Page 12 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter Ten

T he physiotherapist gave me a set of exercises to do, but Beanevolence is hopping, and I get all the exercise the doc could want by pulling espresso, lifting cauldrons of beans, and hefting around crates of milk, platters of scones, and jars of sugar.

And Hadi had worried that the new version of our coffee wouldn't be popular.

Ha.

Our first open Monday, the usual morning customers boomerang back in that afternoon, which isn’t normal. On Tuesday, they’ve brought their friends along. By Wednesday, there’s an honest-to-god line up at the counter.

Dikembe and Mauli swing by to get a look at our new employee and send me text messages like Isn't that the dude you want to climb like a tree?

And a string of frankly obscene emojis. I try to run them off with free lattes, pointedly in to go cups.

Instead, they slide into the leather club chairs and refuse to move for the rest of my shift, which means I'm forced to introduce them.

Dike offers a congenial handshake which Dav takes with all the calm seriousness of a soldier greeting the spouse of a commanding officer, and Mauli invites him for drinks at the Brass Monkey.

I'm desperate for Dav to say yes, but I'm not surprised when his posture goes ever so slightly stiffer, his lips roll inward, and he flicks his eyes at me like he's afraid of disappointing me.

"S'cool if you have other plans," I offer, giving him the out.

Dav retreats gracefully, and Dike and Mau spend Wednesday evening waggling their eyebrows at me and coming up with increasingly lewd scenarios for me to 'accidentally' fall into Dav's embrace.

We drink about twelve pints of craft beer between us, as Dike keeps a running list on his phone of every romance novel trope Mau can look up on theirs.

I don't tell them that I'd never actually do any of these things to Dav.

One, some of them are kind of sneaky. Two, the rest would startle him so bad the whole block would catch fire. Three, he doesn't like me like that.

The next morning, Hadi 'likes' every single photo posted of us in increasingly ludicrous and drunken arrangements, recreating front-cover poses.

Or, at least, trying to recreate them. At one point the waitress had brought over a table cloth, and a birthday girl at a nearby table had donated her tiara.

In the cold hung-over light of morning, I decide that I'd look very pretty in a wedding dress.

By Thursday, I'm worried we're going to run out of green beans before the weekend.

Hadi's already put in a second and a third order.

Friday morning, there's a lineup snaking past the entrance of the darkened comedy bar next door when I arrive to open.

Dav waits for me on the cement planter box by the entrance, dressed this time in a sharp blue waistcoat and trouser set that should look costumey, and instead just looks delectable. His shirt is the color of his eyes.

"Shit, man, you're making me look bad." I shake his hand in our new daily greeting. Dav likes formality. I like touching him. "I'm gonna have to up my style game."

Dav perks up. "My tailor could—"

"Whoa up. Five-packs of shirts is all I can afford. Let's open before the mob riots."

With Dav’s help, it takes just fifteen minutes to get the first two pots of coffee going and the initial batch of scones and muffins in the oven.

When we let them in, Dav mans the cash, charming the panties off everyone, regardless of their gender and sexual orientation.

I handle the drinks, barely able to keep up.

Our summer morning rush used to last about half an hour, and if it was a good day, it consisted of maybe twenty orders.

During the school year, it's usually about an hour, and maybe a hundred cups.

Today it lasts two and a half hours and I don't know how many people we serve, but I make over twenty pots of coffee and god knows how many lattes.

It feels like we just caffeinated the entire non-student population of St. Catharines.

By the time I've got the chance to sneak to the back for a glass of water and one of the muffins that had come out wonky, it's practically noon. I’m sweaty and, ugh, so not attractive right now.

"That's all of them," Dav says, coming to join me. Wonder of wonders, he's got a caramel latte for me. "I noticed that you didn't get any for yourself."

I have just enough manners not to stick my nose right into his attempt at foam art.

The coffee is everything it's been all week, tasty in a way I can't pin down.

The flavor is different, yeah, but there's something satisfying about it.

I made up the Beanevolence dark roast that I keep in my house yesterday just to compare, and the difference was like trying to put skim milk on toast instead of the best salted butter you've ever had.

My mouth gets ahead of my brain again, my traitorous taste-buds acting as a distraction.

"I love you," I blurt, as soon as I come up for air. Dav makes a noise like a pinched kitten. "Sorry, dumb joke."

"Joke," he echoes, but it's strangled. Dav shutters up, like I've pulled the cord on his emotional blinds. He sets down his own mug on the metal worktop with a clatter.

Oooooooh, fuck, what have I done?

"Dav, uh—"

I'm not sure what I was actually going to say just there, but it's fine, because I don't get the chance to get it out, anyway. He’s already retreated to the front, slow and calm like he hasn't a care in the world.

I’ve offended him, I think. He's having a freak out. Shit.

I didn't mean it!

I did mean it.

Shit .

Before I can screw up my courage to face Dav—to say what, apologize? Be honest? Oh, fuck—the electronic door-chime goes off.

I can hear Dav speaking to the customer. I curl my fingers around the edge of the worktop, arms rigid, claw wounds twinging. I let myself take ten whole seconds to bite my tongue hard enough that it begins to hurt, to punish myself for my stupid mouth.

Then I straighten up, stick on my Customer Service smile, and go out to make coffee.

I don’t work Saturdays. So when my phone rings at 11am, Hadi’s name jangling obnoxiously across my screen, I'm already halfway into my jeans before I answer.

"Y'ello," I say, struggling to hold my phone against my head and pull on a shirt.

"We're slammed and your dragon won't let us into the kitchen."

"He's not mine," I repeat, jamming my feet into my chucks.

" Colin !"

"I'm already out the door," I reassure her, and jingle my keys next to the mic. She hangs up on me without saying bye, like she's some character on TV or something. It bugs me, and Hadi knows it.

Someone tries to give me guff when I slip through the door ahead of the line, but I toss "Man, I work here," over my shoulder at him. I offer a wave to Min-soo at the cash, snag up the bin of dirty cups, and shoulder into the kitchen.

Okay, so the other reason I wanted to come in was that I didn’t like how I left things with Dav yesterday. He’d spent the rest of the day avoiding me. Not keeping his distance from me like we were opposite ends of a magnet, but emotionally. Like a life-sized model decoy of Dav.

It sucked, and it was my fault. I had hurt or offended him, though I wasn't sure how, and it had something to do with jokingly professing my love. He'd clammed up when I'd teased about getting married too, and yeah, okay, I'm an asshole because I’m just realizing that there's a pattern there.

Clearly not into me.

Maybe he’s even the kind of rigidly straight that can't even handle queer teasing.

So I had to make sure he was okay, and find a way to be his friend again.

He looks up as I slam in the door, red-faced and disheveled, waistcoat and pocket watch missing and wearing only a slightly sweaty tank top— holy fuck, shoulders !—and scowling.

"I believe I asked you to knock before—Colin," he says, surprise making his eyebrows bounce once before that painful non-expression slaps into place.

"Hi," I say, which is both inadequate and stupid.

I set the bin down, swap out the clean mugs in the industrial dishwasher and return them to the front, then knock before I come back to start grinding beans. Seeing him standing there, hair floppy, exhausted, tight lines around his eyes, another wave of guilt slams into me.

"You know you don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"I want to," Dav says, chin lifted, jaw set.

"You don't actually owe us." I turn away to start filling the big grinder.

"I want to be here. Colin, I—"

It's a dick move, but I turn on the machine before he can make another excuse or tell me another lie.

He clearly doesn't . Or at least, he doesn't want to be around me anymore.

That much is obvious by the upright way he holds himself (the stiff way he used to be, before he let me doze on his shoulder in the hospital waiting room as he read me a love story), the way his nostrils keep flaring as if I'm something disgusting, the way he keeps the table between us.

My homophobic student rez roommate in first year did the same.

Okay, fine; so Dav isn't the only one who's upset, alright?

"You need me," Dav says, as soon as the noise from the grinder isn't jamming up my hearing. I scoop grounds into a glass jar. My hands are shaking. I spill a little hill of coffee on the worktop.

"We don't, actually," I say, and it's mean , but I can't stop myself. My brain is outside my body watching my mouth move and willing it to stop, but it's not. "It's unseemly , anyway."

"Colin—"

I turn to face him so fast I scatter the hill of grounds in an arc across the floor.

"What was it?" I snap. "What's pissed you off so much you won't even talk to me?"

"I am talking to you," Dav says darkly.

"What I said, it was a joke ."

"Was it?" Dav asks, but it's not a question. It's more like a challenge. "And do you often proposition your colleagues? Profess your love over sloppily made lattes?"

"Yes!" I say. " As a joke ."

"So it was meaningless, your confession?"

"Yes!" I throw my hands up, and wince when my right bicep burns.

Dav steps around the table, hands flexing, fingers opening and closing.

Steeling himself.

"What if I don't want it to be?"

I think I'm getting whiplash.

"What?" I ask.

He stops so close I could count the flecks of deep orange in his irises.

"What if I don't want it to be a joke?" Dav asks, leaning in, voice rich with that draconic rumble.

Holy shit, is he about to kiss me?

I can't help it, I lick my lips, drop my eyes down to his, wonder if they're as fussily cared for as his hair, his manicures, his waxed eyebrows. Does he sugar-scrub his lips? Will he taste sweet?

"Colin!" he growls when I haven't answered. "Tell me. What if I don't want it to be a joke?"

"Uh… um…" I say, oh, so cleverly, and lick my lips again. My mouth is suddenly so dry my throat clicks.

Is this happening?

I think it's happening.

Oh, shit , this is happening. "Dav, I…" Fuck it. You know what? Fuck it. Screw Hadi's rules. I don't even care if I regret it. I will regret it more if I don't take a shot at it. So I stretch up my neck, aim for his—

Dav takes my hand.

I freeze.

It’s gentle, but it feels like he's pushed a bolt of lightning through my skin. His long fingers caress my palm, skim lightly across the sensitive underside of my wrist, over my pulse point. I gasp like one of the protagonists in my books, light and surprised, because I am surprised.

I watch him lift my hand, gaze locked on mine, making sure I'm watching him do it. Then, gently, he presses his lips to my knuckles.

And it's… it's intimate .

The feel of his breath on my skin, the slight dampness, the heat. His lips are warmer than the rest of him, and I want to know if it's because he's been breathing fire, or if this is another dragon thing. Is his mouth always this hot?

I want to put my tongue against his to gauge it.

Dav's watching me, carefully, thumb brushing across the spot he'd kissed.

It sends goosebumps racing up my arm, to shiver along my scalp.

Every part of me feels honed in on that single, sweet point of connection between us.

It's erotic in a way I would never have written, and yet, to have him standing so close, practically sharing the same air, my hand in his. ..

"Dav…" I whisper. I have no idea what to say. What to ask for. I should be apologizing, but would that ruin the gravity of this… what is this? A confession? "I don't—

"Hey assholes!" Hadi snarls from the other side of the kitchen door.

Dav springs back so fast he slams into the table. He is back to prim posture and folded hands, though this time his attention is on the floor, on the footprints marked out against the white tile in spilled coffee. I feel bad that I've wasted his hard work like that.

When I look over, Hadi is peering around the doorframe. "If you're going to have a domestic, don't do it in my kitchen. Everyone can hear you two shouting. Fuck." She pinches the bridge of her nose. "You know what, Dav hasn't taken lunch. Colin, get him out of here for an hour. Work out your shit."

She yanks the door closed behind her, slamming it with a ringing thunk , and turns up the café muzak.

My face burns , and the blush must match Dav's, because he's as red as a tomato, freckles lost in the flag of color, eyes obscured by the flop of his hair. It’s not a good look for him.

And yet I just want to grab him, throw him up against the fridge door, and cover his mouth with mine, and shit, yeah, Hadi was right.

Time for a break.