Bea smirked to herself at that. “Yeah, okay,” she replied coyly. There was definitely some “more than friends” action going on between the two, whether Selene or Eve would admit it or not. Hell, Eve never would admit it on her own. She definitely struggled with romantic relationships, that was for sure.
Bea hadn’t known Eve as long as some other employees, like Katherine, but she wasn’t completely new to the scene either, like Jenny. But she’d been around long enough to at least witness Eve’s last relationship. A guy named Peter. He’d basically used her for her money, then broke up with her when she stopped letting him spend whatever he wanted on her card.
The worse part was that she had been desperately in love with him, so she pleaded to win him back. He’d slept with her, stolen her credit card, then left again. Eve managed to lock her card before he could actually use it, but the emotional damage had already been done. She’d been miserable for weeks.
Eve was normally standoffish or cold, especially to men. She had given up on the hope of genuine kindness in the world, but when Selene had approached her with the drawing, then come back to check on her and ask for her number… something had clicked inside of Eve. It was like the possibility of genuine kindness was real, and she’d found it in the form of Selene. And when the relationship had veered into flirty, it felt so natural that Eve hadn’t realized the path they were heading down until it was 2 in the morning and she was up texting the strange, beautiful girl she’d met just hours earlier.
Bea nodded at Selene’s words. Her eyebrows arched in disbelief. “Days?” she asked incredulously. “You’ve only known her for days? I would have guessed at least a week, maybe two or three. She’s so open with you,” the girl marveled. “I wonder if she’d let you read something she wrote. No one here knows what she writes, but she sits at that—” a pause to point at a specific chair “—spot every day for almost 2 hours looking around and people watching and writing.”
It didn’t take a genius to notice Selene was distracted, and it was even easier to guess why. Eve was back in the “coffee making area” blending ingredients together and squirting something along the inside of the cup. She was so focused on the drink that when she looked up and noticed Selene looking at her, she jumped slightly before refocusing on pouring vanilla syrup into the mixture she had going. As silly as it sounded since Eve was a barista, she was an expert in her field.
Bea smirked expectantly as she waited for Selene’s reaction. When it came, the barista enjoyed watching the young woman stammer over her words and put together her rationale regarding Eve’s secretive love of smut. “Justify it however you want,” she teased. “Just don’t tell her I told you.” Bea took Selene’s glare easily, miming a kiss in return. That had Eve immediately finishing the drink and beelining for the counter.
“Back so soon?” Bea chirped at Eve’s hurried arrival. She smiled innocently as expressions played across her boss’s face until she settled on a frown directed at her employee.
“You’re incredibly frustrating,” Eve muttered before turning to Selene with a softened expression and put the drink on the counter in front of her. “Would you like me to tell you what it is before or after you try it?” she asked.
