Year Four/Week Two – Present
Of course I suggested that we hang out after class. I needed to know him. Time was running out.
He ordered a latte from the café barista at Plane. It was a trendy spot on campus, though I’m not sure how. Maybe I was just a hater of all things. Maybe I liked being a hater. But not of him, he interested me.
Truthfully, I despised the taste of coffee. It was either too bitter, too burnt or too sweet. It also reminded me of the many times Dad said he was going sober. Another excuse, wasn’t it? To soften the blow before he took his last breath.
Ah, that was a long time ago. Best not dwell on the parts of your story you couldn’t rewrite.
But this moment, here with Jace, I had the power to control it. I didn’t care about this fucking place, or any place, so long as there was one where we could talk. Where I could get to know him.
It was weird, this growing fixation with a man I’d known for two weeks. I didn’t have his number. I knew nothing about him. Everything that intrigued me was conjured up by the assumptions I made in my head.
I was always a clever girl, a creative one too. Maybe that was my flaw. Maybe I fell in love with the potential of people, not who they really were.
Maybe this wasn’t the case. I hoped like hell it wouldn’t be, otherwise my best efforts would be useless, and I would’ve wasted my time.
Again.
“Tell me about yourself, Jace.”
We sat by the bookshelf in the back corner. “The lighting is better here,” I’d told him. He didn’t give a damn about the lighting, I could tell.
But I did.
He needed to see my features.
He needed to take me in.
His fingers wrapped around the ugly paper cup every shop insisted on using nowadays. Their “mission” rang clear in my head: Save the turtles! Stop global warming! No littering!
Best to redirect concern towards the rich who flew in private jets for a fucking tootsie roll.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
God, his voice was nice. So, so nice.
But mine… Mine was dominant, demanding. I was in charge. He should learn that.
Using the tips of my fingers, I gently pushed aside the refresher I’d ordered and rested my chin atop my free palm. “Everything.”
“That’s a loaded question.” He placed his lips on the rim and sipped. I watched it play out in slow-mo. I watched everything. “Be more specific.”
You don’t get to demand anything from me, I wanted to say. “What’s your favourite movie?” I settled on instead.
“American Psycho.”
Huh. I happened to love that movie. “Let me quiz you.”
He leaned back into the wooden seat, folding his arms. “Shoot.”
Before I began my trivia, I scanned the skin beneath his elbow crease. Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” was tattooed beside a shaded rose, I noticed it the first day of class. I wanted to ask about that, about the silver ring on his pointer and pinky. I didn’t ask that. I was too busy talking about fucking psychos.
“How many kills did Patrick Bateman have?”
He tilted his head to the side, letting out a sharp laugh. “I didn’t psychoanalyze the movie. I just enjoyed it.”
Must be nice, I thought. To enjoy things without looking too deeply as to why you enjoyed them, why they existed – why they made you happy.
“What’s your favourite movie?” His turn.
Without missing a beat, I responded, “Sleepy Hollow.”
“Gothic.” He leaned forward, Michelangelo’s Creation folding into invisibility. “Have a thing for monsters?”
Ha. “Not quite.”
There was a brief pause before we spoke again. Just for a moment I felt awkward, tense. I felt… Incapable.
Had I read this wrong? He was supposed to be nervous. Why wasn’t he nervous?
“So you asked me to coffee to discuss films, or what?”
I looked up, astonished that he had the balls to even question me.
“I asked you for coffee because I think you’re attractive.” I didn’t give him time to react before I said, “Do I make you nervous?”
I already knew the answer.
I made everyone nervous.
“No.”
I laughed out fucking loud.
Did I hear him correctly?
“What?” My head was shaking so fast I could’ve snapped my neck. “What do you mean, no?”
Now it was his turn to laugh. And his laugh…
Was so –
Fucking –
Nice.
“Maybe I make you nervous.” He crossed his arms again, leaning back on his chair. “After all, you’re blushing.”
No I wasn’t. “No I’m not.” I covered my cheeks. They were hot.
Shit.
“Can I ask you something?” he said, staring at me with eyes like crisp fern.
I swallowed. “Mm-hmm.”
“Is this normal for you?”
“Is what normal for me?”
He pressed his lips together, his jaw flexing once again. I felt exposed, raw, stripped of the self I tried so hard to maintain.
“You try to intimidate people.” He inhaled and exhaled within two breaths. “You don’t need to do that with me.”
“Intimidate,” I released, as if he were speaking a foreign language.
“Don’t get me wrong, Blu. You are quite intimidating. Most pretty girls are.”
“Most pretty girls are,” I repeated.
“You’re hearing me correctly.”
He thinks I’m pretty.
He thinks I’m pretty.
He thinks I’m pretty.
I must be pretty.
“Not very good at taking compliments, are you?” he assumed.
But it wasn’t a compliment, was it? It was a fact. Jace thought I was pretty. He was stating, not suggesting. No improvements needed to be made. Did they?
“I want you to be honest with me.”
He nodded in response. It started to become my favourite thing about him. The only gesture I really knew.
“What would you change about me?”
The way he stared made me uncomfortable. Looking at me like I was some sort of alien, someone unrecognizable. I was still here. Was that too vulnerable? Was that too much to ask?
“That’s an odd question.”
“Don’t answer it,” I snapped, curtly. “I mean it.”
“You asked the question.”
“Did you have an answer?”
“I don’t know you well enough,” he admitted. “I don’t know you at all.”
A decision fluttered in front of my eyes. How did I get to know someone? It’d been a long time since I let someone in. There was good reason for that. The choice was there – let him in or leave him be.
I chose the former.
This time would be different.
“Do you want to?”
That smile returned, a slight dimple piercing the right side of his cheek. It was something new. I hadn’t noticed it before.
That was an answer within itself.
