Page 94 of One Good Crash

"No. Because I wasn't supposed to be listening."

I couldn’t decide if I should laugh or scream. "Are youtryingto kill me?"

"Hardly," she said. "But Idoknow something."

"About what?"

"Jax." She gave me long, mischievous look. "Do you know he hates coffee?"

I blinked. "He does?"

"Sure."

"But—"

Allie smiled. "But that can't be true, because you keep seeing him at that coffee shop?"

"Uh, yeah."

She laughed. "Right. Because he only goes there to see you."

Chapter 40

At Allie's statement, my heart gave a funny little leap. Still, I tried to laugh it off. "Oh, come on. That's ridiculous."

"It is not," she said. "You go there around eleven, right?"

I nodded. For most people, eleven wasn't exactly breakfast-time, but for me, everything was different. Normally, I didn't get home from work until well after midnight, and by the time I took a bath and relaxed a little, it was usually past two or three, which meant that usually it took me a while to get going in the morning.

"Well," Allie continued, "he's been taking his lunch extra-early. And he comes back with scones and stuff. It's really weird. He doesn't even eat them."

"He doesn't?"

"No. He just leaves them in the break room for whoever." She leaned forward in her chair. "And that coffee shop? It'snotthe closest one to the office."

Since I didn't own a car, I wasn't terribly familiar with the local area, at least not beyond the few blocks that surrounded our apartment. "It's not?"

"No," she said. "There's this great little place like five minutes away. But the drive toyourcoffee shop takes him like twenty minutes – that's forty round-trip. And you know what else?"

Now, I was hanging on her every word. "What?"

"Technically, he doesn'thaveto leave the office at all."

"What do you mean?"

"Hello? He's loaded. And he has his own personal assistant, plus errand people, too. He could probably sit in his office for weeks and have live lobsters delivered straight to his desk, and no one would bat an eye."

I wasn't sure aboutthat, but I did see what she meant. Still, I had to ask, "But how would he know my schedule? Or where I go for coffee?" And then, it hit me. "Wait, you told him, didn't you?"

She smiled. "Maybe."

From the look on her face, there was no maybe about it.

"But why?" I asked.

"Why not?"

I bit my lip. "You didn't tell him that Iexpectedto see him, did you?" I could almost see it – Allie hinting that I was dying to see him again.