“It’s right down there,” she says, stopping infront of me where she folds over with her hands resting above her knees as shetries to catch her breath. Unfortunately, I think she left it a block away, thesame place she dropped her sanity. Who runs in four-inch leather boots?

“Listen—” she breathes. Homegirl needs oxygen,and fast. “Girl—”

“Stop. Catch your breath before you faint outhere.”

“No, there’s no time,” she says, like we’re inthe middle of a Netflix thriller.

There’s no time.

I laugh internally. I love this girl with herdramatic self.

“Paris, what are you—?”

“He’s here!” she pants, breathes and chokes out.

“Who’s here?”

“Gray—Grayson.” She takes a breath. “He’s here,and I think he’s headed here next.”

My stomach hits a backflip while my breath hitchesin my throat. This can’t be. He’s not here. He left here and has neverbeen back here. Why would he be here now?

I ask, “And how do you know that, Sha’Carri?”

She stands straight up now after she’s calmedherself down a bit and huffs out, “I was—whew!—I was at the deli. Youremember Grayson’s friend, Torrence?”

Yeah, I remember that buster. I think he’s theone who’s been feeding Grayson information about me over the years.

“Anyway, he was sitting in a booth around thecorner and had his phone on speaker. Like, who talks with their phone onspeaker in public? But, whatevs. I heard everything they said. Graysonspecifically asked about you. Torrence, with his big, wide bass mouth, startstelling him how you’re the pumpkin spice girl and how everybody comes toyour café for the latte, right? So, Grayson said he was gon’ swing by and seewhat all the fuss was about. Torrence was like, uh, you sure you want to dothat, bruh? And then Grayson was like, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see me. Andthen, Torrence erupted in laughter, sounding like a wild hyena. That’s when Igot up and ran down here.”

“Like somebody set a fire to your rear end.”

“Yeah! Did you hear what I said?” she asks, hereyes wide.

“I heard you, and thanks, Paris, but you could’vejust called me.”

“There was no time! I did say that already,didn’t I?”

“But there was time to sprint? In them stripperboots? Paris, stop your mess,” I say, stepping back into the café with her onmy heels.

From Pumpkin Spice and You, available on Kindle Unlimited.