Samuel's POV
For the third time since we began walking, I look at my pocket watch, yet the minute head refuses to move. It leaves me with another hour and a half until I can move to my next charge.
Usually, I don't mind the six hours with Nick, but today isn't the case. Today instead of being productive, he is strolling down the street with his hands deep in his pockets. The slow pace makes it hard for me to remain by his side and not switch back to Olivia.
I shove the watch back inside my pocket just when Nick stops. The action is so unexpected that I almost bump into his back. I manage to catch myself in time though and prevent Nick from getting spooked by an unexplainable push.
What makes the sudden stop weirder is Nick's turn to the window of the building we stopped next to. He lifts his hand and looks like he's about to start fixing his disheveled hair, but then drops it back to his side before he can touch his hair. With a shake of his head, he turns away from the window and enters the building through the front door on his left. A high-pitched bell goes off the moment we enter and I freeze a step inside.
"Welcome," a familiar voice calls from behind the counter.
Before my eyes land on her, I already know who she is. The building Nick and I entered is the café where Olivia is now working as a waitress. I can't believe the coincidence, but then one look at the way Nick is glancing at Olivia tells me this might not be a chance run-in after all.
While Nick and I focus on Olivia, she remains busy preparing what looks like a cup of coffee, which is why she doesn't glance at either of us.
"It's you again."
Nick and I turn to the side to find the old hag, Ramona, walk from behind the counter and stop a couple of steps away from us. She lowers her thick glasses from the top of her head onto her eyes and takes another look at Nick.
"I'm right," she says. "You're the cop's son from yesterday, aren't you?"
Yesterday? I glance from the weird hag to Nick, who sinks his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans.
"You've got an impressive memory, ma'am," Nick says.
"Stop with the ma'am thing." She waves him off. "Ramona is more than fine. Tell me, is my coffee so good that you decided to come for two days in a row?"
Nick's eyes jump over to Olivia, who is still busy behind the counter, and then back to the old hag. "The coffee, yep." He clears his throat. "I'm here for the coffee."
"Coffee my ass." The old hag snorts and then motions for Nick to sit at one of the empty tables.
Nick sits at the same table where he and Olivia had their first date, except that this time he sits on the chair facing away from the wall. The moment he settles down I know why he chose the chair. From the new angle, he has a clear view of the counter and the person working behind it.
With a glare in Nick's direction, I take the empty chair at the table next to his and fold my arms in front of my chest. While my charge remains busy pretending not to be looking at Olivia, I continue to glare at him and wonder when he became interested in my charge. The last time I checked he was still wary of her because of the way she spoke to what he thought was herself during their date.
A minute later, Olivia finishes the drink she's preparing and takes it over to one of the tables. She maneuvers in between the chairs and the tables without a single misstep and then sets the tray down without as much as spilling a single drop. It makes her look like she's been working at this café for at least a month and not just three days.
While I still can't believe she was stupid enough to agree to work for an old hag who obviously has a few screws loose, I have to admit that nothing happened to her. Yet.
After Olivia deposits the drinks at the table, she heads in our direction. When she is only two steps away, she finally glances up.
"Nick?" she says with a surprised voice, which immediately turns into a soft smile. The smile, however, freezes the moment her eyes land on me. "Samâ" Without finishing my name she snaps her head back in Nick's direction. "It's good to see you again, Nick. Is your father joining you later?"
"Nope, he's at work." Nick clears his throat. "Just me today."
"And what am I? Air?" I snort.
While Olivia doesn't look at me, her lips quiver before she sets them back into a straight line. "That's too bad. How are you? Anything new since yesterday?"
"Nothing much." Nick shrugs.
"Since when are you two so close?" I glance between them. "Need I remind you that he ran out on you because he thought you were crazy?"
Instead of answering, Olivia scratches the side of her forehead, which causes her front hair to part. A brown Band-Aid is glued across the side of her foreheadâsomething I know she didn't have when I left her four hours and forty-seven minutes ago.
"What happened?" Nick and I ask.
"What? Oh, you mean this?" She points to the Bend-Aid and then fixes her front hair, so it once again hides the evidence. "It's nothing worth mentioning. I thought that since my last memory of the accident had been brought back by me hurting my head, the same thing would happen if I hurt my head again. But it didn't work. All it caused me is another headache."
"Have you lost your mind?!" I jump from my chair, not believing what I've just heard. Was she really stupid enough to think that hurting herself would bring back her memories?
"It's a perfectly reasonable assumption." Despite looking at Nick, I know Olivia is talking to me right now. "Maybe my memories disappeared because I hurt my head, and so to bring them back I need to hurt my head again."
"Youâ" I can't find the words to describe how idiotic her way of thinking is.
"I don't think that's how it works." Nick shakes his head. "Besides, my old man's already working to make sure they find the bastard you described."
"That's good to hear." Olivia smiles at him. "So, what can I get for you?"
"Coffee. Black," Nick says.
"Coming right up."
While Nick might not have noticed, I did. Olivia didn't promise not to do anything dangerous or stupid, like whatever she did this time. This is why I follow behind her as she makes her way to the counter.
"You heard him." I stop near the counter with the displayed desserts, while she makes her way to the coffee machine. "The police are working on it, so you need to stop being reckless."
"Now you care?" She huffs and inserts an empty coffee pot underneath the machine and hits the start button.
"What?"
"I'm doing everything in my power to bring back my memories, but you obviously don't care. Otherwise, you wouldn't have skipped over me."
"Skipped you?" I blink, wondering if whatever she did caused a serious injury to her head.
"Don't try toâ" She swings her hand in a wide circle, which causes her fingers to hit against the cup where the freshly brewed coffee is running into. A cup that is filled with steaming coffee.
"Ah!" Olivia clutches her injured hand with her right one.
Before she can do more than hiss in pain, I'm already at her side. I grab her forearm and pull her to the nearby sink. There I open the tap to ice-cold water and submerge her injured hand underneath the water.
The water splashes over my hands, but I hardly note the discomfort. What I'm more focused on is making sure that the red skin on her injured fingers doesn't turn into a nastier red.
Moments tick by before I realize what position we're standing in. While I'm holding her injured hand in between my hands, the rest of my body is pressed against her back. There is hardly an inch of space between us.
My heart pounds faster than I have ever heard it pound before, so I quickly take a step back. "Keep the hand under the water." I lean against the counter half a step to her side. "What did you mean by skipping over you?"
"I meant Nick." She clears her throat without turning to look at me. "I know that Nick is right behind me in your sequence of charges. So, the fact that you're with him right now means you skipped over me."
"I didn't. I spent my assigned six hours with you. You were just asleep throughout them."
"You were with me while I was asleep?" She looks up to me. "Pervert."
"Excuse me?"
We both snap our heads to the side to find the old hag standing a couple of steps behind us.
"I didn't mean you," Olivia assures her.
"I see." The old hag cocks her thick glasses up her nose, but the way her eyes dart to both of Olivia's sides sends a chill down my back. "What happened?"
"Nothing." Olivia closes the tap and wipes her hand into a nearby cloth. "I accidentally touched a cup of freshly brewed coffee, so I burned my fingers a little."
"Oh, dear. Go sit down." The old hag waves her off in Nick's direction. "Have a talk with your friend while I take over. My grandson is, after all, scheduled to arrive any time now."
Olivia tries to protest, but in the end, she is no match for the old hag. She and I make our way back to Nick's table, where he immediately snaps his eyes to her, "Everything okay?"
"It's nothing." Olivia waves him off and takes the chair across the table from him.
Just as I sit onto the still empty chair at the table next to theirs, the annoying bell goes off and a boy enters the café. He can't be much older than fifteen, but what catches my attention is the squeezing feeling which spreads over my chest when I look into his dark eyes. I feel like I know this human, yet at the same time, I can't remember having ever met him before.
"You!"
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Much love
- E