Page 5 of Cognac Secrets
“Let me buy you breakfast?” I asked, looking her over, and she smiled a little shyly and nodded.
“You don’t have to,” she said. “But I would like that. I’m kinda starving.”
“Shit,” I said. “Gimme a minute to hurry up and get dressed.”
“No, that’s okay. You don’t have to rush!”
…but fuck that. For as awkward as this was, she’d stuck it out and been kind to me when she didn’t have to be. The least I could do would be to buy her some fucking breakfast. There were a couple of places that were open twenty-four hours near here. First Call being one of them. I mean, they didn’t have much food-wise but NOLA’s famous beignets, but something was better than nothing and I could use their fucking coffee right now.
I also low key wanted her out of my place. Not because I was necessarily ashamed of it, but more because she deserved to be in nicer digs than this. I low key wondered where she’d come from and what the hell I’d ever done to deserve someone looking out for me the way she did.
She seemed sweet. Ballsy, but with this cuteness that was her edge of shyness. My curiosity was engaged and I wanted to see where things could go. I’d be lying if I said otherwise.
Just who was my little angel of mercy? It might be fun to find out.
CHAPTERTWO
Sandrine…
He took some clean boxer briefs into the bathroom with him and shut the door. I heard water running from the sink and listened as he swished a toothbrush around in his mouth pretty thoroughly while I re-took my seat in the chair I’d occupied before.
He came out in the clean set of boxer briefs, but pulled on his well-worn jeans from the night before. Still, he brought out a clean white tee from the second drawer of his chest of drawers and pulled it over his head. It couldn’t have been more than a medium – but hugged his chest and shouldersverynicely.
He picked up his phone from the bedside table and looked to me as though asking if I’d been the one to plug it in. I nodded and he let out a huff of breath like he was frustrated but his muttered “thanks” told me it was with himself, and not with me.
He shrugged into his leather vest with all of its brightly colored patches muted by grime and long wear and turned to me.
“You look great,” I said, and he huffed a laugh and jerked his head toward the door to the hallway.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he said, but it didn’t sound like he wanted me out of his space per se, but most definitely sounded like he was low key embarrassed by his living conditions and that I was too good to be in them – which wasn’t that laughable? I’d grown up in much poorer conditions in a room not half so nice. I mean, he had his own bathroom, and while things were a bit shabby and well used, his space was meticulous. Picked up. Uncluttered but with the age of things and how the carpet in here was all but falling apart and was probably much older than either of us? There wasn’t reallyanythingthat could be done to make the space feelclean, you know?
I took up my things from the little table beside the shabby and somewhat lumpy chair, and he put his hand gently to my back to guide me out the door, locking it behind us with his keys.
“Shit,” he swore and spun what keys he had left on the ring around his finger and into his palm.
“What?” I asked.
“Bike key is missing, so is my bike. I hope you don’t mind walking.”
I laughed lightly and said in a hushed tone, lest we disturb his neighbors, or however this place worked, “Your friends told me to tell you that your bike would be at the club, and to call or text them for a ride to it when you were sobered up enough.”
“You really didn’t have to stay,” he said, leading me down the hallway, past the kitchen, and what was, I guessed, a living room – at least once upon a time. It had been walled off into another room that was behind a closed and I imagine locked door, but the walls looked… flimsy. Like you could go right through them like the Kool-Aid Man. The way they sort of bowed lead me to believe there may be no actual wooden studs or anything.
Interesting…
“Yeah, well, I felt like I did,” I told him gently, going out past him and sucking in a lungful of cleaner greener smelling air. The place that he lived didn’tstink, but itdidsmell… stale.
He went past me down the front steps and I followed, skipping down them lightly and landing into step beside him as he strode up the sidewalk with its weeds thrust up through the cracks. Both the intentional ones from where the concrete slabs were poured, and the ones created by tree roots and the crumbling passage of time.
“Where we headed?” I asked and he made a little harrumph like he wasn’t happy about it, but answered my question.
“There’s a First Call up here,” he said.
“Best coffee and beignets in NOLA, and you can’t beat them being open twenty-four hours. Sounds perfect,” I said.
He gave me some side-eye and I felt my smile grow into a grin.
“You always this chipper?” he asked and I felt my smile diminish slightly and answered truthfully.
