I came back after dropping my bag to find Derek settled into the corner booth like he was preparing for a hostile takeover, except instead of a boardroom table he had a sticky diner surface and instead of executives he had laminated menus and a salt shaker shaped like a chicken.
I slowly closed my eyes, already mortified. Without wasting a second, he had his laptop open and a stack of papers lined up beside it with the kind of precision that suggested he was about to dismantle a small country. I watched, slightly fascinated, as his fingers flew across the keyboard, jaw tight, eyes narrowed — the picture of a man who did not belong anywhere near a place that served bottomless filter coffee.
And of course he was in Lauren’s section. Fantastic. It would be a miracle if he got five minutes
