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Freezing on the spot, my eyes flew to the order board, but I couldn’t register anything. “I’ll have a Caesar salad and an iced tea,” I said, as the guy behind the counter processed my order.
“Oh, I almost forgot. While you were talking with Logan, Lila gave us our charge cards,” Jade said, removing a black card from her wallet as we moved down the order line.
“Oh, nice.”
Watching the attendant prepare our salad, it wasn’t lost on me how busy the food court was becoming. “Hey guys, do you think we can take these back to the lobby? It’s getting a little crowded for my liking,” I said, as someone literally bumped into me and kept on walking.
“Um, excuse you,” Jade spoke up. “You just nearly took my friend’s arm off with your purse. The least you could do is apologize,” she yells, calling attention to the situation.
Pausing for a mere moment, the woman who bumped into me took literally a second to look at me, then over at Jade before she narrowed her eyes with disgust and kept on walking. Shocked and embarrassed in front of my friends, I felt mortified by this woman’s actions.
“Can you believe her?” Jade said with shock. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” Jade yelled at the woman.
Barely glancing back over her shoulder, the woman didn’t seem to care too much.
“I’m sorry you have to deal with people like that,” Taylor says, comforting me.
“It’s fine,” I lied, trying to put the situation to bed before I could overthink it.
Picking up our order, Jade thanks the cashier. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?” she says, holding up the bag with our lunch.
“Yes,” Taylor sang. “That salad is calling my name,” she chuckles, bumping my arm to get me to smile.
“You mock now, but you’ll be thanking me once we get into our suits,” Jade advises.
“You’re right,” Taylor replies, putting her hands up in defeat.
Thankful for the girl’s banter, I shook my head with amusement as we made our way back to our private deck.
“So, what’s the story between you and Logan?” Jade asks.
“Our story?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s like I already told you, he was the captain of our high school’s hockey team and I’m just me…”
“Come on, there’s more to it than that. There has to be.”
“How’d you two become friends?” Taylor asks, steering the conversation along.
Chuckling under my breath, I press my lips together. “Actually, it kind of went something like what happened back there with that woman. Tess Shepard and her band of mean girls never missed an opportunity to get in my way, much like the day I formally met Logan Petersen.” I smile. “Tess purposely bumped into me that day, knocked my books all over the floor, and threw an obvious fake apology over her shoulder and kept walking. That’s when Logan kneeled down beside me and picked up every item I dropped. He even brushed the dust from the floor onto his very expensive jeans,” I sigh, my chest fluttering at the memory.
“Look at you,” Taylor smiles. “You’re practically beaming.”
“What happened next?” Jade presses, eager to learn more.
Taking a deep breath, I let myself wander down memory lane. “Next thing I know, Logan’s around every corner I turned. Holding doors and clearing crowds out of the hallway so I could get through. There was even this one time when the home economics class set the kitchen on fire. When the fire alarms started ringing, I thought nothing of it. I thought it was just another drill. Knowing there was a plan in place for such drills, I let everyone pass while I waited for the carriers to come to get me.” I took a moment to pause as I reflected on the memory. “I had class up on the third floor that day and Logan was down on the first. Somehow he made it up to three floors before the assigned carriers-which had classes just one floor below me.”
“Sounds like a man on a mission,” Taylor smiles wide.
“I guess he was.” A smile tugs at my lips. “I don’t know how I got out of my chair that day. All I remember was Logan carrying me down three flights of stairs and out of the building. Worried about hurting me, he slowly lowered me onto the grass.” My cheeks suddenly felt warm.
“I know that look,” Jade beams. “Something happened. Didn’t it?” She asks, handing us our salads.
“When he lowered me to the grass, we kind of tumbled,” I chuckle. “When he leaned in to cushion the fall, there was this look in his eyes,” I whisper, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion.
Closing my eyes, I held back the tears that threatened to spill.
