I sighed again as I sipped my fourth double mocha espresso of the afternoon. I continued to stare down at the blank page on the table in front of me with my pen tapping, but the words just wouldn’t come. For some reason, my creativity had a huge block that kept me from accessing it.
I groaned and set my cardboard cup down, flinging my pen halfway across the table. Why was it that I just couldn’t write anymore? I spent hour upon hour wracking my brain for ideas but when I tried to formulate the plot lines into words on a page, they froze in my mind and were completely lost forever in the abyss.
It wasn’t even like I was going through a bad time in my life or anything, either. I had everything I could possibly want. I was twenty-four, single, and rich and famous. I lived in a penthouse at the top of an apartment building that overlooked the small coffee shop I was currently sitting in again.
I felt happy. Life was good. I didn’t speak with my parents much, but we were never really that close anyway. I drove out of the city once or twice a month to visit them and stay for a day or two between jobs.
I was a freelance writer for more magazines than I could count on ten hands. I just kept getting project after project as soon as I graduated college with a master’s degree in English.
Someone opened the door of the shop and I shivered when the freezing cold air hit me like a tidal wave. I pulled my coat tighter around myself and grabbed my coffee cup again, seeking its warmth. I took a big sip from it and although it was scalding hot, I barely felt the liquid. I’d heard that warmth was supposed to spread throughout your body when you drank something hot like tea or coffee, but I’d never felt that way.
It was as if the warm feelings evaporated on the spot. Like my body just couldn’t hold them. Maybe that was why I was having such issues writing a story. Maybe the ideas were like the warmth and couldn’t be sustained. Maybe there was some sort of defect in my brain that kept nerve impulses from reaching it.
Someone held a pen out in front of my face with a gloved hand. I stared at it for a minute before realizing that it was the same one that I had thrown across the table I was sitting at a few minutes ago.
“Is this yours?” a voice asked.
The voice alone made me melt. It was deep and alluring and drew me in instantly.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “Thank—”
I looked up into his gorgeous brown eyes.
And smiled.
And just like that, the ideas came flooding back and itched to come out on paper. The heat from the cardboard coffee cup I was holding sped through my fingers, down my arms, and straight into my heart.