I sipped my coffee and waited in the café, shutting my book after reading the same sentence for the tenth time and giving up. On the big window next to me, tiny drops of water raced towards the bottom. Looking past them, I saw people running to whatever could shelter them from the storm. ‘He’ll probably never come,’ I thought. ‘It was just a joke and I mindlessly just said yes to it. I’m an idiot.’
He started talking to me a couple months before, and the conversations always had me stumbling through my thoughts in embarrassment and slight confusion. He wasn’t godlike in appearances but his eyes sort of scrunched up with his smile and it was sort of endearing and he seemed to listen to me when I rambled. At least, nodded when a good nod was due and continued smiling at my direction. What was frustrating, though, was that I never learned his name, despite him knowing mine and this somehow continued for months.
The small bell attached to the door jingled as people stepped in from the rain, louder when they left, like they were opening the door to hell; or maybe the wind did it. The place was quiet otherwise, with a soft radio playing a playlist of current and past hits that had the right mood for a quiet night. People sat at their small tables, working on their laptops or reading. I glanced at a girl grimacing at her phone, to a bald man in his 50s occasionally smacking his caveman laptop to try and get it to work, I imagined. A well-dressed couple next to him sat in silence with what looked like tickets to something on the table. They seemed mad at each other for some reason. 'Maybe I could write about them later? What even happened?'
The door’s bell rang again and I perked my head up at the noise. I turned around to see a girl from school I barely recognized making a bee-line to the counter to order. I slumped into my chair.
He was just the guy who sits behind me in English. Just a classmate who has a good smile and probably listens to me talk, which was the whole reason I ended up listening for anyone coming through the door like an excited puppy in this café I wanted to try. I rambled about it once and he took it as an opportunity to meet me there.
“So, do you wanna go Saturday, Steph? I’m free if you are.”
His voice sounded serious enough, so at the time I was pretty sure it wasn’t a prank or anything like that. He grinned at me with so much patience until I eventually said yes.
I sighed and took a sip of coffee, closing my eyes. The chair across from me scrapped against the ground loudly making me jump and jerk my eyes open.
The guy sits down, grinning at me with hazel eyes— and in a barista uniform with no name tag. ‘Dammit.’
“Sorry I’m late, had work,” he said laughing.
I blinked for a moment still in a bit of surprise, “You didn’t say you worked here.”
“Oh, whoops,” he interrupted, “I guess not. So, how long were you waiting? Do you like the coffee?”
Well, I figured out why he wanted me to come to the café. No wonder he was smiling so much. “Um, yeah, actually. I didn’t have to tweak it or anything.”
“I’m sure Mark is flattered, but, hey, I still have a question unanswered, Stephanie,” his voice was crisp and yet he played with the last syllables of my name with a strange sing-song tone.
“Um… couple hours, I think. Not sure, I was reading,” I said. I turned my eyes away to look at the wall, to the coffee, to my book.
“Really? How the hell did I miss you? I’ve been here since four.” He looked kind of embarrassed. “Though I was closing up stuff in the back for a while so…”
“Hey, I’ve got a question, too,” I said.
“Hm?” His head popped back up from his thoughts, whatever they were. “Oh, what’s up?”
“This wasn’t supposed to be a date, right?”
The melody returned with a smirk, “And if it was?”
“Then,” I started to say something but I didn’t know.
“Well, I wanted to ask you out, but my schedule’s a bit weird with school and working here. So I kinda just took a chance at it. Sorry, it seems kind of selfish now that I think about it… But I read your poems in class and wanted to get to know you. You really should write a bit smaller, Steph,” he laughed. “People can see how good you are. Your stuff is usually pretty grim but it’s nice. You use a lot of imagery and great metaphors, I don’t know, I like what I’ve seen.”
I was stunned. He never mentioned seeing my poetry. I could only laugh, and wave it off. Conversation became easy, and we talked about our teacher and the silly assignments he did to make us all get along and express ourselves. Somehow being exposed made things a little easier to open up.
Eventually, he yawned and said, “Hey, do you wanna get out of here? I know some place down the street and coffee and scones don’t really fill the stomach.”
‘Screw it.’ “Hey, another question.”
“Yeah?”
“What’s your name?”
He laughed.
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