Chapter 150 THE WRONG CONCLUSIONS - 33

Chapter 150 THE WRONG CONCLUSIONS - 33
COLE

There's a coffee shop four minutes from Vivienne's office.
I know this because I've driven past it more times than I'd ever admit out loud.
Good location. Decent coffee, according to the reviews. The sort of place every city seems to manufacture in bulk. Exposed brick, hanging plants, pastries that cost more than they should, and baristas who somehow make writing your name on a cup look like an art form.
I'd never been inside.
Until Tuesday.
At half past twelve I walked in, ordered a flat white I didn't particularly want, opened my laptop by the window and told myself I was there because I'd been staring at the same four office walls all morning and needed a change of scenery.
That explanation held together for almost twenty minutes.
After that it started to fall apart.
The document on my screen hadn't changed since I'd sat down.
I'd read the same paragraph often enough that I could've recited it from memory, which would've been useful if the paragraph had been remotely interesting or if I had the slightest intention of reading it again.
Instead I found myself looking up every time the door opened.
Completely normal behavior. Nothing to see here.
I checked my watch, it read twelve fifty.
A woman came in carrying a toddler who immediately announced to the entire café that he'd dropped his dinosaur somewhere outside.
Not Vivienne.
Two students. A man in a navy suit. Someone walking a dog despite the sign on the door very clearly saying pets weren't allowed.
Still not Vivienne.
I picked up my coffee. It had gone cold.
I'd forgotten to drink it. Brilliant.
At twelve fifty-three the bell above the door chimed again.
I looked up.
And there she was.
For a second my brain genuinely refused to catch up with what my eyes were seeing.
She was already looking down at her phone as she walked in, frowning at whatever she'd just read, completely unaware I was sitting less than two metres away.
Then she looked up and wek both stopped.
"Oh," she said.
"Hey," I said.
We looked at each other for a second.
"This isn't... near your office," she said.
"I had a meeting." I did not have a meeting. "On this side of the city."
"Right." She looked at the counter, then back at me, then at the counter again, in the way someone looks around a room when they're deciding something. "I'm just grabbing something to go."
"Sure, yeah."
She went to the counter. I looked at my laptop. The laptop had a document open that I had not looked at in forty minutes and was not going to look at now either. I heard her order, heard the name she gave them, heard her shift slightly on her feet the way she does when she's waiting for something and doesn't want to stand still.
The barista said it'd be about five minutes.
She turned around. I was still looking at my laptop. She came and stood near the end of my table, not sitting, just near it, bag on her shoulder, the kind of not-sitting-down that means I'm staying standing because I'm leaving soon.
"Soo how are you?" she said.
"Good… good. You?"
"Good. Busy." She glanced at my screen. "Working?"
"Trying to." I turned the laptop slightly toward her. "It's going about as well as you'd expect for a Tuesday."
She looked at the screen, looked back at me, and something moved across her face that was almost the old thing, almost the version of her that would have said something dry about whatever was on my screen and then laughed at her own joke before I'd finished reacting. Almost.
"How's Jordan?" she said instead.
"Insufferable. So, normal."
She smiled at that. A real one. "Of course."
"He asked about you actually."
"Did he?"
"Said, and I'm quoting, tell her she's welcome at the squat rack any time, Dev's form is a liability and I need someone with standards"
She laughed, short and surprised, the kind that catches her before she's decided to do it, and then she pressed her lips together and looked at the counter to check on her order and I watched her do the small recalibration thing, the one I'd been seeing all afternoon, where something gets close and then gets gently redirected somewhere… safer I guess.
The barista called her name.
She picked up the cup. Read the side of it. Looked back at me with an expression I couldn't fully read.
"It was really good to run into you," she said, and meant it. I was sure she meant it.
"You too." I said regardless of the fact that we just had an almost painful short conversation.
"Okay." She adjusted the strap on her bag. "I should..." she gestured vaguely at the door, at the general direction of the rest of her day.
"Yeah, of course."
"Okay." She said it again, which she never does, she doesn't repeat herself, and then she smiled once more, quick and a little too bright, and walked to the door and pushed it open and was gone.
I watched her through the window, walking fast, head down, coffee in hand, and she didn't look back.
I sat there for a long time after she left. The coffee had gone cold, the laptop screen had gone dark, and I was still sitting there trying to figure out what had just happened. The Vivienne I’ve come to know, regardless of what had happened between us, would have been more… quick with her words even if they are cutting. So I immediately texted Jordan.
something's wrong and I don't know what it is
Jordan: what happened
nothing. That's the problem. Nothing happened. She was warm and almost shy even and it seemed completely fine but I feel like something is wrong.
Jordan: maybe she met someone
I looked at the words and read them again.
My thumb hovered over the keyboard without touching it.
Maybe she'd met someone. It was possible. More than possible in fact.
Perfectly reasonable, actually.
She was smart, funny, beautiful, emotionally available in ways that made people feel seen after five minutes of talking to her.
Of course other people would notice that. I'd noticed.
I'd just...
I set my phone down on the desk.
Across the street a man was trying to convince an extremely unimpressed golden retriever to wear a tiny yellow raincoat.
The dog had planted all four paws firmly on the pavement and clearly intended to stay there until negotiations improved.
The owner sighed while the dog looked victorious.
I watched the entire stand-off without really seeing any of it.
Maybe she'd met someone. It explained things.
Not everything exactly, just enough.
She hadn't been cold in the café. That would've been easier, strangely.
And that’s the thing that makes the maybe she met someone scenario so hard to sit with isn't jealousy exactly, or not only jealousy. It's that it would explain the whole vibe. Not coldness, not distance, just a warm, friendly, careful painful conversation. God, that’s hurts more than it should
I drove home and sat in my flat for a while doing nothing productive.
I was halfway through deciding whether crisps counted as dinner when my phone rang.
Dev.
I frowned at the screen because that was unusual enough on its own to make me suspicious. Dev texted constantly; if he’d remembered to buy milk, I’d get a text, if he’d seen a dog that looked vaguely judgmental, I’d get a photo, and if he’d burnt toast, somehow that also became my problem. He didn’t call. The last time he’d rung me out of the blue, he’d locked himself out of his car while it was still running.
I answered. “Everything alright?”
“Wow,” he said. “Not even hello.”
“I know you.”
“That’s fair.”
I waited, and after a beat he said, “So…”
There it was. The reason for the call.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“I already don’t like where this is going.”
“You haven’t even heard it.”
“You opened with ‘I’ve been thinking.’ History suggests I should be concerned.”
He ignored that. “What would you say to a weekend away?”
“A weekend away.”
“Cabin.”
“Cabin?”
“Fireplace.”
“You’ve really committed to this theme.”
“I just think it’d be nice.”
I leaned back in my chair. “A few of us?”
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“The usual lot.”
 “You’ve already invited everyone, haven’t you?”
“What? No.”
“You have.”
“…Maybe.”
I laughed. “There it is.”
“I wanted to know if you’d say yes first.”
“Why?”
“No reason.”
“Dev.”
“Okay, maybe a small reason.”
I waited him out, because silence had always been surprisingly effective with him, and he lasted about four seconds before giving in.
“I just thought everyone could use a break.”
“That’s suspiciously wholesome.”
“People change.”
“They really don’t.”
“I can.”
“You won’t.”
He sighed dramatically. “You are exhausting.”
“So I’ve been told.”
There was another pause, and then, much more casually than before, he asked, “You’d come though?”
“I probably would.”
“You didn’t sound very convincing.”
“I’m sitting in my flat debating whether crisps count as a balanced meal. A weekend away already sounds like an improvement.”
“Excellent.”
“You seem oddly invested in this.”
“I’m invested in everyone getting outside occasionally.”
“You’ve mentioned the fireplace yet?”
“I was just about to.”
“I knew it.”
“It’s apparently a very good fireplace.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Neither do I.”
Despite myself, I smiled. It felt nice in a way I didn’t particularly want to examine too closely, just pointless conversation and no expectations and Dev being Dev.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll sort dates and send everyone the details.”
“Looking forward to meeting this legendary fireplace.”
“It has excellent reviews.”
“For being warm?”
“I’ll let you judge.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
He laughed. “I’ll see you soon.”
The line went dead.
I looked at my phone for another second before setting it on the coffee table. Maybe he really had decided to organise a trip on a whim. It wasn’t impossible. Stranger things had happened.
I wandered into the kitchen and opened the cupboard. Crisps. Pasta. One tin of tomatoes. Half a loaf of bread that was beginning to look optimistic. I settled on pasta.
While the water boiled, my thoughts drifted back to the café again. Whatever was happening, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d missed something important.
I just had no idea what it was.