Page 52 of Falling Madly
“Is your coffee better than Cozy Creek Confectionary’s?” I asked.
“About a hundred times better.”
He left to make them, and after a few minutes, returned with two steaming cups.
“Here you go.” He set the perfectly cocoa-dusted macchiato in front of me and took his black coffee to the adjacent armchair.
I shouldn’t have been too surprised that he knew my coffee order. It had come up enough times in the office, with one of us fetching drinks for everyone else. Still, I couldn’t have named anyone else’s drink preference, not with any confidence. Bess ordered a different drink every time now that she felt financially secure enough to even order anything. Charlie was usually the one who ordered and paid, and Trevor… what did Trevor drink? I should have known, and my cheeks warmed from shame as I thought of all the ways I’d been ignoring him.
He hadn’t hated me like I’d hated him, and that made my insides churn so hard I didn’t know which organ was where. Trevor hadneverhated me.
“This is perfect,” I said between sips, my voice thick and scratchy. “You must have an amazing memory. I don’t think we’ve had coffees together in a long time.”
He laughed. “My memory is both shit and selective, but I pay attention to what matters to me. Sometimes, I write it down.”
I tried to make sense of it. “I understand writing about that night at the pool … but mundane stuff like coffee orders?”
He took a sip of his coffee. “Remember the designer pub quiz?”
I nodded, thinking of my victorious night. I’d won the main prize—a brand-new pack of Pantone color swatches.
“You were naming all those weird colors, and then you got to Tyrian and said, ‘my personal favorite.’”
“Did I?”
“Well, I wrote it down right after.”
“Why?”
“I just wanted to know things about you.”
I thought back to that time. “But it was after that night. After… it all went to hell.”
He shrugged. “I still wanted to know about you. That never changed.”
“I was practically freezing you out that night.”
He set down his cup, smiling. “It was impressive.”
I shook my head, sinking back into the couch. “How do you not lose hope? If someone acted like that towards me, I’d file them away and move on.”
He watched me intensely. “Maybe I have a masochistic streak.”
I didn’t buy it. “No. You believe. You kept believing… How?”
He was quiet for a long moment, staring into his cup. When he spoke again, his words brimmed with raw honesty. “I had hope. As long as you hated me, you had feelings for me. Even when you were dating Rich the Dick, you had enough energy to actively avoid me. And you talked to me, every day.”
“It’s our work chat!” I argued, but the truth sat heavy on my chest.
I relied on our private chat more than I wanted to admit. Trevor was always there. He never left my messages on ‘read’. He knew how to diffuse the tension when clients got on my nerves. He knew how to cheer me up. With him, the work felt different. Lighter.
“I know,” he said. “But it was my lifeline. As long as we had that private chat, I had a little hope.”
I thought about it. I sometimes chatted with Bess, but I didn’t have a private chat with Charlie. There was the group chat, and then there was us. Me and Trevor. The job that had prompted us to start that chat was long gone. Either of us could have closed the channel. It would have made sense, given we all worked together on most jobs.
“You apologized, and I forgave you. So, of course I was talking to you.”
“And every time we were in the same room, you acted like I didn’t exist. It takes a lot of effort to ghost someone in person.”
