Dream of Us

Ani’s POV.

I meet up with Gwen behind the screen that hides all the spare cutlery, serviettes, salt, and pepper etc. She gives me a dirty look, but I know it’s playful.

“Can’t believe you managed to snatch that hottie from me.”

I roll my eyes at her. “I’m surprised I was able to with the tight grip you had on him.”

She smiles and then pouts at me. “I called dibs!”

“I didn’t hear it.”

“I mentally called dibs.”

“How am I supposed to know that?”

“It was in my eyes.”

“What? Lust? Yeah, it was.”

She whips me with her towel again, getting on at me for teasing her. I know that Gwen fancies him, it’s obvious by the way she feasts her eyes on him from across the room. He has his head down, reading the menu, and is blissfully unaware of the two of us ogling him. For some reason, I feel a niggle of jealousy at Gwen liking our customer.

He looks up suddenly, having decided what he wants. He searches the restaurant and I step out from the screen so that he can see me. The most incredible smile stretches over his lips when he sees me. I walk over, taking out my pen and pad as I cross the room to him.

“Do you know what you want, Sir?”

He smirks, making me think that he thought my words had a double-meaning. “I most definitely do.”

“How about drinks to start? Coffee?”

“Americano, no sugar, please,” he says, eyeing me carefully. “It’s Annie, right?”

I’m startled that he knows my name and I quickly look up from my pad. I don’t have a name tag on.

“It is, yes. Sorry, have we met before?”

Something flashes across his eyes. It’s too fast for me to identify it, but if I had to guess, it looked like pain. In a second, I’m panicking that we’ve met before and that I’ve forgotten, and I’ve offended him.

Perhaps he’s come into the restaurant before? Surely I would remember someone so attractive!

“No, we haven’t,” he finally admits, sounding hurt. “I overheard one of the other waitresses say your name. Anyway, I’ll have the croque monsieur as well, thanks.”

“Okay, I’ll get that for you.”

I take the menu from him, and our fingers accidentally brush against each other. I tense up as the strangest feelings rush through me. They come thick and fast in a wave that confuses the hell out of me. The first is an instant bolt of electricity, like a static shock but it isn’t painful. The tingles spread along my fingers and up my arm. As the move, they change into a warm throb that sends my desire skyrocketing and my heart haywire. By the time it reaches my chest, it has morphed into a comforting feeling of familiarity, like we’ve done this before.

I nearly drop the menu. I’m all fingers and thumbs as I struggle to walk away from the table. I retreat to safety behind the screen, where I finally let out the breath I’d been holding.

“You good?” Gwen asks, eyeing me worriedly. “You’ve gone pale, hun.”

“Yeah, just got a static shock from the customer,” I tell her and put the menu back in the tray.

“Ugh, I hate those. What did he order?”

“Americano, gonna go make it now.”

“I’ll do it,” she says quickly and then rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you be the one to take it out to him. You get his food order to the kitchen.”

I’m grateful for her offer. I’m still a little shaken from the way my body reacted to his touch, I don’t think handling hot liquid is a good idea right now.

The customer looks out of the window, giving me the chance to study him again. I search and search my brain, but I can’t recall ever seeing him before. Despite that fact, my body feels as though it knows him. He is familiar to me, in a comforting, seductive way that makes absolutely no sense.

How can I be so intensely drawn to someone I don’t even know?

“Here’s the coffee.”

I jump as Gwen appears next to me, cup in hand.

“Do you think you could take it over to him, please? My hands are still shaking a bit, I’m scared I’ll spill it.”

Gwen looks more than happy to have another interaction with the hot customer. With a skip in her step, she sidles over to him and places the coffee down. A small part of me is happy when he sets eyes on her. He frowns and immediately looks around for me. His frown deepens when he finds me half-hiding behind the screen. I turn to the cutlery tray and rearrange the forks to look busy.

I look up when Gwen comes bundling back over, a grin on her face. “He’s got the hots for you, hun. You’re in there. You should get his number!”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” I tell her. “What do you mean he’s got the hots for me?”

She pops her hip out and puts her hand on it, looking sassy. “So, I go over there with the coffee and all and the first thing he does is ask where his server has gone. You need to get his number before he leaves.”

“Are you crazy? You know Michel would kill me if he found out I’d done that! And I’ve got a boyfriend.”

Gwen gives me an amused look. She lifts one of her eyebrows and crosses her arms over her chest. “Interesting that your boyfriend was the second excuse you thought of, not the first. What does that tell you?”

I huff at her. “That I have over-analytic friends.”

“Mmhm, sure it does.”

She sashays across the restaurant, leaving me feeling a tad guilty.

Why wasn’t Jaymie my first thought?

Maybe it’s because we haven’t been together that long. It’s only been a couple months. Sure, it’s relatively serious between us, but it’s still such early days.

Do I think of Jaymie as the one for me? My future husband and soulmate?

Who knows.

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Denali’s POV.

I watch her rush around the restaurant, gracefully serving customers and clearing tables. This place is obviously a popular spot in the city, it became very busy once 9 o’clock had passed. I’ve dragged out my meal for as long as I can, ordering another two coffees so that I can sit here and watch her some more.

I cannot fathom it. They’ve wiped her mind of me and my brothers, clearly. She has no recollection of me, that much was apparent when she reacted the way she did to our first encounter. I have had to sit her, watching her be blissfully ignorant to the pain and suffering I have gone through for the last ten years, simply to see her again. She doesn’t know about any of it. She doesn’t know about me.

The heartache is burning my chest, eating me alive from the inside out. I thought the pain of being parted from her was excruciating. I thought it would be over once I had seen her again and been reunited. I was wrong. I had no idea that there would be a pain worse to come, one from a rejection I hadn’t planned for. I naively thought she would be happy to see me. She doesn’t even recognise me. To her, I am merely a customer that she feels a mild attraction to. I can tell from the flush to her cheeks and the dilation of her pupils each time she gets close to me.

At least the attraction is there, I have that to hold onto. Her body might feel it, even if her mind can’t.

I settle my bill and decide that it’s time to go. I have been here for two hours. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I need to get out of here and clear my head. I can’t think straight when I can see her and not touch her, it is driving me insane. All I want to do is hold her. I’ve waited so long to hold her, and I can’t even do it.

I’m halfway down the street when I hear someone calling out, asking me to stop. I ignore the first shout because I don’t believe it is for me, but I turn on the second shout. A woman I recognise to be one of the waitresses is running down the street after me. For a moment, I wonder if I forgot something in the restaurant, but I don’t have anything on me, not even a phone, only a credit card.

“Wait up,” she says, out of breath when she reaches me. I look the woman up and down, trying to work out what she wants.

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