February 7
“Maybe it’s the issue of waking up,” he says. He slips his hand into the front pocket of his coat and pulls out a small green gift-card box. “This should keep you in venti vanilla caramel macchiatos for a good two weeks.” Starbucks. The man knows how to treat a girl.
Wait. A gift card is a pretty risky thing to accept; if I double-cross him, he’ll just cancel it and call the cops on me, claiming it’s stolen. Or will he? He doesn’t look like the type to want to attract too much attention, especially not from the police. He might have some other way to track me with it. No, it’s too dangerous to accept. But I still need to convince him that I’ll take his offer.
“Oh,” I say, frowning. “That Starbucks? Out by Liberty?”
“The same,” Reynolds says. “Cute waiters there, if you’re interested.”
“So I hear,” I say, “but Libby Schraeder, she’s in my Portugese class, she’s always complaining about the card readers there. They never take her cards the first time, and she always winds up paying with cash.”
“I see,” he says, slipping the box back into his pocket. “They did give me a little trouble when I got it. Very well, fair enough. We have a deal, then? Eighty dollars to keep you a regular Starbucks customer for a fortnight?” I nod in silence. He stands up, and his right hand brushes his coat open to reach for his wallet. I see it at that instant.
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