I want You Deeper

Everything was fairly expensive. This was one of those restaurants where sides weren’t included, she remembered. When she’d come here with

Emily, the layoffs were still fresh. It hadn’t quite sunk in that although she was getting severance pay, she needed to make it stretch. But she felt worse about ordering something expensive when he was paying than when it was coming out of her bank account.

“Ravioli,” she blurted out suddenly and loudly, looking up. His eyes widened in response. He seemed surprised at her outburst. “Sorry. I didn’t eat lunch.”

“I suppose you didn’t have time.” He smiled.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

The server stopped by to take their drink order and he requested calamari as an appetizer. As the server walked away, he turned back to Alyssa and said in a secretive voice, “In case it takes a while for the food to arrive.”

He was taking care of her. Looking out for her. Which was nothing new. He’d always look out for his little sister’s best friend. After all, she was the little sister he’d never had. She just had to remember this was not romantically motivated.

“Thank you.” Again, the words were just blurted out, although this time they weren’t said loudly enough to startle him.

He tilted his head slightly, frowning as though puzzling over what she might mean. “For what?”

“Looking out for me.” She shrugged. “I don’t have anyone around to do that. Well, besides your sister.”

“You’re family to Emily.”

She couldn’t help but notice he’d left himself out of that. She wasn’t sure whether to feel hurt or grateful. But she didn’t want to ask him to clarify because there was a small part of her that hoped he didn’t think of her as a little sister anymore.

It was a part she couldn’t seem to shut off, no matter how hard she tried. She thought of it like all the other things she learned as a child. Having a crush on Jeremy was part of her conditioning, like knowing how to drive or sign her name.

“I’ll always look out for you,” Jeremy said. “No matter what.”

Their gazes locked then, and she was afraid to look away. As much as she tried to avoid thinking this was more, moments like this made it difficult. There was a weight to it that made her feel both weak and euphoric at the same time.

“Your drinks.”

The server’s voice jerked them out of their staring, giving Alyssa a moment to gather her thoughts. Suddenly, Jeremy pulled his phone out of his pocket and began looking at the screen, just in time for them to order. Even after Alyssa had placed her order, Jeremy continued to stare at his screen.

“Jeremy?” Alyssa prompted.

“Oh.”

He seemed to suddenly realize both Alyssa and the server were watching him stare at his phone. He set the device down and ordered, handing the server the menu distractedly before picking his phone up again.

Rude. Maybe that was the part of him that thought she was family. He was comfortable enough to feel like he didn’t have to be polite on a not-date with her. Another server came to set down their calamari and Alyssa dug in, figuring if she was going to sit across from a distracted dinner companion, she might as well enjoy delicious food.

Finally, he looked up at her. Then he held up his screen. Alyssa nearly choked on some lingering marinara sauce in her throat when she saw the big photo of Emily, standing in front of the “open” sign in the window of her cafe.

“It’s life,” he said.

“What’s live?”

“The Business News Today article. Here. Read it.”

Alyssa took the phone and began reading the article. She didn’t know why, but for some reason, she had a feeling it wasn’t going to be good. Like, Ben Eisenberg had selected Emily Owens and Technologia Cafe as his latest expose. This was silly because Ben wasn’t exactly the type of reporter who went around writing bad things about people. The piece he’d written that had brought down the overseas company that was stealing code and selling it to other businesses was still fresh in her mind, though. It was the last thing she’d read by him.

This wasn’t that, at all. It gave her a new respect for Emily, whom she already respected more than just about anyone else she knew. Even more than Jeremy. The article kicked off with a story about Emily’s sorrow in the aftermath of her parent’s death and how she’d dragged herself to college graduation. Degree in hand, she’d felt lost, not sure what she was supposed to do next.

So she’d turned to the one thing she still had a taste for, even when she’d lost her appetite for all else. Coffee. She’d learned everything she could about running a business as quickly as possible, then had lost herself in frantically building Technologia Cafe.

The article mentioned nothing about her struggles. Reading it as a stranger, she would have assumed the cafe had been nothing but pure success for her.

“One thing’s for sure,” Jeremy said between bites of their appetizer.

Alyssa looked up. “What’s that?”

“You’re going to be busy tomorrow morning.”