"Hey Chad, could you dry these cups for me?"
"Sure thing, Beth." Chad said taking the tray of colored coffee mugs from Beth. From her own heartaches of the past, Beth recognized the tone of his voice was filled with hurt and pain.
"You okay?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"You just don't seem to thrilled to be here and as many hours as you like to work, it's a shock."
"I guess I'm just tired," he said shaking his head. "You know with that double wedding yesterday."
"Yeah." Beth said now with her own unhappy tone.
Chad stopped drying the mug and sat in down sighing realizing he had said the wrong thing. "I'm sorry, Beth."
"No, it's fine. Luis and I were over a long time ago. It just wasn't meant to be...even though I thought it was."
"I guess nothing really ends up the way you think it will or hope." Remembering the words that had been spoken to him the day before, Chad went back to drying the mugs.
Looking to the side, Beth looked back at Chad, "You know I think I have something that will make you feel better."
"What's that?" He said humoring her, knowing only one heart-stopping woman and three little words could make his day.
"It's coming right through the door," she said before turning around and going off the clear tables.
Chad glanced over and his heart stopped.
 

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Simone was walking through the Town Green heading straight for the Book Cafe thinking of good, adult conversations to have with Chad.
'I have to make sure he sees me as a mature, but fun, young, but not TOO young, woman. Key word is woman. That must be how he sees Whitney.'
Simone's blood began to boil with just the mere thought of her tennis-turned-Chad obsessed sister. Just as Simone turned the corner around a row of bushes, a, what felt like brick wall, plow into her, sending her falling to the ground.
"What the hell?" Out from behind her, two hands touched her shoulders.
"Oh, dang, I'm sorry Simone."
"'Sorry' doesn't remove the pain from my --- hey, how did you know my..." She said turning around. "Ty?"
"Remove the pain from you what?" he said with a smile.
Giving Ty a slight smile, Simone moved to get herself off the ground.
"I haven't seen ya since school let out," he said moving infront of Simone and helping her up. "I heard about the hit and run, you look like you're doing good."
"I am. I'm hoping they find who did it, but there isn't any evidence. No witnesses of anything."
No, that she and Ty were both standing, Simone got a full view of her high school classmate. He was wearing a blue T-shirt with some band logo placed in the center, baggy, faded blue jeans, sneakers, and an orange bandana slightly covering, but holding back his short dreadlocks. Suddenly Simone remembered the pain of her fall.
"So what was your hurry?"
"Oh, I was going to be late for an appointment and I didn't feel like having my ass chewed off." Glancing at his watch and then back at Simone, "But now I'm really late, so it doesn't really matter."
"What kind of an appointment do you have?"
"Ah, community service at the Youth Center." He said sticking his hands in his pockets.
"Community service? What did you do?"
"Well, see, if I told you, I'd have to..."
"What? Kill me?" Simone said with a laugh.
"Oh, it doesn't matter what I say or what I did to receive my extracurricular activity, I'd never be able to harm a beauty like you."
Acting surprised by what came out of his mouth, Ty let out a sigh and chuckled to himself.
"Ya know what? Now I'm extremely late, so I will see you later." He said before darting off.
"Bye." That was the only word Simione could get out of her mouth with all of the thoughts going through her head distracting her.
'Was her flirting with me? And what was up with his tone when he said the word 'will'? It's like he was making sure he was defiantly going to be seeing me.'
Suddenly, Simone remembered her mission for the day: go see Chad at the Book Cafe.
She set off, unaware of what she would find once she gets there.
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