Served Hot (8 page)

Chapter 9

O
n Monday, I got the college student who worked some hours for me to stay through lunch. I had a plan.

“So, you planning a nooner with that hot boyfriend of yours?” Suz was twenty with a penchant for roller-derby chic and an assumption that the whole planet was having more sex than she was.

“Not exactly.” I sidestepped around her to refill the cup dispenser. It always felt weird working the counter with someone else, even someone as nice as Suz. The space behind the cart was narrow and there wasn’t an easy way to avoid conversation.

“You’re so lucky.” She got that dreamy look that all younger girls get when they see a cute cat—or a sappy couple.

She also had a case of the 10:30
A.M.
restlessness that came from having no customers and an empty atrium without people to watch. I usually cured the boredom by cleaning, but Suz got all chatty. “Mmm hmm.” I gazed longingly at the double doors, willing a flood of customers to arrive. “I guess.”

“You
guess
?” She grabbed my arm, spinning me around. “Wait. You guys aren’t fighting, are you?”

“We’re not fighting.” I tried to sound blasé, but a weary sigh escaped instead.

“Oh. My. God. You’re not breaking up with him, are you? That’s why you wanted me to cover lunch?”

“I asked you to cover because I could use the help.” My stomach flipped as I scanned the atrium. Thank God a whole two customers arrived right then, putting Suz’s inquisition on hold. Two mochas to go and a reprieve for me.

“Yeah. Right. We’ve had maybe a half-dozen customers since the morning rush,” Suz hissed at me as she added dark chocolate syrup to a cup. Raising her voice, she flashed a pinup grin at the Armani-suit-wearing guy who was all expense account swagger. “Whip?”

“I’ve got my own.”

And they were off on a flirty little exchange that netted Suz a five-dollar tip on a four-dollar drink and let me focus on the middle-aged dude who’d accompanied the vice president of swagger. The tip jar got zero moola for my efforts, but I was simply happy with the silence.

“All right. Dish.” Suz didn’t even wait until the dudes were out of earshot before rounding on me. “Why are you unhappy with David? I mean, have you
seen
how he looks at you? It’s the cutest thing ever. I can’t fucking
wait
to have someone look at me like that.”

“How he looks at me?”

“Like you’re holding tickets to Cancún and you just cured cancer. Every. Single. Time. He’d do
anything
for you.”

“Not quite.” I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

“Wait. Is he terrible in bed? Because those studly nerdy types can go either way; either they’re freakishly good or flat-out terrible.”

“So not discussing that with you.”

“Freakishly good it is.” She gave me a grin that was all teeth. “If he were bad, you’d be happy to complain.”

“He’s a great guy, okay? Fabulous. Perfect. We’re just . . . having some issues.”

“Come on.” Suz hopped on the counter, her feet dangling, as she gave me a sad puppy face. “Don’t make me keep guessing. Knowing you, I bet you haven’t told anyone anything about your
issues.
You need to clear your energy before you go all Dear John on the poor guy.”

“You know, you don’t have the psych degree yet. I’m not sure you’re qualified to analyze me.” I tried to keep it light, even though she was right. I’d lived with Seth and Mark for three years, but they knew more about my coffee business than about David. Sarah and I shared a love of deep-fried tofu, but deep conversation wasn’t really our thing. Talking wasn’t really my thing with anyone; I’d never really opened up with anyone about what went down with Brian either.

“It doesn’t take a degree to see you’re on the verge of making a shitty mistake.”

“It’s not a mistake.” I’d been over and over this in my head all weekend. I had to tell David what I really wanted. Had to stand up for myself. But I was almost positive it was going to end badly.

Frustration bubbled up in me, made worse by Suz’s concerned eyes. “I’m pretty sure he’s still in love with his dead boyfriend and I’m . . . in love with him and I have no clue what he wants and I can’t get in any deeper with him because it hurts too freaking much already.”

“Oh, sweetie.” She got down off the counter to hug me, which did nothing to counter the broken-glass feeling inside me. “Is it really that bad?”

Then it was like the ancient Hawthorne Bridge creaking open inside my soul and the whole story came lurching out—Craig, wanting to move in together, more Craig, his family stuff, and even more Craig. It was hard to articulate that my biggest worry wasn’t that he’d say no but rather that he’d say yes and then things would get all weird between us because he didn’t
really
want it.

“Give him a chance. You’re just assuming David’s still hung up on the dead guy. I’ve seen how he looks at you. You need to at least ask him what he wants instead of deciding for him.”

“I will.” Every time I pictured telling David what was in my heart, icy sweat gathered at the base of my spine. I didn’t see this ending any other way than with us breaking up. But maybe Suz was right. Maybe I needed to have more faith.

Articulating wants usually led to disappointment—moves happened anyway, deployments dragged on, grad school requirements changed regardless, boyfriends kept right on lying to their families. My preferences seemed irrelevant and speaking up led to awkward conversations and magnified the hurt. Keeping pain private kept the wounds smaller, helped me buck up and move on. And maybe that was part of it; it seemed inevitable that David would hurt me too. Why speak up and make it hurt that much worse?

But at some point in the last few days, I’d decided that I couldn’t let my aversion to conflict and inability to talk sink the best thing that had ever happened to me. I had to give it a shot. And maybe Suz was right; maybe everything would work out fine.

 

 

An hour later, I made a large vanilla latte and headed out into the frigid morning. It seemed important somehow to step out from behind the counter, meet him on his walk over. Downtown Portland was gray and dingy, the sun having fled months earlier. February always seemed far longer than twenty-eight days as the rainy season turned frigid, with a breeze that stung my cheeks and made me wish I’d grabbed my hat.

I met up with David on Ninth. And I watched as he caught sight of me. Suz was right—his whole face shifted, all the tension he usually carried replaced with light, little smile lines lifting up the corners of his mouth and eyes. Somehow, some way, I was going to have to find the right words.

“Hey! This is a surprise!”

“Suz stayed later this morning.” I held out his drink. “Thought I’d meet you partway.”

“I don’t mind coming to you. But thanks.” His words felt like punches, hitting me in the stomach, reminding me of how kind and sweet he was.

“You want to walk?” He studied my face, clearly confused about why I was there, but the softness in his eyes said he was willing to go where I wanted.

My KEENs felt dipped in concrete, every step heavy as I followed him around the block. We ended up at a little plaza tucked between two office buildings. Come April it would be buzzing with people, lunchtime picnickers in business suits jockeying for space with street musicians and black-clad teenagers, but right now we had our pick of benches. I headed for one tucked under the building’s overhang, slightly shielded from the wind.

“Want to sit?”

“Are you okay?” he said as he settled in next to me, leaving a space between us that made my bones hunger for his warmth and nearness.

“I . . . yeah. I’m fine. But we need to talk.”

David fiddled with his coffee cup, his eyes on the cobblestone patio. “Are you breaking up with me?”

Damn.
Of course he chose right then to get perceptive.

“No,” I said, but uncertainty crept into my voice. “I don’t
want
to break up. I want a real relationship.”

“A real one?” He frowned and his question was edged with what sounded like anger. “This isn’t real? I mean, I know this is all new to me, but I’ve had
not
real. And this feels pretty darn real to me.”

“It does to me too. It’s only . . . I want more than just dating.” There; I’d said it. My heart pounded like I’d run to the riverfront and back. “I want a partnership. I want to deal with your crazy family. I want to hear about when Craig’s family acts like dicks. I want . . . I want to look for an apartment. Together.”

Despite the freezing temperatures, sweat slid down my neck and my hands turned clammy.

“You want to move in together?” He chewed on his lip and I hated that I couldn’t tell whether he was surprised or repulsed or maybe a little of both.

“Yeah.”

He didn’t say anything for a long minute. “And you want me to tell my family about us?”

“You haven’t?” My worst fear confirmed. No matter what he said, this wasn’t real to him.

“It’s irrelevant.” He tried to squeeze my hand, but I pulled it away.

“I’m
not
irrelevant.” I stood up.

“I didn’t mean . . . look. Robby. This is . . . sudden.”

I could see the lie in his eyes. “You guessed, didn’t you? Last week. You knew I was thinking about living together.”

“Maybe.” His answer was all breath and zero volume, but it hit me like a right hook to the jaw. Any hope I’d had that this was all just miscommunication withered away. Deep inside, I’d believed Suz. Believed that all I needed to do was speak up—

“But I . . . I can’t, Robby. It’s too soon.”

“I can’t keep wrestling a dead guy for you, David. I won’t.”

“I . . .” His face squished up like he might cry. And God help me, I was on the verge of tears myself, my eyes hot and itchy.

“I
love
you. And I want a future with you.”

“I need time.” It was the worst thing he could have said. Not
yes, I love you too.
And not putting me out of my misery with a firm no either. He needed time and patience and probably a better guy than me because I had run out of both.

“I need
you.
I need you in this thing with me. One hundred percent.” My voice broke. My cheeks stung as the wind slapped against my tears. I couldn’t stand for him to see my tears, so I fled. He let me go, still sitting there with his coffee.

This
was why I’d wanted to keep silent. Because before I’d had faith, even if it was foolish and unwarranted, and now I had nothing. I had taken Suz’s advice. Told him exactly what was in my heart. Given him a chance, and he’d given me . . . nothing except more waiting.

Somehow I made it back to my cart, kept it together long enough to tell Suz she was covering the afternoon too. And then I did what I hadn’t done since I’d bought my cart two years ago. I took a sick day. Went back to my house, threw myself on my bed fully clothed, and pulled the covers up over my head.

Chapter 10

I
made it through the rest of the week. It wasn’t pretty, and more than one regular customer asked me if I was ill. And I was. I was bitterly heartsick. Broken inside like a shattered espresso cup. Useless little shards of glass where my heart and brain used to be.

Finally, Suz cornered me after Friday morning’s rush. “Maybe you shouldn’t have walked away.”

“What?” She’d dragged the whole story out of me, of course, making soothing noises and telling me how sorry she was.

“I’m just saying . . . would it be the worst thing in the world to wait on living together? To keep dating? I mean, Robby, I’m in your corner here, but you’re miserable. And I saw him on the street yesterday and he looked gutshot—”

“You saw him?” My throat threatened to close up. I wondered where he’d been headed, if he’d been going elsewhere to buy his coffee.

“Yeah. He’s miserable. You’re miserable. And he didn’t exactly say no to what you asked—”

“He might as well have.” I surprised myself. A few weeks ago, I would have agreed with Suz. Would have accepted whatever David wanted to give me, anything to keep him around. A few months ago, I would have kept quiet, not finding the courage to speak up at all. But now I’d found a resolve I hadn’t known I had. I’d laid myself out there. I needed David to do the same.

He absolutely was a guy worth waiting for, but I needed to know we were at least headed to the same place. I couldn’t give David my heart and dream that someday, maybe, he’d give me a part of his life—the part he chose to share with me.

 

 

Sunday morning was even colder than the last two weeks. Good. It matched the deep freeze in my heart, gave me an excuse to sleep in. That’s what I did lately. I worked and I slept and I tried not to think about David. Tried not to check my messages eighty-five times a day. Tried not to look up at every person through the doors, hoping to see his dark head.

Maybe later I’d feel up to streaming some old episodes of
Battlestar
or
Firefly.
Do some comfort-TV wallowing. But right then, all I could do was stare at the cracked, chipped ceiling.

I had no idea how long I lay like that, adrift on my own thoughts, almost but not quite awake.

“Hey.” My roommate Seth pounded on the door. “You home? Your boyfriend is here.”

“What?” I managed to get off the bed and come to the door.
He’s not my boyfriend.
I had no idea
what
he was, but I did know that I couldn’t face him right then. My lungs seized like I’d chugged a quadruple shot on an empty stomach.

“Tell him—” I opened the door to tell Seth to make an excuse, but David was right there behind him.

“I’m gonna take off, man.” Seth gave me a mock salute as he backed up down the hall, almost tripping over himself to get away from us.

“Can I come in?” David asked all formally—like I was a coworker in an adjacent office. Unlike his voice, his face was uncertain—eyes weary, cheeks flushed. His hair was a mess and his usually perfectly pressed clothes were rumpled. Looked like he hadn’t slept since Monday. He shifted his weight from side to side, as if his feet were considering following Seth.

“Sure,” I said, only because it beat having this conversation in the doorway.

“I brought you some of the raisin toast you like so much from People’s Coffee.” He held out a small package, carefully wrapped in napkins.

Eyes stinging and throat tight, I accepted it. “Thanks.”

I had to perch on the edge of my bed because standing felt too strange. My hands flopped about as uselessly as my vocal cords. I felt as if I should be touching him but couldn’t, should be inviting him to get comfortable but couldn’t, should be shutting the door but couldn’t.

“I don’t know what to say. I rehearsed on the way here . . .” He plopped down next to me. He was too close. He smelled woodsy and freshly showered and my senses kept remembering what he’d smelled like sweaty and straining. My body wanted to push him down on the bed, forget everything other than the silky feel of his skin, while my mind wanted to run.

“This week has sucked,” I said, mainly to fill the silence stretching between us.

“I hate Craig.” David’s tone had surprising vehemence to it. “I hate him because he’s not even here and he’s ruined everything between us. And I hate . . .”

“Me?” I asked softly.

“No. Never.” He grabbed my hand. “But for a bit there, I hated
us.
I hated how what we had kept reminding me of what I’d never had with Craig. And I tried to pretend it was because of his job or our town or our families. . . .” His voice broke.

I squeezed his hand, lacing our fingers together.

“But instead I kept . . . I kept seeing everything he’d cheated me out of. We could have had this. We
should
have had this.”

“You deserved it,” I whispered.

“And when I could tell that you were wanting to live together. . . everything came to a head. All this . . . rage I’d been suppressing. And I was an asshole to you.”

“You were hurting.” I could see that now.

“And sometimes I get so
scared.
”

“Of what?”

“Of losing you. Of loving you and living with you and building a life with you and then you disappearing. Gone. Some nights I’ll lay awake worrying about what could take you from me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” I wasn’t. “And I get scared too.”

I took a deep breath, searching for courage but only coming up with stale air. “I just worry . . . I’m not Craig. I’m not like him. I’ll never be him.”

“You’re right. You’re not him.” His voice was firm but not unkind. “You’re nothing like him. And that’s probably what I love most about you.
Everything
with you is different.”

“But you said it makes you sad—”

“It makes me angry that I wasted decades on someone who couldn’t give me even a fraction of what you do. It makes me sad that I never got this with him. It makes me sad for Craig that he never got to experience this.” He shook his head. “But you? You don’t make me sad. You make me whole.”

“I do?”

“You do. It took walking around this week like I’d lost a leg for me to realize it. But you . . . you’ve brought me back from a dark place.”

“I meant it when I said I love you.”

“I know. And I think that scared me the most. Too scared to get the thing I’ve always wanted.”

“I can see that.” My anger was draining away, like a river washing into the vast ocean of potential happiness.

“I don’t want to lose you, Robby.” He held both of my hands. “I’m still not sure what the next step is. But I love you. And I don’t want my fears to cost me you.”

“I was maybe rushing you a bit. We don’t have to decide right away about living together.” Talking to him made me see what a huge jump he had made coming after me. He loved me. I wasn’t fighting a ghost for his heart. Some things could wait.

“If it helps, my sister says I’m an idiot for not jumping at the idea.”

“You told your sister about us?”

“Yeah. I should have told her this weekend, but . . . I didn’t want to share you.”

“Share me?”

“Yeah. I know it sounds crazy. But what we have here is . . . special. Magical even. And I didn’t want to take it out and look at it back home. Like it would get mud all over what we share.”

“Are they really
that
bad?”

“Mel’s not. She wants to meet you. And my mom’s not so bad either. Talked to her too. She’s happy I found someone. Said I should bring you to Easter. But the rest of them . . .”

“My dad’s family is full of conspiracy theorists and has annual BB gun shooting contests. My uncle was on
Punkin Chunkin’.
Trust me, I can speak rural too. Why not ask me to go?”

“Ask you to drive ten hours to go eat bad barbeque and lukewarm potatoes?” He frowned. “And be around my redneck relatives, who will tell you how much they like sweet and sour chicken and compliment your English? Or the other ones who will ignore us both? No. I love you
way
too much to ask you to deal with that.”

“But I want to.” I squeezed his hand back. “Not for the relatives. For
you.
”

“Really?”

“I don’t only want to share the happy parts of your life. I want to share
all
of your life. Even the uncomfortable parts. Even the sad parts. Even Craig. You wouldn’t be here right now without him.”

“I should have been honest with you that I was struggling more with my grief recently. Maybe I should go back to that counselor . . . but I don’t think even I realized what was happening until you were walking away.”

“I’m sorry.” I kissed his neck. “I’m sorry for leaving.”

“No. You were right to. You say you want to share everything; I want you to trust me more. I want you to trust that you can speak up.”

He was right. I’d been so worried about him pushing me away that I’d kept quiet far longer than I should have. I’d tiptoed around subjects and left a lot of stuff unsaid. I had my own baggage and trust issues. I kept thinking he might bolt when I too had one hand on the door, afraid to come all the way inside.

“You’re not going anywhere?”

“I’m right where I want to be.” He leaned in to kiss me. And I let go of fear and doubt and indecision and met him halfway, my tongue snaking into the heat of his mouth, my heart fully opening for the first time.

 

 

I was more than a little groggy for work Tuesday. David had kept me up late, and my muscles protested the load of coffee beans I had to haul in. Suz kept grinning at me and teasing me her entire shift until I shooed her out at ten. I was pretty sure I still had a goofy smile on my face as David strolled in a little before noon.

He had to wait through a cluster of corporate women, all ordering skinny lattes and leaving even skimpier tips. We exchanged secret smiles over their heads, and my heart went gooier than my big bottle of dark chocolate syrup.

“Your usual?” I said as the ladies departed.

“I’ll take the special,” he said, leaning on the counter.

“You sure?” I hadn’t seen him glance at my sign. “It’s a Mexican mocha. Has a tiny amount of chili pepper in it.”

“I’m sure. I trust you.” Our eyes met and held and I felt the power of his trust.

I set about making his drink but looked up at a clanking noise. He’d dropped something in my tip jar.

“What’s this?” I set aside the drink to fish a gold object out from the bills and change. “A key?”

“To my place. I should have given you one a lot sooner. I just . . .” He shrugged. “Not good at figuring these things out.”

“It’s okay.” I smiled up at him, happiness lighting me up like the sunlight filtering through the atrium’s skylights. “I’m not either.”

“We can figure it out together.”

“Deal.” I slid the key from hand to hand, savoring the weight.