Friday brought around a pleasant change when I stopped in Cerak’s Café after my morning Spanish class. It started off the same as usual; me ordering a coffee, Dimitri shamelessly flirting with me, Will apologizing for it, but the difference was that when I sat down at the mahogany table in the back (where I always sat— I’d started calling it my table), Will joined me.

For the first few moments I just stared at him blankly, barely registering the fact he was sitting at my table. Then I realized he was looking at me expectantly, like I should be the first one to speak. So I did. “Hi,” I uttered in a tiny voice.

Smooth.

“Hello,” he responded, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Mind if I sit?”

I shook my head immediately. “No, not at all. Do you need something?”

“No,” he responded, slightly amused. “I don’t need anything. I’m just on break and seeking entertainment. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No,” I told him quickly.

His blue eyes lit up. “Great. You’ll have to excuse me for my lack of manners, but I’ve never properly introduced myself. Or gotten your name.” He held out a slender hand. “I’m William Cerak. You may call me Will though, if you’d like.”

“Katie Holmes,” I replied, placing my hand into his. It was hard to keep my face steady when he gave my hand a firm squeeze, because I wasn’t going to lie, it kind of hurt. Then what he said caught up to me. “Cerak,” I repeated, surprise coloring my tone. “Wait, do your parents own this place?”

A small smile appeared at his lips. “No, I own this place.”

“You?” I repeated, startled.

“Yes, me.”

“That’s, uh, surprising.” Surprising was one word for it. Maybe I was being judgemental, but weren’t all shop owners older? Will didn’t look a day over twenty-six. Maybe twenty-seven.

Seemingly guessing my thoughts, he shrugged. “I suppose. You’re probably thinking I’m a bit young, but as long as one has the papers required, anyone of any age can own a coffee shop. I’m twenty-six, by the way.”

And if that didn’t make me feel young. I decided then and there not to mention my age.

“How old are you?”

Shit. I barely held back a grimace. “Almost twenty-three.” Which technically wasn’t a lie. My birthday was in January— only three months away.

“So are you in college then?” he inquired, his facial expression giving me the impression like my answer would hold the cure to cancer.

“Yeah, my last year.”

“Studying what?”

Suddenly self-conscious, I glanced down at my hands, which were folded around my coffee cup. This time I had a Vienna coffee, which was really sweet, and really delicious. Steam wafted from the top of it, eddying up and vanishing into the warmer air as I hesitated.

“If you don’t want to answer…” Will began, trailing off unsurely.

I jolted myself from my mini-trance. What was I doing? Acting like an idiot in front of a hot guy, that was what. Again, this was why I didn’t have a boyfriend. “No, it’s fine,” I promised him. “It’s just kind of… um, English. I’m an English major. Yeah, I know, it’s nerdy.”

The corners of his lips quirked up, and my attention switched to them for a split-second (soft and plush) before shooting back up to meet his intense gaze. Obviously he found something amusing about my response, because he was barely holding back a grin. Probably thought I was a nerd. “Interesting.”

“Sure,” I responded with a shrug, not letting myself be affected by his opinion. “I like it. Probably because I had so many good English teachers in high school.”

“Do you want to be a teacher, then?”

I nodded, offering him a half-smile. “Yeah, I, um, want to show kids that English really isn’t as bad as it seems, you know? If you have the right teacher, every subject can be awesome.”

“I agree with you there. Actually, the reason why I own this shop is because I had a few teachers who were part time coffee shop owners.”

“Really?”

“No.” And he let out a little laugh that melted my heart. “I’m not making fun of you though, I enjoy English as well. I’m a writer.”

“You are? Do you have anything published? What do you write?”

To my surprise, a faint blush spread on his cheeks. “I… um, well…” he muttered, staring determinedly at my coffee.

Now it was my turn to laugh. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, either. That’s cool though. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Hard though. Plus I suck with words.”

“Yes, it is hard,” he agreed, grinning.

The conversation shifted then, and Will told me about his large family that was scattered all around the world, four older brothers, a younger sister, and a younger brother. One of them lived in Italy. His parents were both well-known actors (which, to me, explained his good looks), and I felt embarrassed that I hadn’t recognized his name earlier. He laughed it off, telling me no one ever made the connection. Then he admitted due to his parents’ careers, he was more than well off, and it was the reason why he’d bought the coffee shop in the first place.

I shied around my family background, giving him the basics: my mother was dead, I had a younger brother whom I lived with, and my father was living elsewhere. I could tell he was curious, but he refrained from asking any questions, which I was grateful of.

“So, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but what made you come over here and talk to me today?” I inquired, playing with my now empty coffee cup. “I mean, I’ve been coming by here for nearly a month and a half now.”

Will’s eyes flickered to the counter, where Dimitri stood, smirking away at us. He waved a tan hand and sent me a wink. “Dimitri… double dog dared me. Apparently you can’t say no to that,” Will explained slowly.

His answer caused me to lift an eyebrow. “A dare?”

“Yes, because for the past month I’ve been saying I’m going to talk to you, but I never really got around to it… I wasn’t sure if you wanted to be alone,” he admitted, looking apologetic. “Sorry, if you did want to be alone and I’m annoying you.”

Annoying me? That was grand. “You’re definitely not annoying me,” I told him, rolling my eyes. “I appreciate the company.”

His posture relaxed. “That’s good to hear.”

“You’ll have to keep me company more often.” Holy shit. I was flirting with him, and it was actually going okay.

“I will,” he replied easily and yep, it was definitely going okay. “But I’ve got to get back to work now…”

“Sure,” I said, mirroring his movements and standing up from the table. “I better head out, anyway.”

There was an awkward moment where we just stared at each other before Dimitri came bustling by, shoving into Will roughly. “Take the next customer. I gotta piss.”

Will let out a sigh. “Well, that’s pleasant.”

“At least I didn’t say I had to shit.”

I grinned as Will shook his head, returning to the counter. With my mood greatly increased, I headed out of the coffee shop, ready to fight the rest of the day.

*

“Why are you so happy?” Dustin asked suspiciously when I picked him up from school. His question went ignored, though, when I noticed his black eye. It was swollen and puffy, a bruise circling around his left eye.

“What the hell happened?” I demanded.

He sighed, gingerly touching it with the tips of his fingers. “I got in a fight.”

“You got in a fight? You? Mr. Against All Forms of Violence?”

“You’d think you’d be more worried about the fact that I have a black eye than surprised that I have a black eye in the first place.”

I gave him an offended look. “What? I am worried! I’m just shocked, too. You don’t fight. Ever. I’m ready to beat the shit out of whatever kid is bullying you though. Tell me their name.”

“First of all, your twenty-two. You’d probably go to jail if you hit someone my age. Second of all, I’m not being bullied. Unlike you, I’m cool.”

I grunted. I was cool. I just didn’t have time for a social life. “So what happened then?”

“Start driving first.”

Obeying his command, I headed out of the parking lot, and toward our home. It was a half an hour drive, so there was plenty of time for chatting. “Okay, speak.”

“It’s no big deal,” he told me, pressing his face against the cool car window. I made a mental note to stop by a convenience store and pick up a cold press. “Some asshole make a crack about Dad, and I punched him. Wasn’t really expecting him to punch back though.”

My hands tightened on the steering wheel. “You punched someone over Dad?” It was hard to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

“It’s not all his fault—”

“We’re not going into that, Dustin. You shouldn’t have punched that kid.”

Dustin turned to me; crossing his arms, jaw tight. “You may not care about Dad anymore, but I still do. He doesn’t deserve to be shit talked by people who don’t know shit.”

I glanced at him, exasperated. “I do care about Dad, Dustin. It’s just… he’s more trouble than it’s worth. You were young, so I understand why—”

“Mom’s death was only four years ago,” he snapped. “I was old enough to understand that she was dead. And I was old enough to understand why Dad picked up drinking.”

“Then you should also be old enough to understand why he deserves to be in jail,” I said just as brusquely.

“So what if Dad made a stupid decision? We all do! It’s not like he was aiming to—”

“Drop it,” I all but snarled. “Just drop it. I don’t want to discuss it.”

Dustin glared at me for a full moment before letting his shoulders sag. “You never do.”

“So don’t bring it up.”

“You’re a jerk sometimes, you know that?”

I spared him a flat look. “So are you.”

“Anyway, I have detention after school next Tuesday. It gets out at 3:30.”

“Nice.” Even though my eyes were on the road, I knew Dustin was giving me a disapproving look because I was grinning. He was always such a good guy; it was amusing to hear that he’d not only gotten into a fight, but that he’d received a detention as well.

Silence settled in for a few moments, but Dustin never liked silence, and he always felt the need to fill it, so he spoke up again. “So why were you in such a good mood?”

“I still am,” I informed him, “and because I finally talked to Will.”

“The guy from the coffee shop? I thought you talk to him every day.”

“But this time I had a full on conversation him. Apparently his parents are Daniel Cerak and Rena Cerak.”

Dustin did a double take, his eyes wide. “You’re joking!”

“Nope. He’s got a big family too.”

“Wow,” he breathed. “They’re pretty famous.”

“Mhm.”

“So what, he’s like, loaded?”

I shrugged noncommittally. “I’m sure he’s got some money. It’s not important to me though.”

“Right, you like him because he gives you free sweet things.”

The corners of my mouth curved up into a smirk. “Yeah, maybe that’s one of the reasons.”

Dustin wagged his eyebrows at me. “So when you gunna ask him out?”

“I don’t ask people out,” I told him flatly. “And I barely know him.”

“You’ve been talking to him for over a month now!”

“I haven’t really talked to him until today. So yeah, barely know him. And also, I don’t have time for a relationship.”

Dustin smirked a little. “You just have a million excuses, don’t you?

I pursed my lips and stayed silent. Dustin trying to push me into a relationship wasn’t a new thing. In his teenaged-boy mind, having a boyfriend or girlfriend was the most important thing. Besides schoolwork. Which was fine for him, hell, that was what I wanted him to care about. Not bills, not college tuition, not school tuition, not groceries. He was too young for that— I was too young for that. But someone had to do it, and out of the two of us, I was more than happy to volunteer.

Aside from that, there was also the fact that I didn’t like the chance of rejection. Then again, no one liked the chance of rejection. Been there, done that. Maybe it hadn’t been the worst experience of my life, but it’d been pretty bad. And embarrassing. Just remembering it caused my cheeks to burn.

“Where’s your girlfriend?” I finally shot back at him.

That shut him up, his only response being a short, incoherent mutter. Now it was my turn to smirk, and I did so smugly. I always knew when he was with or without a girlfriend, and never failed to bring it up when the time was handy. Because I was so clever, I could tease him about both being single and being taken.

“So I haven’t heard any arguing from our neighbors,” Dustin said conversationally, because it was literally impossible for him to keep quiet for more than a few moments.

“Like I said, probably just some passersby. We don’t need to worry about it.” I wished. Although it’d been quiet, I didn’t have a doubt that the burly guy probably lurked around every so often.

Dustin let out a soft sigh, looking relieved. “That’s good.”

I stared at the road determinedly. “Yeah…”

The rest of the day passed by quickly, and it was around nine o’clock at night when I suddenly remembered I had an essay due in English the next morning. For a full minute, I full out panicked. How could’ve I forgotten about something as important as an essay? Sure, I’d admittedly spent a lot of the day thinking about Will (which sounded creepy, but it really wasn’t), but I’d known about the essay for a week. Usually I’d never put off writing essays. Especially now that there was no Internet at my house, and most essays needed research. Including this one.

Chewing my bottom lip nervously, I double-checked the clock. It was still nine. No libraries would be open… and the only other place I knew that had free wifi was the coffee shop. Will had still been there the last time I’d stopped by this late… Shaking my head, I tried to force myself to resign to a badly written essay. I couldn’t bother Will like that. But would he be bothered? If I explained my situation to him, maybe he’d be willing to help out. It was better than taking a failing grade. And if he wasn’t there, I could always sit in the parking lot and steal the Internet.

With my mind made up, I snatched my laptop from my room, and my keys of the counter. After popping into the living room to tell my brother where I was headed, I slipped out to my Jeep. It was a nice night out, and I knew I should’ve walked, but I was feeling lazy. Like usual. I smiled a little, and promised myself I’d walk the next time I went to the coffee shop when it wasn’t between classes.

To my joy, the coffee shop still had lights on inside when I pulled into my usual parking spot. A split-second of reconsideration hit me, but I forced it back. Will was an amazingly kind person; he wouldn’t mind letting me use the Internet for a bit. Holding my laptop under one arm, I headed for the door, debating on whether I should knock or not. It was after hours, after all.

Any thought of knocking on the door was knocked out of my mind when a muffled shout from inside the shop reached my ears. I froze immediately, my sense of hearing honing in on the incoherent voices I could hear from inside the shop. Whatever was happening in there didn’t sound too friendly.

“Get out!”

I nearly jumped. That was definitely Will’s voice. He shouted the command again, and I heard the sound of something shattering. Then it hit me: he might be being robbed. My whole body tensed as my mind began to race. What could I do? Run away was the most rational option, but I couldn’t leave Will to fend for himself. Should I call the police? But what if it wasn’t a robbery?

And since when had my life become so thuggish? First the thing at my neighbor’s house, and then this… unless it was the same people. Highly doubtful, but possible. Maybe that one guy got bored of waiting around and decided to rob the nearest place for fun.

Swallowing my nerves, I did the best thing I could think of at the moment. Digging my phone out of my pocket, I made my way to the front entrance, opening the door quietly and hoping no one heard the jingle of bells. Which was pretty possible since there was another shouting match going on. The voices became clearer as I opened the door a crack, sliding through it cautiously.

“I’ve already told you to leave,” came the sound of Will’s voice. It was dangerous and low. A tone I’d never heard from him before. “I swear, you’ll regret it if you don’t leave.”

“I’m sure we will, William,” a snide voice returned, and I figured it probably wasn’t robbers, because robbers generally didn’t know the person’s name they were stealing from. “Why don’t you make us leave?”

Will was standing behind the counter, the man talking to him standing right in front of it, leaning over so his face was only a foot away from Will’s. Impressively, Will’s expression was calm, just like his ocean blue eyes. The calm before a storm. “Last time I’m saying this. Get out.”

“I repeat; why don’t you make me leave?” Without warning, the man reached out and grabbed a fistful of Will’s shirt, yanking Will into the counter. I knew the sharp marble must’ve been cutting into his hips. “Joey.”

For a second I was confused, Will’s name wasn’t Joey, but then a second guy stepped forward and my eyes widened. I hadn’t noticed him before. It was hard to make out anything in the dim lighting, but I could tell this man was short and burly. Kind of intimidating. And he had something in his right hand, that was glinting in the light, almost like a…

Knife. The realization hit me like a bolt of lighting. And Will hadn’t noticed it.

“Hey!” I called, my voice sounding ten times more poised than I felt. Encouraged by it, I took a step forward, holding up my cell phone. “I’ve got 911 on speed dial. So you either leave right now, or wait until the police come to haul your asses away.”

The two robbers— men, whatever they were, turned to look at me. So did Will. A flash a panic appeared in his eyes, but a second later they returned to something tranquil. Maybe a little bit more unsettled than before. I then realized the two other men were conversing in quiet voices. Holding my position, I drew myself to my full height. Not that five feet and six inches was impressive compared to the three other men in the room, but it was the thought that counts, wasn’t it?

“Well, Will, good thing your princess is shining armor came to rescue you,” the one with the knife snorted. “We’ll talk again later, won’t we?”

“Not if I can help it,” Will responded in clipped tones. “Now get out of my shop.”

The duo headed for the door, where I was still standing. Taking a few steps back, I hardened my gaze, trying to seem intimating. It didn’t really work, and the shorter man shoved me backward. Amazingly, I didn’t lose my balance, so I was able to hold my glare. Then they were out the door, the bell ringing violently as they slammed the door shut behind themselves.

“Are you alright?” Will called to me, sounding worn out. “Sorry about that.”

“I’m fine.” Moving over to the counter, I frowned at him. “Robbers?”

He half-smiled at me, also offering up a shrug. “I wish it were that simple.” When he didn’t elaborate, I raised an eyebrow. “They’re just… old friends,” he explained vaguely.

“That want to stab you…?”

He shifted on his feet, obviously growing uncomfortable. “Long story. Joey didn’t want to stab me though.” But he didn’t sound too sure of that. “But, uh, thank you. It was probably unwise to have done that, but I’m glad you stepped it. Made things easier.”

I frowned at him again. “You going to explain what’s going on?”

“It’s kind of personal.”

“Oh, okay.” I could understand that. Even though I was damn curious.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Will asked, apparently done with the topic. Reluctantly, I allowed him to end it. “I’m closed, you know.” There was a soft smile on his face that let me know he wasn’t berating me.

I gave him my best puppy-dog look. “Last minute essay. I totally forgot and don’t have Internet at my house, and…”

His eyes lit up in understanding. “And you’d like to use the Internet here. That’s perfectly acceptable. Would you like a drink?”

“Sure,” I told him with a smile of my own.

“You know, since I’m a writer, I could probably help you out,” he offered as he set about making some kind of drink. I figured it was the hot chocolate. I paid enough attention to know that was his favorite, and I was sure he knew I enjoyed it as well. “If you want.”

My smile grew wider. Could this guy be any more awesome? Probably. “That’d be great. You’re a life saver, Will.”

He laughed, but didn’t comment.