He looked so different with his sunglasses and black clothes. He’d changed since high school, no doubt. I didn’t know him anymore.
Tea-bag boy got up from his table and brought his empty cup to the counter. “Can I get some more hot water?”
I nodded, turning with the mug. As the steam curled up toward my face, I wondered if maybe I had been wrong to stay completely away from dating. If I had some other person in my life, Gavin probably wouldn’t have such an impact. This guy seemed normal.
Smile. Turn around and be nice. Give yourself something else to think about. I picked up the mug and carried it back to the counter. The boy wore a white shirt and cargo shorts. His hair was shaggy and dirty blond, his eyes hazel. When I didn’t let go of the mug, he raised his eyebrows. “You okay?”
“Sorry. Here you go.” God, I’d messed up already.
“Thanks.” He took the mug and headed back to his seat.
Some start. I watched him walk away, a little on the lean side, but intriguing and deep, like he could be an indie musician or maybe someone who wrote dark stories. There was an intensity in him, just below the surface of his laid-back ease.
He sat down and looked back at me, catching my stare.
I whirled around. Hell. I was mucking this up something awful. I sat on the stool and began a mindless task, picking up a bottle of syrup for Italian sodas and wiping it down with a damp cloth.
Fact was, I’d never dated, ever. Gavin was my best friend from before I could remember. We grew up together, and our relationship transitioned from talking about cartoons and games to who was starting to pair off and how far they were going.
My first kiss had been when I was twelve. We watched Hello, Dolly! and I was full of romantic expectation. I asked Gavin what it must have been like for those couples to kiss, and he hadn’t said a word, but took my hand and led me to my room, then my closet, shutting the door behind us.
A little light came in through the slats, crossing his face with fine lines. “What are we doing?” I whispered, even though I had known, my belly fluttering.
He placed a palm against each of my cheeks and leaned in, brushing his lips against mine.
The closet burst into color like the Fourth of July, sparks flying behind my eyes. I closed them without knowing I should.
Gavin leaned back. “Do you think we did that right?”
I put my hands on top of his and nodded. Something started that day. This happiness I always felt around him changed from something simple to a yearning, and I didn’t know what for.
But we kept kissing, a lot, more and more. In fact, with that head start, we jumped ahead of the curve for most of the things boys and girls did together.
“Miss?”
My head snapped up. Tea-bag boy was back.
I hopped off the stool and set the syrup bottle down. I had never gotten past the first one.
“Yes! Can I help you?”
He didn’t answer right away, and I could see he only came up to talk to me. “I just thought,” he began and looked back at his table, as if it might give him a clue to what he was after, then turned back to me. “You seemed…something.”
Panic rose in my chest. Jenny and the others had been right about him, and now I’d given him a reason to think I was interested. I had a hard time breathing, and I wondered why I had considered seeing anyone. It had just been too long since I felt this way, this crazy horrifying fear that I might be attracted to someone, that I might rely on them, and that they might just disappear.
The boy tipped his head. “Are you okay?”
“I —” Crap. I what? “I have to go turn something off.”
I raced along the counter and burst through the door to the back room. God, god, god. What was wrong with me? Would I be ruined forever? I leaned against a wall, one hand to my chest. My coworker Jason was supposed to be here, to help. Where was he? I wasn’t up for being out there. I should be doing my setup work in the back.
My chest had gone all tight. I knew what I should do, breathe slowly and relax, but instead I did the same thing as always and held my breath, making it worse, watching the spots flash in front of my eyes. Everything started going dark and my knees buckled. Without anything blocking my airflow, I knew I’d just sink to the floor, conk my head, and then come back around. I’d done it a thousand times in the last few years. It helped. For a few minutes, I always felt like I knew what it had been like for baby Finn, after the ventilator went off, and his little chest stopped moving up and down —
My head hit the floor.
The cold of the concrete against my cheek started bringing me back. The room returned in degrees, first dark, then lighter, then slowly gaining color and sound. I sat on the floor, my back against a wire rack of mugs. Stupid. I shouldn’t have done this here. I could have brought down a whole pile of dishes and lost an entire paycheck.
Or someone could have found me and seen just how crazy I could be.
I heaved myself up and headed to the sink. The water splashing on my face and neck helped me relax and regain control. I didn’t know any other way to cope.
I didn’t have to accept or reject that boy out there. I was going to be fine.
When I walked back out, another customer, a girl, was in line behind the boy. I couldn’t believe he was still standing there.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Did you need something?”
He looked confused and anxious. “I just — you seemed —” He stopped talking and stepped to the side so the girl could come up.
“I need another mocha latte,” she said, casting a quick glance at the boy.
“No problem,” I said and whirled away. The moment was gone. The boy would move on. I would never look at another one again, not until I knew I could handle it, whenever that might be.
When I turned around, the girl was pulling out one of those digital cigarettes. “We don’t allow those inside,” I said and pushed her latte across the counter.
“It’s not a real cigarette.”
“I know, but still, we ask you to take those things on the patio.”
The girl frowned. “I know my rights. There is no ban on these right now.”
This was making my day even better. I took in a deep breath, still feeling the constriction in my chest from my episode. “I don’t make the rules. I just get fired if I don’t enforce them.”
She dropped a five on the counter and picked up her latte. “So kick me out.” Her heavy footfalls on the hardwood floor echoed through the room as she stomped back to her table to make a big show of lifting the e-cig to her lips.
I couldn’t bear to look at the boy, who was still standing by the counter. This was humiliating, plus a problem. Martin wouldn’t really fire me, but he’d be upset. We kept asking him to put up a sign about the e-cigs, but so far he hadn’t done it.
“Hey.” The boy’s expression was full of sympathy. “If you could use a break from all this later, this is me.” He pushed a napkin toward me. “It’ll go straight to my phone.”
The napkin stuck to my damp hand. Austin Thompson. OneQuirkyDude44 was his e-mail handle, which struck me as funny.
“Made you smile.” He tapped the counter twice and turned back to his table.
Jason burst through the back door, his dreadlocks flying behind him. “So freaking sorry. Traffic was a bugger.”
I folded up the napkin and stuck it in my apron pocket. “It’s fine. Only two people here.”
He caught me tucking the note away, but had the sense not to say anything about it. Instead, he pushed an errant hunk of hair out of his face. “Old Man Martin is going to sock it to me if I’m late anymore.”
“He won’t hear it from me,” I said.