Dopplebanger (Meet-Cute #5)

Chapter 2

TWO

My thoughts were a jumbled mess as I rushed toward the coffee shop where I was meeting Evan. My shallow side—also known as my best friend, Tori—always pointed out that he was way hotter than my ex, and that I deserved some fun.

I hated to disagree with deserving fun, and I could certainly use a wheelbarrow full this upcoming week, but I’d been going back and forth about my boyfriend situation for a while. I just wasn’t sure that jumping into bed with Evan would fix things, or that it was the right coping mechanism for everything I was dealing with. Yes, with his bright blue eyes, strong jaw that made me wish I was the sculptor to his muse, and his very kissable lips, he was definitely drool-worthy. We always had a good time together, too, but as I’d told Tori last night, I didn’t feel the thing. Every time we were about to take things to the next level, something stopped me. Sure, thanks to my last relationship I had serious trust issues, but something was missing with Evan, and I wasn’t sure there was any reason to keep dating him if it wasn’t going anywhere.

But then I’d have to go to the wedding alone… I felt bad using him as a safety net, even though he was my only option. If I took Tori, she’d end up cursing out certain people in the wedding party, and the goal was to fly under the radar while showing everyone how great I was. Having Evan on my arm would do the talking for me.

A shared road trip meant shared sleeping arrangements, which brought more complications, and if our relationship wasn’t going anywhere, could I really justify dragging it out simply to show people in my hometown that I’d moved on in every sense of the word?

Even if sometimes I didn’t know if I truly had?

I sucked in a deep, fortifying breath, hiked my laptop bag higher on my shoulder, and stepped into Sacred Grounds. The tan and espresso walls and scent of roasted beans gave me a contact caffeine high, and even though I’d seen it a hundred times, the “In Coffee We Trust” sign made me smile.

Evan wasn’t there yet, so I ordered our usual drinks and bought him a blueberry muffin, since he loved them and I might be breaking up with him this morning, and who didn’t need some sugary consolation after a breakup?

Come to think of it, I could use that as well. I scanned the pastries in the glass case. “Okay, which one of you wants to come home with me?” The barista gave me a look that made it clear she was worried about my mental state. That makes two of us. “Can you also add a chocolate muffin?”

So I am breaking up with him? Is that what I’m deciding? Because chocolate is bringing out the big guns.

I’d been like seventy percent sure I should break up with Evan before talking to Tori last night. Then she’d brought up the hot thing, and, in the nicest possible way a blunt friend like her could, reminded me there weren’t a lot of boys currently knocking and that I had the wedding from hell to go to this upcoming weekend.

He already took time off to go with me… Not that he’d mind suddenly having several free days on his hands to do a whole lot of nothing. I wasn’t sure he worked all that much even when he made it to the office, another quality that made me think we didn’t mesh well. I felt like everyone should make some kind of contribution to society.

Seeing landmarks celebrating people who’d contributed to our country in a big way was one reason I’d decided on road tripping instead of flying to the wedding. Money had also been a factor, but I figured adding company would turn a dreaded trip into an adventure.

I’d been so nervous to ask Evan along, but he’d said it sounded fun, and the thought of having him by my side made it easier to check the RSVP box on the fancy, gilded wedding invitation I’d received. All those weeks ago, I was optimistic that more time would fix the missing spark issue.

It hadn’t, though. Considering he sometimes went a day or so before texting or calling me back, and that he hadn’t acted very excited about our road trip a couple nights ago when we’d set up this final planning meeting, I concluded he must not feel the spark, either. Even if a wedding wasn’t your first choice for capping off a road trip—it sure as hell wasn’t mine—when you cared about someone, you were still excited about spending time with them. Right?

Perhaps we weren’t destined to have an amazing love story that lasted the ages, but I knew he’d be down for some fun between the sheets, and holy crap, it’d been a long time. Both since I’d had sex, and since he’d started putting out signals that he hoped we’d go there. I was sure he was wondering why we hadn’t already. If I put him into the strictly fun category, maybe I could be the girl who slept with hot guys without getting too attached.

Says the girl who’s only slept with one guy, and look how that worked out.

The barista handed me two steaming to-go cups and I quickly doctored them. After testing mine—and adding more sugar, along with extra cream to cool it down faster—I pushed out the door. The weather was perfect, that low seventies with a hint of crispness that made early summer mornings so magical.

At first I was going to sit at one of the cute wrought iron tables, but the chairs, while also cute, were hard on the butt, and I had too much frantic energy coursing through my veins to sit around and wait.

I’m just going to do it. Tell him that he’s great, and the past three months have been super fun, but something’s missing, and it’s probably for the best if we skip our road trip.

Oh, and I’ll mention that I hope we can remain friends. Even if he doesn’t want to, I’ll feel better putting it out there.

Unless he’s mad and he says he doesn’t want to. That’d suck.

“Gwen?”

I spun around, nearly bumping into Evan and smashing our coffees to his chest. Luckily they didn’t spill down him, because that would’ve only made this harder. “Hey, Evan, how are you this morning? I was thinking we could sit at a table in the sun. I already bought coffees, which you probably already deduced when I practically rammed them into you.”

Amusement curved his mouth as he made a slow sweep of me, head to toe, almost like he didn’t remember that I looked… however I looked. “How much of that coffee have you already had?”

I stuck the bag with the muffins on the nearest table and held my cup up to the light. “An inch at most.”

“That’s it?” he asked, and I realized he was teasing me for the verbal spewage.

I tended to talk fast when I was nervous, and I was nervous, not to mention I often spoke in quick bursts as it was. There was just always so much going on in my head that I couldn’t help it.

I grinned at him and gave his arm a teasing smack—wow, I remember it being solid, but it was, like, extra solid. “Have you been working out?” I poked a finger to his biceps. “I mean, I know you work out, but serious iron pumping has definitely taken place.”

He dipped his head and rubbed his neck. I didn’t know he even got nervous. That was usually my racket.

“Shall we sit?” I plopped down before he answered. “I got you a blueberry muffin because I know how much you like them.” I pulled it out and frowned at it. “Um, it’s kinda squished, but I’m sure it’ll still taste good. Possibly also a little like chocolate since your muffin was clearly making a move on mine.”

He muttered something about getting the hurricane thing, and I glanced up at him. “Did you just say you understand hurricanes now? Did you not understand them before?”

“Um. Nothing. Never mind.” He sat across from me and took the extended muffin. I’d warned him that I’d squished it, so why was he frowning at it like it was the most offensive thing he’d ever seen?

I tilted my head and took him in, from the blue eyes trained on me to that jaw I occasionally dreamed about, and then I got a wee bit lost in the undone buttons on his dark green shirt before returning my attention to his expression. Still amused, but something else was in the mix as well. “You seem different this morning.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m kinda hungover, to be honest. Partied it up a little too much last night.”

“Sounds like you,” I said, then immediately realized that didn’t sound very nice. He simply laughed, though, and when he aimed his grin at me, it kicked me right in the gut and made my heart beat out an erratic rhythm. “Sorry. I mean?—”

“Hey, don’t apologize. The great thing about being me is I don’t have any worries. I just live it up and go with the flow.” The way his fingers traced the lid, pressing and securing it on the rim, were at odds with his words and his usual quick, almost careless actions. Then he wrapped those long fingers around his cup—had I checked out his fingers before? If not, that was totally my bad, because there was something sexy about them, and I suddenly wanted them on me.

Whoa. This is… I don’t know what this is, but I want more.

As a chronic overanalyzer and overplanner, one of the first things that drew me to Evan was his carefree spirit and the fact that he seemed so unfazed when things totally went wrong. He was one of those life-of-the-party-guys, and he always had fun, no matter where we were. “Sometimes I wish I could go with the flow and live it up a bit more. It’d be nice if my brain would just, like, take a vacation once in a while.”

“That all-expenses-paid brain-vacation can be yours if you drink enough alcohol. But then you end up making dumb decisions, and the next morning you have to deal with what your brainless self did. While hungover, nonetheless.”

“Hmm. Maybe don’t put that in the brochure if you’re trying to sell it. And ‘all-expenses-paid’ is sorta misleading, because last I checked, alcohol costs money.”

One corner of his mouth twisted up, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen that particular smile before. Speaking of vacations, I kind of wanted to stay in the curve of his lips and live in this moment for a while. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, but it only added to the cute, disheveled look he had going on.

After another beat or two, I felt like I was taking the staring into the creepy-long range, so I bit off some of my muffin, and a moan slipped out.

Evan’s mouth hung open a few inches, and he was gaping at me, eyebrows raised, like he’d never seen anyone enjoy a muffin quite that much before. In my defense, chocolate had been my main coping mechanism for a while, and Sacred Grounds took baked goods to the next level.

I tried to cover by taking a sip of my coffee. “The muffins are extra yummy this morning. Are you not hungry? Isn’t fatty food supposed to be good for a hangover?”

“Good point.” He lifted his muffin and took a miniscule bite. “Mmm.” He set the pastry aside, then shifted forward in his seat. “Gwen, I need to tell you something…”

It’s too bad I’ve decided we’re not destined to have an epic love story. He’s almost too good-looking to stare directly at. Like the sun.

“Isn’t it weird that looking at something that’s in the sky for most of our waking hours could burn your corneas right out of your head?” I risked a half glance, below where the sun would be but high enough to have to squint against the bright light. “It seems like something that dangerous should be… well, not hanging in the sky all the time. It’s like if I had a peanut plant in my apartment and occasionally inhaled really deeply as I brushed by it so I could see how many hives I could get.”

Crap. I just totally plowed right over what he was going to say. Why are my thoughts spinning so fast today?

“Sorry.” I placed my hand over his and turned my full attention on him, which wasn’t exactly a hardship. “You were saying…?”