Page 15 of Poinsettia Lane

She tries to swallow too quickly, resulting in far too much sticky caramel not quite making it all the way down her throat, because her mouth has gone impossibly dry.

Everly is half choking, half mortified crying, and somehow also partly nervous laughing? Because honestly, what even is her life. Of course this would happen to her.

She manages to clear her throat after an eternity of torture and say hi back, though it comes out raspy, sounding like what she imagines a sun-baked lizard might sound like if it could talk. He reaches out to pat her back, just as kind as she remembered.

“Are you okay?” His eyes are a gorgeous green, filled with concern as they flit across her face.

She’d love to say yes, she’s great, fantastic really, but now he’s touching her and it’s only making the situation worse because that causes all sorts of tingles and butterflies to erupt across her body, tightening the meager air left in her lungs. She feels too tense and closed in as she tries to fight against the panic taking over. Everly takes a clumsy step back from him so she has space to gather her thoughts.

Right as he asks, again, if she’s alright, she offers him a candy from her bag, like some sort of creep who tries to entice kids with sweets. At least she doesn’t drive a white van, she thinks to herself, and can’t help but accept that this is going horribly wrong. She couldn’t have planned it worse if she tried.

Luckily, Asim has much better social skills than she does. He politely accepts a caramel, tucking it into his pocket.

“Something sweet to remind me of you later,” he says with a little smile, though the concern has only etched deeper around his eyes.

Everly isn’t sure if him remembering this moment is a good thing, as she really doesn’t want him to remember that she can’t even eat a candy or say hello properly, or what the sound of her choking sounds like.

“How have you been?” he asks in a valiant attempt to save the situation.

“Good. Great, yeah I’ve been good.” Everly wants to slap a hand over her own mouth but manages to resist the urge.

Asim nods with a polite smile, “and how did the party go? I’m sure everyone enjoyed it.”

He is sweet and kind, and wow did he have such long, thick eyelashes last time she saw him? They make his bright green eyes pop even more than they already do against his darker bronze skin. As he pushes the long sleeves of his henley up to his elbows, the muscles in his forearms flex with the movement of the bag shifting in his grasp, and holy mother how did she not notice the tattoos before?! Everly catches herself staring, imagining how far those tattoos go and what his muscles might look like underneath his shirt, before noticing his friendly smile has turned into a satisfied “I know what you’re doing and I don’t mind” type of smirk.

Everly experiences one of those deer in the headlights moments, and her immediate reaction, as usual, is to run. She starts to turn away, giving in to her instincts, but he catches her forearm. His hand is gentle but warm, and as she turns back, he briefly rubs his thumb back and forth over her sweater before letting go.

“It was really nice running into you, Everly.” He says, gazing directly into her eyes. She could so easily get lost in those eyes. “I’d really like to see you again sometime.”

Her brain stops.

Straight up ceases to function.

Her anxiety might have killed her brain all the way dead at this point, because somehow it’s blank but also racing with too many thoughts to sort through. Her pulse skyrockets, and she forgets how to breathe, feeling like there’s a mountain sitting on her chest. She offers anunintelligible, non-word mumble with a barely discernible “have to go meeting late” jumble of words, and nearly speed walks all the way back to the hotel, before remembering she parked in the downtown lot because, oh yeah,socializing. What an absolutely terrible idea.

She doesn’t glance back once, her vision tunneled on the sidewalk in front of her while her pulse thunders in her ears.

Step, step, step.

Red shoe, red shoe, red shoe.

One foot in front of the other until she reaches the parking lot.

Everly is dreaming. She must be having a nightmare, because there is no way what she thinks just happened, is actually what happened. Surely, she didn’t freeze up in front of Asim, ignore his polite request to see her again, and then quite literally run away. And yet, what other explanation is there?

Time jumps, and Everly finds herself sitting in her car, breathing way too fast and clutching a squashed bag of caramels to her chest with sweaty palms, feeling as though she just ran a marathon. She tips her head back against her seat and closes her eyes, trying to steady her breathing.

Sometimes it feels like she can’t do anything right.

She smashes the bag of candy into the passenger seat before clenching her hands into fists and opening her mouth wide, letting out a long, silent scream. Her entire body is tense, eyes squeezed shut, neck taught and legs straining. It’s over just as suddenly and she slumps back into her seat, entirely spent.

This day is a disaster.

~~~

Everly opens her door back up, not having moved the car an inch. She avoids the main sidewalks this time and instead sneaks through the back entrance of Roasted, coming in from behind the counter. She skirts around Frankie, in the midst of making something hot and foamy, and veers left into the back corner, keeping herhead down. There’s a little nook back here that can be perfectly arranged for hiding. Everly pulls a large potted plant to the side and tucks herself into the cushioned chair behind it, next to a small bookshelf. This is as much privacy as she can hope to get during the tail end of the lunch rush.

Frankie glances over, giving Everly a concerned frown. Everly just shakes her head and waves at them to carry on. She’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

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