Coffee in Common by Dee Mann Read Free Book Online Page B

around the corner to get us, we started laughing and pointing, telling everyone Liz scared him so much he peed in his pants."
    She could hear Paul chuckling softly.
    "Eddie's denials were long and loud but to no avail. From that day, until his family moved away the following year, he was known as Eddie LePee."
    She heard his chuckles become laughs. "Eddie LePee! That's a riot. I bet his folks moved to save him from the humiliation."
    Jillian matched his laugh. "Maybe so. Anyway, with our mission accomplished, we found we had a lot in common and since neither of us could remember why we hated each other, we decided to be friends, instead. That was eighteen years ago."
    "Whoa…eighteen years! My oldest friend is Rob and I met him in high school. What about the other one? What's her name?"
    "Jenna. Jennafer Williams. Liz and I met her freshman year in college."
    "Which school?"
    "Boston University."
    "Oh! Good school. I went to Tufts."
    "That's a pretty good school, too."
    "It was close to home. And I got a discount because I lived in Medford. Hmmm…I wonder if they still do that? Anyway, Jenna?"
    "She was the third girl in a triple dorm room."
    "Holy crap! Three girls in one room? With one bathroom?"
    "You have no idea! But anyway, we'd all won scholarships…or rather, the school gave Liz and I scholarships. Jenna got hers by winning some national science contest."
    "Wow, she must be pretty smart."
    "She sure is. But she's such a goofball you'd never know it outside the lab where she works."
    Jillian found herself telling him things about Liz and Jenna, what they did, what they liked, things she might have expected to tell a new girlfriend, but not some guy she'd just met.
    "Man, I wish I had a friend like Liz. You two sound more like sisters than friends."
    "I guess we are, really."
    "At our age, it's hard to imagine having had a best friend for eighteen years. And speaking of age, if I've done my math correctly, you would be 25?"
    "Your math is correct," she replied. "Now, to get your age, how much should I add or subtract from mine?"
    "You should add three."
    "Twenty-eight! You're twenty-eight? I never would have guessed. I thought you were my age, or younger."
    "It's my boyish good looks. They're a curse, really. But it's true, I'm only two years away from the big three-oh. Can Social Security be far behind?"
    As the conversation continued, each offered tidbits of information, about work, friends, likes, dislikes; the things two people usually offer up at the beginning of a new relationship.
    Paul was charming, constantly making her laugh. Both were so caught up in the dialogue, time flew by.
    When Jillian thought to check, she was shocked to see it was well after midnight.
    Didn't the phone just ring a few minutes ago?
    "You know I was so embarrassed at lunch today, I just wanted to go hide somewhere."
    "I remember," he said, chuckling, "but there was no reason to be embarrassed. You were nervous. So was I. Heck, if you hadn't knocked it over, I probably would have. Actually, I was more relieved than anything else."
    "Relieved?"
    "Sure. After all, I made such a fool of myself this morning, and I had this vision of you as, you know, so cool and calm and detached. I had no idea what to say or do to impress you. I just knew I had to. And when the coffee went flying, and you got all flustered…well, I knew we were okay. I knew you'd laugh at my ‘most beautiful' joke and I knew we'd hit it off.
    "You knew that? How?"
    "I'm not sure. I guess because if you really were the cold, aloof type, you wouldn't have reacted that way to the spill. And to tell the truth, by then I had a feeling, but it was probably more hoping than knowing how you'd react to the joke."
    Jillian found herself nodding, pleased that his answers were so honest and unguarded.
    "Since we're doing True Confessions here, I had planned to come in all cold and aloof, what you were expecting, just to test you. I was really afraid you were playing me and I didn't