Page 2 of Take Me Home

Hazel tossed the end of her laptop cord over the counter for Cami to plug in on her side. Her computer was so old, the battery wouldn’t last fifteen minutes without a power source, which was why, unlike some people, she didn’t have a million other seats to choose from.

“He lives upstairs. Why can’t he work up there?” Never mind that in a couple of hours Ash would also step behind the counter for the late shift.

“I need the noise,” he said, like there wasn’t an entire coffeehouse and old Frank with his crossword between them.

She twisted in her seat. “Play music.”

“I need voices. Talking.” He was fully engrossed in his laptop screen. It wasn’t even plugged in. A new spark of anger ignited in her chest.

“Turn on the TV then. Or a podcast.”

“Too distracting.”

“It’s not like anyone’s here right now.”

Ash cast a wounded expression toward Frank, who was either ignoring them or didn’t have his hearing aid turned up. “He’s here. You’re here.”

“Hey,Iam not your ambient noise. I’m here to work. Which would be easier for me to do inthatchair withthatoutlet.”

He smirked at his screen. “Keep talking. This is really working for me.”

With a growl, Hazel spun back around on her stool, fixing Cami with a wide-eyed expression that said,See what I have to put up with?

Cami raised an equally loaded eyebrow. “I’m not sure if this is a nerd thing, a white people thing, or a straight thing, but it’s the strangest flirting I’ve ever witnessed.”

“You,” Hazel said, flinging open her laptop, “are dead to me.”

But as soon as Cami turned away to pour her coffee, Hazel gave Ash an involuntary once-over. And fine, she could forgive Cami for hoping there was something more to their bickering. Ash was a passably attractive guy who, under different circumstances, might have held her interest. She didn’tneedto look at him to know this. She didn’t need to sample the triple chocolate ice cream in the northside campus dining hall to know she liked it, either, but she did that pretty regularly, too.

Anyway, good looks only went so far. They certainly didn’t offset his total inflexibility on the issue of the chair and, thus, the threat he posed to her academic career. Nor how much pleasure he derived from being the constant wrench thrown into her gears. Nor theirhistory, which was a whole other thing.

Any appeal really boiled down to the fact that he had nice hair and dressed well. Probably an old girlfriend deserved the credit for that because Ash hadn’t always worn understated floral ties and nerdy-chic gray cardigans that stretched across his shoulders. And his hair hadn’t always been so artfully mussed.

Nope, this new look was a big-time glow-up from the moody, apathetic teenager she’d met at Lockett Prairie High School, who’d shaved his head and wore nothing but obscure band T-shirts, jeans, and a faded pair of black high-top Chucks that were held together by duct tape. And a scowl, couldn’t forget that. He had been basically the human embodiment of the old, bumper-stickered-to-hell car he still drove.

Hazel didn’t trust his reinvention. It was too slick, toowhimsical.He still had those dark, overly thick eyebrows and the scar cutting through the wing of one of them. The full, pouty mouth—the better to brood with. He still had the distracting habit of drumming his fingers, cracking his knuckles, incessantly clicking pens. He may have fooled everyone else with his new, charming, easygoing persona, his polished appearance, but Hazel still felt the samefrictionaround him. She knew the real Ash under the costume, and she wasn’t interested. Nope. Not at all.

Camithunked a mug of coffee down on the counter, snapping Hazel back around on the stool. The bold, black brushstroke lettering on the mug saidWifey.

“Cute.”

She laughed and fetched the little pitcher of creamer. “Honey, this ismycafé. My hot takes come with the coffee.”

Hazel clicked open her seminar paper. She couldn’t afford to eventhinkof Ash right now. She was down to—shit—an hour and forty-nine minutes.

Pointedly, Hazel hefted the enormous stack of articles and notes out of her bag and dropped them with a loud clap onto the counter. Her dramatics immediately bit her in the ass, however, when an ivory invitation fell from the stack. It slid across the counter and over the edge. Hazel’s stomach fell right along with it. Casting a suspicious side-eye, Cami picked it up.

Hazel didn’t have time for this, either, for its hand-lettered calligraphy or monogrammed sticker. When she’d opened it in her apartment building’s mail room a month ago, Hazel had been distracted, hadn’t braced herself at all. And then there it was, an honest-to-God, formal invitation. She’d shoved it into her bag and, not as successfully, out of her mind.

“Whose wedding?” Cami asked, a note of pity confirming whatever dour thing Hazel’s face was doing.

“My dad’s.”

Cami leaned in. “Are y’all not close or something?”

“No,” she said too quickly. She tried to soften it, adding, “No, nothing like that,” because Cami was already mustering protective cool aunt energy on her behalf, imagining some parental hurt Hazel truly hadn’t suffered. Her parents werefine. But the wedding was atomorrowproblem, not atodayproblem. She plucked the envelope from Cami’s hand and tucked it back into her bag.

Then came Ash’s perfectly ill-timed, chiding voice across the café. “Thought you had to finish a paper.”

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