Can I kiss you properly?
Properly. Like there was an improper version and he wanted to make sure I got the real thing.
I got the real thing.
At 11:45 I go to the café. Robin's already there, and he takes one look at my face and grins.
"Good birthday?"
"It was fine."
"Fine. He says fine. Dev, you're glowing. You look like a person who's been kissed. Have you been kissed?"
"I'm clocking in now."
"That's not a denial!"
"It's not a confirmation either."
"Your face is a confirmation. Your face is a billboard." He hands me an apron. "Silas came in this morning, by the way. Before you got here. Ordered tea."
"He doesn't drink tea. He drinks coffee. Black."
"Today he ordered tea. Sat in his booth for twenty minutes staring at nothing, drank half the tea, and left." Robin raises an eyebrow. "That's the behavior of a man who had a very eventful evening and is processing."
"Robin —"
"I'm just reporting facts. The man ordered tea. In my café. That's news."
The lunch rush saves me from further interrogation. I fall into the rhythm. Steam, pour, tamp, pull. The espresso machine and I understand each other. I know its moods, its temperamental portafilter, the angle that gives the best crema. My hands are steady and sure on the equipment even when the rest of me is vibrating with anticipation.
Silas walks in at 12:45.
Everything is different.
He's wearing a dark henley, sleeves pushed up, and I've seen him in henleys before, he basically lives in them, but today I know what's underneath the fabric. Not details, not yet, but the shape of him. The breadth of his chest where my back was pressed last night. The strength in the arms that wrapped around me. The warmth of his throat where I could feel his pulse when he held me.
"Hey," he says, and his voice is lower than usual, rougher, like he didn't sleep much either.
"Hey." I reach for the blue mug. "The usual?"
"Yeah."
Our fingers brush when I hand him the coffee. Neither of us pulls away. It's maybe two seconds of contact, his index finger against my knuckle, but it sends heat up my arm and into my chest and I have to look down at the register because if I look at his face right now I'm going to say something embarrassing.
"Thanks," he says. Quiet. Warm. A whole paragraph in one word.
He goes to his booth. I go back to work. But the air between the counter and the corner is charged in a way it wasn't before. Every time I glance over, he's looking at me. Every timehe glances up from his book, I'm looking at him. We keep catching each other and neither of us looks away fast enough anymore.
Robin watches this with barely contained glee.
"The sexual tension in this café is affecting my pastry cream," he says during a lull. "It's going to curdle."
"That's not how pastry cream works."
"It's how it works when two people are eye-fucking across my display case."
"Robin!"