Page 15 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter Twelve

A s we walk back to Beanevolence, I decide that it's a lovely day to set myself on fire.

Not because Dav and I have still got pinkies curled around one another—it’s disgustingly twee, and I freaking love it , okay—but because when we get back, Hadi is standing at the window with her stupid phone out.

The garage door-windows are open, so she has a clear and unobstructed sight-line when she snaps what I assume is going to be an embarrassing photo.

"Do you have to?" I ask her as Dav drops my hand to open the door. Like the gentleman he is. Not like a sneaky sneak friend stealing pics.

She wouldn't hold the door for me.

She wouldn't kiss my hand either.

I'm okay with that.

"What’d she do?" Dav asks, a puzzled look on his face putting a vertical line between his eyebrows. I just want to, like, kiss it away. But there are a dozen people in the café, and Hadi is grinning at us, and Dav, I'm figuring out, likes his privacy. So no PDAs.

"She's being a punk." I hold up two fingers at her when we get inside. "Rules One and Two, okay?"

"Okay," she says. "You look cute."

"Fuck off."

Hadi laughs and drops her phone into her hoodie pocket. "We're completely out of all the baked stuff, my nerds."

"I'll put in some trays," Dav agrees, rolling up his shirtsleeves.

I hand over the sandwiches Dav had suggested we bring back from the restaurant for Hadi and Min-soo—he'd paid for all of it, even though I told him he didn't have to—and relieve Min-soo at the till.

It's not so busy now that I can't take orders and make coffee at the same time.

We tend to taper off in the evenings, with no student study groups to fill the sofas and tables.

"That's thoughtful." Hadi peers into the take-away box at the roasted veggie sammie I knew she'd like. "Thanks Colin."

"Thank Dav."

He gives her a little wave as he disappears through the kitchen door.

As soon as he's gone, Min-soo crowds me up against the front counter.

"So?" Min-soo asks, lit up with intense delight. "Is he a good kisser? I bet he's a great kisser. Did he dip you? He looks so Hollywood!"

"I don't know?"

"Is that a question?"

"I don't know," I repeat. "He hasn't kissed me yet. I mean, my hand, but not my—"

"He kissed your hand? " Min-soo squeals, and it's loud enough that I clamp my palm over her mouth.

"He can probably hear us!"

"No, I can't," Dav calls from behind the kitchen door, and my lungs constrict with mortification.

"Sorry!" I push Min-soo back so I can wash my hands.

"By all means—please keep flattering me. My ears are burning." His voice is tinged with embarrassment, and it knocks me for a loop that I can tell.

"I'll set the rest of you on fire, too, if you don't cut it out!"

Dav laughs in that beautiful baritone. I am so gone on this guy. This is ridiculous.

Min-soo honest-to-god clutches her hands together over her heart. "It's like Desires Aflame in a Time of War ."

I know that's her favorite K-Drama because the little witch got me hooked on it too, and now it's my favorite K-Drama.

"It absolutely is not. Now either go on your break or help me with the recycling."

Min-soo hates taking the recycling bags down to 'The Murder Basement'.

Just because the stairs are old and open, the walls are lumpy with years of inept tenants trying to plaster, the floor is uneven from an untold number of renovations, and the lightbulb doesn't always turn on?

There's nothing scary about that. (The monster mask Hadi propped up in the corner? That's scary.)

Min-soo grabs her own sandwich box, and knocks on the kitchen door.

"Yes, alright, come in," Dav calls after a minute, and his voice is low and husky from the flame.

He must have just started roasting, but it sounds like something else, though, like his voice is husky for another reason and I stick my hand in my front pocket to try to adjust the lay of my skinny jeans as subtly as I can.

Min-soo darts through with a quick, "Congrats, Dav," and then I hear the back door open.

"Congratulations?" Dav mutters in echo. I can't tell if he’s surprised or annoyed.

Hadi is still standing at the far end of the counter, looking at me.

"What?" I snap.

"I'm trying to figure out why you're not squirrely."

"I don't get squirrely."

"You do. The first week of you in love is like trying to corral a tree-rat on speed."

"It's not!"

It is.

She offers up a flat glare.

"I dunno what's different," I admit softly, hoping Dav can't hear me over the sound of breathing fire. "I just… he's so calm."

"He's a nervous wreck," Hadi corrects. "Although, only around you."

"Gee, that makes me feel special."

"Maybe it should." Hadi gives me a bro-pat before taking her lunch downstairs to her office in the Murder Basement.

Fuck. Does it?

Dav was quiet beside me on the way to lunch, withdrawn and contemplative.

He'd walked with his hands jammed in his pockets, radiating don't talk to me vibes so loudly my ears rang. But at the table, he’d opened up.

He had been honest . He'd finished his sentences.

Which I'll admit was probably because I'm making a conscious effort to stop cutting him off. I’m getting that he doesn't blurt shit out like me, and needs time to work through his thoughts.

But maybe Hadi was right. Maybe he was nervous before.

It's gotta be the other dragons that have him looking over his shoulder, minding his words. It can’t be me . Not allowed to serve , he'd said. Because of a disgrace .

The more time I spend with him, the more I see that he downplays things. I flop my poor bleeding heart out all over the place, pinned to my sleeve and oozing down my arm; Dav's heart is under seven layers of plate armor at the bottom of a dry well.

And I basically forced him to share an uncomfortable truth.

I'm an asshole.

But maybe it’s this calm willingness to be vulnerable that has me so mellow.

This, whatever this is, whatever it is we become, this feels…

different from every other time I've had a crush. The crush-part feels the same. But this bit, the getting-to-know-you bit, the let’s-go-on-a-date bit, this part feels sturdier, somehow. Nicer. Easier. Grounded.

God, don't screw this up, come on, I chide myself. Don't get in your own head too much. Let it stay easy.

"So are you gonna send me the pic?" I ask Hadi, a few hours later.

"Pull it off our social media feed."

"You what ?" I yank my phone out of my back pocket.

I had it on silent. Gemma has texted Who is that?

with a heart-eyes emoji. There's a missed call from Mum, and an email from Auntie Pattie that reads, I didn't realize it runs in the family.

I'm too annoyed someone forwarded the picture to her to ask what she means.

And there is one text from Rebekah. All it says is I approve.

Christ.

"Hadi!" I whine. "Did you have to?"

"Customers were asking who he was. Sorry, not sorry."

And the photo itself is… shit, it's nice .

Dav's hair is pushed to the side by a breeze, loose and casual, glowing in the sunlight.

He's walking a few steps ahead of me, body angled so his torso is pointed toward the camera.

God, his shoulders look amazing, his trim waist nipped in.

Today's outfit—a copper dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his top button undone, under a sharp waistcoat-and-trouser set in a deep chocolate—makes him look like some sort of bronze statue come to life.

I look like a scarecrow, caught mid-stride. I've got my chin tilted up at Dav, a wide smile on my face and a splotch of mustard on my shirt collar. (I check now, and yup, it's still there. Dammit.)

Our near arms are angled toward one another, his hip blocking most of our hands. If you weren't looking for it, you wouldn't even notice Dav and I have our pinkie fingers locked together.

Hadi's put a deep-shadowed syrupy-amber filter on the photo, so it looks like something out of Vanity Fair.

Underneath it says: Welcome to Beanevolence's newest (volunteer) employee, "Dav".

He's been helping us out since the fire, bringing his secret bean-roasting technique to the back room while we wait for our new machine to come in.

No, he won't tell us what he's doing differently either, but trust us, you gotta taste the results.

The comments are mostly congratulating Beanevolence for reopening, and a few hellos from regulars. There's an EW in the photo's comments from Mauli. Someone replied to their comment You better be joking, and Mauli backtracks in the replies with just teasing my friends .

And, holy shit, there are like ten different thirst comments. I wonder if Dav even knows what an eggplant emoji is for. And then I wonder if Dav knows what sexting is, and you know what, I am at work right now and this is not freaking appropriate.

My phone pings with a DM from Dike. It’s a copy of the photo, but with our hands pixelated out as if we're doing something x-rated.

This is too much, all at once.

I text my Mum a quick Will talk after work , and a middle finger emoji to my sister. Stuart hasn't weighed in yet, so I'm gonna assume it's only because he hasn't had the chance to check his phone in the middle of whatever job he’s at.

By the time we’re done with the afternoon rush, the pic has racked up more comments than any other post Hadi’s ever made, Dav has finished roasting two batches, baked two dozen scones, and ground enough espresso that each mason jar is packed, and Min-soo has decided she's making herself a latte. The day’s emotional rollercoastering has me worn down, and I ask if she'd mind making me one, too.

The latte she hands me is rich in a way I'm not used to, with the new flavor of the coffee, but it's tasty and frankly, I'm bushed, so I'm not ashamed to say I chug it.

Min-soo and I are discussing what kind of provisions she'll need to prep for Hadi's opening shift tomorrow when the boss herself comes upstairs.

"Alright, if we've got it all under control now, kids, I'm gonna let Colin and Dav go. I'll stick around until seven, Min-soo, and you can close at nine like usual."

"Actually, I'd like to do one more round of each roast," Dav says, sticking his head out of the kitchen door. "So perhaps tomorrow won't be so much of a mad scramble. If that's alright with you, Colin?"

"Sure," I say. "I, uh, I think I'll go home and take a shower before we go out. Change into a shirt that's less, you know, mustardy ."

Dav makes a noise I have decided to classify as a clicky-dragon-giggle. "Right. Also, I meant to tell you earlier, but there's mustard on your shirt."

"Gee, thanks, honeybun," I sneer with mock anger.

Dav’s face does something startled, and affectionate, and complicated at the silly pet-name.

"Aww," Min-soo coos.

"Eugh," Hadi teases. "If you guys are gonna get gross, keep it out of the café." I punch her arm playfully and she swats at me in retaliation, but I'm too light on my feet, too fucking delighted with the world, to get tapped back.

"Right, see you losers later. Lemmie take my mug to the back, and I'll be on my way."

"That's Min-soo's mug," Hadi says, when I grab it.

"Nah, it's mine."

"But that mug was a chocolate latte."

"Yeah," Min-soo says. "Colin asked me to make the same thing I was drinking."

"Colin can't have chocolate," Hadi says, suddenly intense.

"Shit." I stare down at the bottom of the cup. Brown sludge still clings to the side of the cup. How could I have not noticed? No wonder it tasted weird. " Shit ."

"What?" Min-soo asks, and then her eyes pop wide. "I forgot."

"And you drank it , you dipshit?" Hadi snarls at me, grabbing my shoulders.

"I didn't… the new coffee, I couldn't tell, I—"

" Colin ," Dav says, pale with horror.

I clutch at my stomach, waiting for the first terrible cramp. Hadi ushers me into the kitchen, shoving me up next to the sink for either water or vomiting, whichever need comes first. Dav's wringing his hands, and Min-soo keeps apologizing.

It’s like I’m a trained monkey. They're all waiting for me to perform my big trick. Only… "I think I'm okay?"

Usually I go from zero to Aubrey Posen in about five minutes flat.

"What do you mean?" Dav asks.

Hadi studies me with narrowed eyes. Then she pins Min-soo in her sights. "Are you sure you made him a chocolate latte?"

"I made both at the same time."

"I feel fine," I insist. "Though I'm not loving the aftertaste now that I know what it is. But I don't think I'm going to vom. Uh. It's a Christmas Miracle, I guess?"

"It's June," Dav says, deadpan, and I'd kiss him right there if he didn't look so stricken.