Painless

Chapter Ten

“When I called the house, Brandy’s mom said she was at this music café called Cool Beans with her friends,” I said, as Agent Carson maneuvered the car through the lunchtime traffic.

            “She just told a complete stranger where her tween-age daughter was?” he asked, incredulous.

            “Not exactly. I told her that I was a friend of Brandy’s and had forgotten where we were meeting this afternoon,” I said. “And shouldn’t back-up be seen and not heard?”

I glanced over just in time to see an amused smirk spread across his lips. The reaction annoyed me, but as I continued to focus on his lips, something else was sparked deep down inside me: Attraction. Not at all what I was expecting to pop into my head, and I tried to get rid of the feelings right away but the damage had already been done. I wanted to suck those lips right off his face. The image of a lipless Agent Carson was almost as disturbing to me as the thought of actually kissing him. Then again, maybe under normal circumstances…

No, we’d met under normal circumstances—well, normal for me, at least—and even then he’d barely been a blip on my radar. Still, there was something that intrigued me about him…

I’m sure the feeling will pass. Just like a rash.

            I turned my focus back to the plan at hand as Agent Carson slowed the car down and pulled into a spot directly in front of Cool Beans. As the engine died I stepped out of the car slowly, and surveyed the store in front of me. Pseudo teen rock music blared as the front door opened and closed. Peering in the floor-to-ceiling windows, I could see more than a few dozen teenagers milling around.

            It was like my own personal hell.

            As soon as I walked inside, the blast of chatter hit me, making me slightly nostalgic for a life I’d never had. The place was bigger than it looked from the outside. Rows and rows of music stands littered the store floor, with listening stations set up throughout the room. A few feet away from the front door was a long coffee counter with several baristas serving up fancy drinks to the kids lined up and in need of a caffeine jolt. Most of the large, bright chairs and couches that lined the walls were already filled with teens hanging out with their friends, reading magazines and drinking their caramel macchiatos and vanilla lattes.

            I would’ve loved to have had a place like this back home. If I had friends to meet there of course, and disposable time to spend sitting around and whittling my life away. Hanging out at coffee houses was the luxury of people with long, full lives ahead of them and time to kill.

            And that so wasn’t me.

            The picture of Brandy that I’d found online left me looking for a young girl with curly brown hair and large eyes. I only had to glance around the room for a few seconds before spotting her. Sitting on the side of a plush purple chair, I watched as she giggled with her friends and bopped her head along to the music blaring out of the speakers suspended overhead. She was a bit on the chunky side, as if she hadn’t quite lost her baby fat. But still, she was a pretty enough girl. Probably even popular at her school. No wonder Joanie was drawn to her.

            Feeling Benji come up beside me, I leaned toward him and shouted just above the noise. “What do you want to drink? My treat.”

            “Uh, I’m not exactly a mochaccino kind of guy,” he said, studying the menu with a puzzled look on his face.

            “No problem, slick. I’ll surprise you,” I said, taking my turn at the counter. I ordered a double-shot vanilla cream latte for myself, and a blended caramel frappaccino for my non-caffeinated friend. Once I’d paid and we were both sipping from our cups, we made our way over to where Brandy and her friends were sitting. As if on cue, a table opened up right next to them and we snagged the seats before anyone else could. I nonchalantly looked around like I was checking out the scene, when I was really just waiting for the best time to make my move.