Page 2 of Forever Only Once
“What the fuck?”
My pulse pounded in my ears. “Thanks for making sure I didn’t fall, but I’m fine now. Have a good day.”
I moved a step forward to get past him, but he gripped my arm again.
“I was only making sure you were okay. There’s no need to get hostile. I’m safe. I’m not one of those guys.”
“Sure. Have a good day.” I moved forward again. This time, his other hand reached down and grabbed my ass.
I froze and turned toward him.
“Are you serious right now?” I asked, my heart racing, a lump in my throat.
“If you’re going to treat me like a lecher, I might as well get something out of it.” He narrowed his eyes. “Bitch.” And then he pushed ever so slightly, and I wobbled on my heels before he turned and walked away. No one noticed the interaction, everyone was too busy with their phones and their own lives.
No one had seen that he’d assaulted me, called me a bitch, and almost hadn’t let me go. If I hadn’t known how to get out of that hold, I wasn’t sure he would have let me go at all.
My lips were dry, and I knew I was sweating. I took a deep breath and practically ran towards the café, hoping my friends were already there since I was running late as it was.
Despite hoping they’d beat me to the café, I also needed a moment to collect myself. The others didn’t need to see me like this.
No one did.
They might understand because they knew my past, at least most of it, but I didn’t want to talk about it.
I wanted to forget every memory, every moment of pain, everything about that time. I didn’t need to bring it up again, even with the women I counted as family.
I nodded at a few people and pasted a smile on my face that I knew probably looked a little manic. Regardless, they smiled back. Boulder people were quite friendly if you tried.
I quickly made my way to the front of the Boulder Bean, a cute little shop with coffee brands listed in the windows, and a small coffee mug with steam billowing off the top as the café’s logo.
I let out a breath, rolling my shoulders back and telling myself that nothing was wrong. That everything was normal. Then, I walked inside.
There were tables strewn about, and a couple of booths with comfy seats along the walls.
Some people were working on their laptops, others looking at their phones or just sitting down and enjoying a cup of coffee. A couple of students worked with textbooks and notebooks in front of them, their laptops closed so it looked like maybe they were doing math. They weren’t my students, but I almost wanted to go over and see what they were working on.
I was a math professor. It soothed me to work with numbers, especially when I sometimes didn’t feel soothed at all.
I looked to the back corner, in the booth nearest the front counter, and smiled at the three women sitting there.
Dakota, the owner of the Boulder Bean and my friend, got up and walked over, her eyes narrowed as she looked at me.
I knew Dakota had come from a life far different than mine. Though our paths had crossed thanks to an incident that mirrored what’d happened to me, we didn’t talk about that.
We did our best to forget our pasts, all of us, and I was fine with that.
We were friends because we wanted to be, not because we wanted to share our deepest and darkest secrets.
“Hey, I was just about to call you. Are you okay?” Dakota asked, reaching out and hugging me. I hugged her back and inhaled her scent. She smelled of cinnamon, coffee beans, and vanilla today.
The Boulder Bean was mostly a coffee shop, with just about any kind of coffee arrangement you could imagine. But they also did decent business with tea, mainly because Dakota loved tea, but coffee was her bread and butter.
They had a few snacks as well, things that Dakota made in the back, or ordered in from a small shop nearby. But she did her best to make the Bean a pure coffee shop, mostly because there were enough cafes around the area and she wanted to stand out just a little bit.
“Sorry, I ran behind at work. I apologize for being late.”
Dakota narrowed her eyes. “You’re all clammy and pale. What happened?”