Mallory looked down at her phone rereading the text for the fourth time. “It’s better for me to know what you like.”
She was sure it was meant innocuously, but for some reason she felt as thought Andy was asking for something more than her coffee order.
Perhaps it was wishful thinking as visions of Andy, stocky with well toned muscles, barely reaching six foot. His thick black hair streaked with strands of silvery grey dancing among his curls. His beard, well trimmed. Andy, who had worked in the same complex as her for three years, taking her from behind. His strong, worn-in meaty hands gathering up her light brown, frizzled hair, pulling it back as he pushed in deeper. Eventually wrapping his strong forearm in front of her, holding her shoulder as he constricted her breathing. Him pulling her in. closer to him, his fingers digging into her hip.
Her phone chimed again, bringing Mallory back to the moment. Four minutes had passed.
“For your coffee order…”
Mallory released the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. She felt embarrassment creep into her face in various shades of red and pinks. For a moment she forgot her own order, distracted by how silly she felt. How silly she must have been to have even thought Andy would want to know anything about her sexual preferences.
~
Andy put Mallory’s large dark roast with 2% milk in his cup holder, next to his bubble tea, and pressed send. He had panicked, worried that he had been too forward, made too strong of an innuendo, one that Mallory might have been so brazen, she would have seen it for what it was. Instead he had texted her back before she answered, avoiding any humiliation. She wasn’t going to want him to see her as a sexual being, let alone as someone she could share the intimate details of her likes and wants with. He figured she would send him her coffee order, laughing to herself that after all this time he still didn’t know. But he did know. The same way he knew that the sea salt brownie with caramel drizzle would be her mid-morning snack, and probably her lunch.
He sighed to himself as he started his car and made his way to the office. The drive torn between visions of Mallory covered in caramel drizzle, waiting for him, and shame. He stood a snowball’s chance with her. He knew that. But he also knew that snowballs in Antarctica stood a far better shot than on Venus – maybe it was all a matter of perspective.
A smile spread across his face as he parked his car. A text from Mallory popping up on his screen. “Large dark roast with 2% milk – unless they’re out of milk??? Then a splash of cream please ;)”