commotion inside instead of letting my mind drift to the one thing I’m actually here for.

Newsflash, it wasn’t coffee.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about Florence in the months since I met her. The following week, after I saw her, she was the only thing I thought of. Her eyes had burned a hole in my memory, and sometimes, I found myself daydreaming about them- and her voice, too.

I may have also taken that shortcut through the park more than a few times since, just so it spat me out here. I was in a state of constant wonder about when or even if I’d ever see her again.

God knows I wanted to.

I decided to peek through the window, like I’d done each time I’d been here when she wasn’t there. The likelihood of her being here was low, but that didn’t stop me from lifting off my sunglasses, subtlypressing my nose up to the glass and fogging it up slightly, and as I did, I caught the attention of a little boy who starts to laugh at me, and I smile back at him.

The lighting isn’t the best, with only a few strings of fairy lights around the windows and some dim exposed light bulbs hanging over the counter, but it creates the romantic atmosphere my parents wanted to capture. I scanned the store once, then again, and then cast another glance towards the tables to make sure I didn’t miss her, although I didn’t know how I could miss a face like hers.

But she’s not here. I shouldn’t be disappointed by the fact she isn’t here. I shouldn’t even be checking to see if she’s in there in the first place.

I push my thoughts of her aside for the time being, slip my glasses back on and head inside. Not a minute later, I’m back outside with a hot coffee and a slice of pie. I turn left out of Pin’s, heading for a side street where I can call my driver to take me back to my apartment, when a high-pitched gasp from behind me stops my feet from moving an inch.

Right. That’s it. I’m never wearing these glasses again. I’m burning them. And I’m actually going to murder Nate this time.

“Oh my God, are you Jacob Emerson?” the voice cries. “Oh please could I get a photo? I didn’t get one last time I saw you.”

I know that voice.

There’s no way.

I spin around, tilting my glasses down the bridge of my nose to see whether my ears are right, as once again, I don’t trust them. As I face Florence, I swear I can feel all the stress from today melt straight through my body to my toes. She’s wearing a grin that lets me knowshe’s more than proud of how she got my attention, which means she knows who I am now, but I couldn’t care less; the fact she’s here is all that matters.

I try to get words to come out of my mouth to reply to her, but my embarrassingly large smirk is blocking any sound from escaping. I take a breath and try to lick away my smile. “How long did it take you to…”

“To figure out you were probably one of the most famous men on the planet? That I had somehow never heard of?” This goddamn grin will not leave my face. I bite my bottom lip, attempting to conceal it. “It took around thirty seconds after you left for me to be ambushed by half that bakery for not knowing I was having a conversation withJacob Emerson.”She drops her head towards the ground before dragging it back up. “Well, half the bakery is a bit dramatic. It was the barista who served me who quizzed me on your movie.”

There’s that gravitational pull of hers again. I don’t think I could walk away or even look away if I tried. “I hope that explains why, well, why I was being a dick that day.”

“Oh, it did,” she laughs. "It also explains your impeccable choice of thunderstorm protection, but I guess they’re just to stop you from getting recognised, right?”

“Oh, yeah, the glasses,” I say, trying to ignore the fact that I probably looked like a lunatic in them, and now.

I’m also putting ‘murdering Nate’ at the top of my to-do list.

“If it’s any consolation, they didn’t work, I was noticed a lot, and also got soaked,” I say, pulling the stupid things off my face.

She looks at me with a hint of sorry in her eyes. However, it’s quickly cancelled out by the sweet yet shit-eating grin that’s creeping in on her face.

The warm feeling in the pit of my stomach begins to build slowly, leaving no doubt in my mind that she’s the culprit. Or it could be the fact that she’s wearing jeans that made her hourglass figure look fucking unreal.

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