I had to remind myself to breathe, but it was proving difficult with the way he scanned the store before eventually, his eyes met mine.
His hair was a mess of dirty blonde curls which covered half his forehead. If it was any longer, he would be in a desperate need for a haircut, but the unruly look certainly suited him. His hair was the only unruly look about this man. Even though it was nearing five in the morning, he was dressed in a crisp white shirt, black dress pants and suspenders that still hung from his shoulders. His suit jacket was carelessly thrown over his shoulder and for a moment, I wondered if he had just come from a wedding. He certainly was dressed the part.
His skin was a medium tan and his face void of any blemishes or harsh lines, though the wisdom in his eyes told me that he was older than he looked. His jaw was sharp and his face void of any facial hair. His eyes were a smouldering chocolate brown. His nose was a little too large and pointed for his face, but somehow, it made him look even more perfect.
He looked as if he had been plucked from the pages of the romance fiction that I secretly read when I was alone.
When his lips turned up at the corners into a ghost of a smile, I knew he had caught my gaping. If I blushed, my face would be as red as a tomato right now.
Instead, I keep my face stoic and my demeanour collected as he approached the counter, taking his sweet time. Any slower and I would wonder if he was walking in slow motion or if time had slowed down for me to gawk at this sinfully sexy specimen of a man even more.
“Hi, welcome to Starbucks,” I smiled at him just as I would to any other customer. “What can I get for you this morning?”
“A vanilla latte would be great, Cara. With almond milk, please.”
Cara? I asked myself but didn’t dare question it.
“What size would you like it?” I asked, my pen posed at the ready.
“Let’s go for a Tall. I haven’t got much time on my hands right now.”
“And you like that hot or iced?”
“Hot, please,” he requested with a small, barely-there smile.
“One Tall Vanilla latte with almond milk,” I murmured as I began scribbling on the side of the cup. “What name should I put on it?”
“Massimo,” he murmured, his eyes locked on mine, and that was the most erotic way that I had ever heard someone tell me their name before, and I almost wanted to ask him to say it again.
“That’ll be $3.25.”
“Here you go,” he said, dropping a note on the counter.
“I’m not sure if we have enough change for a $100 bill,” I murmured, staring down at the few coins in the cash register.
“That’s your tip,” Massimo was quick to tell me as he slipped his hand into his pocket once again. When it remerged a few moments later, he placed the exact change on the counter. “This is for the drink,” he told me.
“A $100 tip is too much,” I murmured, momentarily dumbfounded by how gracious this stranger was being. Where was the catch? Was he going to kill me now, or wait until after his drink was finished?
Well, that was a pleasant, unsuspecting surprise. Even though there were hardly any customers to serve, it appeared that I was raking it in on the tips.
“Are you refusing my tip?” he asked, quirking a humoured brow at me.
“No,” I was quick to deny. I dropped the coins into the till and slipped the bill into my back pocket. “I was just telling you that you probably shouldn’t go around tipping people that much. They might all be like me and actually keep the money.”
“And you probably didn’t need to ask for my name since I’m the only one in here, but you did so anyway.”
“What can I say?” I shrugged, avoiding his eyes as he was right. The only reason I asked was because I wanted to put a name to this handsome stranger I would no doubt be thinking of the next time I found myself alone in my dorm and the inkling for a high. “I’m a good employee,” I said before turning around to get started on his drink.
Massimo chuckled and walked along the edge of the counter. He rested his arms and stared at me as I got to work. Surprisingly, I didn’t find his gaze unnerving or uncomfortable as I did some of the other customers. There was something oddly comfortable about him, even if he did look like he could kill me with one snap of his fingers.
“Since you know my name, I think it’s only fair that you return the favour,” Massimo called out to me, his eyes following my every move. And something told me he wasn’t just watching to make sure I was getting his drink order correct.
Call it a woman’s intuition.
“That’s not part of my job description, sorry,” I chuckled and shook my head.
“Well, what is part of your job description? Conversing with the customer?” Massimo countered in good humour.
“Sometimes,” I tried not to smile.
“On?”
“The type of customer.”
“And what type of customer am I?”
“The kind that leans against the counter and watches me while I work,” I chuckled. “And asks me all sorts of questions about myself.”
The ghost of a smile was quick to vanish as he blinked at me. Straightening up, I watched as he unfolded his suit jacket and pushed his arms through it.
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m sorry,” Massimo was quick to apologise as he did up his button. “I’ll leave once I’ve got my drink.”
“I didn’t say you made me uncomfortable,” I was quick to correct him with a small smile of my own. “I merely stated what you were doing right now. In turn, answering your previous question of what kind of customer you are.”
“You had me worried there for a moment,” he chuckled.
“Here you go,” I said as I walked over with his drink.
“Thank you,” he smiled warmly at me. When he reached down to take the drink from my hands – a second later and he could have collected it from the counter if he wanted – his fingers brushed against mine and my breath hitched in my throat.
It felt like someone had zapped me.
“I’m Yasemin,” I eventually told him, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m Massimo, but you already know that,” he chuckled and reached a hand out. “It’s nice to meet you, Yasemin.”
“Likewise.”
If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you, Cara?” Massimo asked, looking almost unsure of himself.
I watched him from a moment, wondering why he was asking. I was suddenly nervous. Why was I nervous? What was wrong with me?
What was he thinking? Too young for him? Too young in general?
I mentally berated myself for thinking this way. This man was a stranger. I didn’t know anything about him, and he certainly didn’t know anything about me, and here I was, thinking if I was too young for him.
“How old do you think I am?” I asked, more curious at this point than anything else.
“Young,” Massimo murmured, a conflicted look about him. As if he regretted asking the question in the first place. “Very young.”
“And just how young is very young?” I persisted.
“The still in college kind of young.”
“You’re right,” I nodded. Well, at least I didn’t look much older than I actually was. “I’m a senior at college.”
“NYU?” he asked, and I nodded. “My brother goes to NYU,” he told me. “What are you studying, Cara?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I’m interested in getting to know you better,” Massimo told me, and I believed him.
“I’m studying Media & Journalism,” I told him.
“Do you want to be a reporter?” he asked, his sudden question cutting me off by surprise.
“Not particularly, no,” I chuckled and shook my head. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m not the most fond of reporters,” he admitted, but didn’t move to elaborate further on the subject. I wasn’t interested enough to push him on it either.
“I think it’s only fair that I get to ask you a question now,” I cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Ask away,” Massimo shrugged, as if insinuating that he was an open man with nothing to hide, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe him. Not when it looked like he had a whole lot of things to hide.
“Why do you call me, Cara?” I asked him.
“I don’t think you’re ready to know that quite yet, but I’m sure you can make your guesses,” Massimo chuckled. “When did your shift start today?”
“Why?”
“I’m wondering if you saw my friend tonight.”
“It started at two,” I lied. If I told him I had started at ten, then he’d be able to figure out that my shift would end very soon. Just because this man was the most handsome man, I had ever seen didn’t mean that he couldn’t be a serial killer. “What does your friend look like?”
“She’s blonde, about this tall,” he held up his hand and I deemed her to be quite short, at least five or six inches shorter than me. “And she’s always wearing heels.”
The face of the last person I had last served, the woman who was fleeing the country to get away from an abusive fiancé…it couldn’t be, could it? Massimo couldn’t be the abusive fiancé that Nat was running from, right?
But the answer was simple. He very well could be. I didn’t know neither Nat nor Massimo, and I certainly didn’t know what kind of things they did or what kind of people they were on their private lives, but Massimo didn’t strike me as an abusive man. But then again, most abusive men didn’t strike anyone as abusive until finally, well, until they did strike someone.
“The description doesn’t ring a bell,” I denied and shook my head. I could tell that he wasn’t convinced.
“So, she didn’t drop by for a coffee or something?” he continued to ask, narrowing his eyes at me just slightly.
“I don’t remember serving her, no,” I hummed and shook my head, employing the use of a thoughtful look on my face in an attempt to make my answer as believable as possible.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” I nodded eagerly, lying through my teeth. If Nat had been telling me the truth, the last thing I wanted was to make the situation worse for her.
“I’m sorry for the questions, Cara. I’m just concerned about my friend.”
“It’s fine,” I smiled a small smile. “If I saw your friend, I would have told you.”
“Yes, of course,” he nodded, but I could tell that he still wasn’t convinced.
“You should probably drink your coffee before it gets cold,” I prompted him, drawing my eyes away from him.
A low, guttural hum emitted from him before he did as he was told. I watched from under my eyelashes as he took a generous sip from his drink, not the least bit apprehensive of the temperature.
“This is the best latte I’ve ever had,” Massimo told me after a moment, his lip twitching higher at the corners as he returned his attention to me. “I regret now only tipping you $100.”
“Trust me, that’s plenty,” I chuckled.
Massimo didn’t look convinced, and he opened his mouth but whatever he planned to say was drowned out by the low hum sounding from his pocket. Both our eyes zeroed in on his pants where his phone was ringing, though mine drifted a little to the right and where his cock was tucked away. A bulge was already visible, and I gulped before quickly snapping my eyes away from it, looking up at him.
When his eyes caught mine, I knew he had watched me check out what he was packing underneath the suit, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad or ashamed. It was difficult to when he looked like he was happy about it. Although it was evident to me that Massimo was a man of very few expressions. To most, I could imagine that he always looked like he was angry with that one same, half-serious, half-angry expression, but I found myself picking up the small changes that he expressed himself in.
Like when he picked up his phone, I could tell that he was annoyed. At himself, me, or the person on the phone, I wasn’t sure.
I watched as Massimo stood with the phone pressed to his ear for several moments until he pulled it away and clicked it off while the person on the other end was still talking.
“I have to go,” he murmured, slipping his phone back into his pocket. He held my eyes, studying me, almost as if watching what I thought of him leaving.
“Don’t let me keep you,” I shrugged, masking my disappointment in him leaving with a look of what I believed to be nonchalance.
“I’ll come back for you, Cara. Me and you, we’re far from finished.”
-
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Layla Knight
22.01.2022
