JC:I thought you might be. Do you want to get breakfast?
Sacha:With you?
JC:No. In general.
Sacha:I think perhaps you are being sarcastic now.
JC:Maybe. Regardless, I’ll be at Rosa’s in half an hour if you change your mind.
Sacha:I never made up my mind.
Jonah fell silent. Sacha thought about leaving it alone and crashing for the few hours he could spare before he was due at the office, but his scratchy eyes were nothing on the churn in his gut at the thought of missing out on alone time with Jonah.
You won’t be alone. It’s a café on a busy street, even at this hour.
Sacha took a shower and got dressed all the same, and he was out of the door with ten minutes to spare.
The breakfast café was a five-minute walk from the loft apartment he called home. Sacha expected to arrive first, but Jonah was already there, seated in a window booth with two coffees in front of him.
“You are presumptuous, Jonah Gray,” Sacha grumbled by way of greeting, and slid into the seat opposite.
Jonah glanced up from his phone. A half smile warming his lovely face. “You like coffee, food, and me, perhaps in that order. Why wouldn’t you come?”
“The order of my preference should concern you. I could take my coffee and leave.”
“You’re forgetting the food. At least wait until it gets here.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re hungry.”
“How do you know?”
“I listen, Ivanov.”
Sacha settled into his seat and claimed his coffee. “I should not like it when you call me by my father’s name.”
“No? Why’s that? I can stop if it truly offends you.”
“It does not. That is my point.”
“Okay…” Jonah sipped his coffee, eying Sacha over his cup. “Where does the possibility that it might come from? You don’t like your dad?”
“I don’t care enough about my father to dislike him.”
“Why not?”
“He is a bitter old drunk.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? It is not you.”
“I meant I’m sorry your relationship with your father is like that. I don’t speak to my dad much, but I love him. I respect him. And I’m confident the feeling is mutual. I can’t imagine not having that in my life.”
“Well, I have never had it, so your experience seems bizarre to me.”
“That’s sad.”