Chapter Text
You could put the sadness in a box. It was small and smooth edged, easy enough to wrap with other inconsequential things and store somewhere to be dealt with later. It could be a remember when, a funny story, told over cocktails with friends in the distant future, a Thursday night not too late so you can get up for your early meeting.
Remember the time, I got dumped over $2 tacos and he didn’t even pay?
It’s not that Josh was the mythical one. You didn't believe in that to begin with, that there was a perfect twin for a debated soul, someone that filled the gaps you were missing. But you fit together anyway, just a head taller than you, his California blonde hair bright as his smile in photos. He was a junior partner at Kirkland & Ellis, and that was reason enough to leave you with a twenty dollar cheque and a somewhat bruised heart.
You’d called in to the office, telling them you were taking the rest of the day. Your boss hummed down the line and hung up. You were convinced she didn't even know your name. Why would she, one of a hundred interns vying for the same three salaried positions at the end of the year. You were sure you were towards the top of the heap.
But it was better to miss an afternoon and not be thought of, than to be the girl crying in the toilet. One hundred other interns, 86 of which were men, 44 of which had parents in the industry, a good word and a halo already. You knew two of those spots would be nepotism picks. You were hoping they didn’t pick Crystal. Her father was the namesake of the second biggest financial advisory firm in the city. You were working for the first. And you could bet your merger pay check that only one of those spots was for a woman.
All the extra curriculars, all the tests, all the late nights and refusal of party invitations got you this far. Got you into the intern program, only to discover that your grades were the same as your peers, you were all top of the class. And while you mixed and matched your daily suits, they had dozens they could choose from. You dug through thrift stores to find shirts with collars, they had staff to do it for them. Their apartments were paid for by their parents. You wondered if roaches would pay rent.
You had decided to walk, bag tucked close to your side as you swiped away the few stray tears that didn't fit with sadness. Josh was supposed to be the next step. He was supposed to clear a drawer for you, offer you a key. 8 months of dating and relatively mediocre sex had led you to believe that it was going somewhere. He introduced you proudly on his arm at work functions and mostly remembered to refill your drink.
You had a plan. You had goals, dates you wanted them achieved and now the rest of the year in your diary would have to be altered. September - exchange keys, October - move in together, discuss marriage and children, November - begin sharing financial details… He was supposed to propose by Valentine’s day. You were supposed to be married next fall.
Not that he knew that of course, just that it was the best box to fit into. The steady increase of your personal life, on track with both your professionals. The gentle upward slope of adulthood that you were told to expect. Except you didn't. Josh wanted to have fun. He wanted something spontaneous. You were spontaneous, you made sure of it. You had days marked with little hearts to initiate sex, even though he wasn't interested in anything other than missionary with the lights off. In your fifteen minute lunches you googled interesting date ideas, they looked perfect on your Instagram.
It was ridiculous. But his puzzle piece fit in with the rest, without a stable partner, it was difficult to find a stable job. For all its progressiveness, all its eccentricities, this town wanted you to be one thing to succeed. Predictable. Your job didn't care about sexuality, they were even making good strides on not caring about ethnicity, gender or appearance. But they wanted you partnered. The same way they had a dress code, they had a code for your life.
And this was all you had ever wanted. You just needed to figure out how to get it with the corners of your puzzle missing. As if they were laughing at your best laid plans, the heavens chose that moment to open, making good on the threat of grey clouds and your crappy mood.
The storm was sudden and heavy enough to flood the gutters. Every taxi had its light switched to occupied, the streets howling with horns and aggressive screaming as drivers tried to navigate the sudden downpour. The sky crackled purple with electricity, booming thunder that you could feel in your bones as you hid in an alcove, half protected from the rain and tried to order an uber.
85 minute wait. Quadruple fee. Fuck. You tried to search for a Starbucks, a bar, something close by before you lost signal, your phone battery beginning to drain in protest. You had no umbrella in this handbag. That was in your winter bag, tucked in an eco friendly sheath and waiting for the seasonal change. All this bag had was your journal, keys, wallet, and a paperback you’d been promising yourself to read for the last six months.
You could barely see through the rain, no friendly signs that indicated a dry welcome, no golden arches or green mermaids welcoming you as your shirt got wetter, your stockings sticking damp to your legs. The rain don't break the summer, but pressed it on you, feeling the heat stick to the back of your neck as steam rose from the pavement, taunting curls into the afternoon sky.
There was nothing else for it. You’d have to start walking, duck into the first open establishment you came across, hope it was somewhere you could settle until your shirt dried or the storm cleared, whatever came first. You thanked your closet rotation that you had chosen flats instead of heels today as you braved the sticky warmth of the weather.
The first door you find is old oak. Nestled between a block of offices and a backpackers hotel that’s closed for renovations, there’s no sign out front, just a worn cardboard open in electric green. You’re not sure what to expect when you push, the creak of old hinges sounding loud against the thundering rain.
*
It’s been a slow day. The rain was always going to make it so, even if it only chose to announce itself late in the day. The city can sense a storm, contracting in on itself as people stayed in their comfort zones, their little bubbles where they could flit like hummingbirds from work to home and back, ease of access, restricted movements.
“Close up early?” Owen said, a flicker of hope in his voice.
“You know the answer” Dieter replied, laying further back on the counter, feeling his back crack and letting out a groan of pleasure.
“Nobody is going to come in this storm D” he replied.
“It’s the eighth”
He heard Owen snort behind him, the bored flush of a steam wand. He heard the rhythmic clicking of a smartphone keyboard.
“Silent” Dieter said, without looking up, earning himself another derisive snort. He was sure the tall man was flipping him off.
“Molly said she’d cover for me tomorrow”
“I don’t care”
“Dude, is it going to be this every year?”
“It will happen”
“If it was going to happen, don’t you think this date in 2008, or 2018 for that matter, would have been more appropriate?”
“I thought about that. But I think the duality makes more sense, don’t you? That it’s two, rather than three”
“Or it’s not real, or you missed them on those dates.”
“Hmmm” Dieter mused, scratching at his chin as he studied the exposed brick wall opposite “I was pretty deep in a k-hole in 2008. You might be right.”
“So can we close, please. There’s this…”
The bell sounded before Owen could finish his sentence. The old rusty thing creaked and protested, rather than tinkled lightly. Dieter loved it, the way it warped and twisted. One day it would fall off its screws and shatter into a rusty heap. He was going to make a paint from the oxide. Paint its ghost on the walls.
He didn’t care for customers. Served them only when Owen or Molly told him someone was looking for the owner. He lived for their expression when the owner appeared in a bathrobe, a tidily rolled joint behind his ear. Molly banished him whenever the health inspector came by, and was the one who made sure they passed. Owen begged for a social media presence, Dieter refused. He hadn't even named the place, putting a question mark on all the tax forms, and handing them to his overpaid accountant.
He was lucky to find employees who loved the work, who took on the responsibility he wasn't willing to. He was waiting. They knew it, they’d heard him say it a hundred times. That this, this building, its large studio apartment above it was exactly where he was supposed to be. That the convergence of energy on this particular spot was something, he could feel it in his bones. Five years of waiting.
And here you are.
*
It was a coffee shop apparently. The smell of dark roast and peppermint on your senses as you shook the rain off your nose. At least it had blurred the tears, the ruination of your makeup could be blamed on the weather as opposed to your very recent breakup. Shivering slightly you took stock of your shirt. Soaked, but not see through. Clinging in a way that made you look like a drowned rat, rather than an extra in a rock music video. You shook the worst of it off your hands, moving to the counter where a tall thin man stood, muffling laughter behind his palm.
“Uh, hi. Could I get… Um, I don't know just a black coffee? And your WiFi password please?”
“Coffee no problem, but no WiFi. Sorry” he shrugged, indicating the machine for you to pay.
"What sort of coffee place doesn't have WiFi?" You mumble.
"This one" came a voice from behind the pastry display. You caught a hint of wild hair, soft curls and flecks of grey before it ducked further out of sight.
You opened your mouth, but the man behind the counter gave a cough, shaking his head subtly as you met his eyes.
You sat in the corner, jamming yourself into the squashy armchair and using some paper napkins to blot the worst of your handbag. Your journal was only wet on the corner as you pulled it out, and you breathed a soft sigh of relief.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say your life was enclosed in these pages. Neat lines broken down into year then month then day, columns for work columns for personal, phone numbers and birthdays and deadlines all combined in one bound book. You had a half dozen empty ones in your apartment. You’d carted the boxes of full ones from your childhood bedroom to college to your closet in your shoebox apartment. Consistency and routine. Everything in its place.
You could feel the sadness ebbing away as you traced the pages. You had so many left, so much more time to formulate a new plan. There were ways around this setback, ways to pour more into work now that your personal column would be empty. There was a satisfaction in going weeks ahead, putting neat lines through dates for Josh, crossing out the love hearts on days you planned to have sex.
You managed a thank you when the barista dropped your coffee. The warmth cupped in your palm chased away the last of the chill from your wet skin, and you looked around as you took your first sip. Eccentric was a word for the place. Though toddler-on-acid seemed more appropriate. Exposed brick was covered in paintings. Some small caricatures, other larger pieces in what seemed to be chalk and charcoal.
The furniture was mismatched past the point of deliberate, a mix of lawn furniture and couches, tables with missing legs that were flaking rust. Glass topped coffee tables that looked as though they had gilded feet. It was somewhere past dumpster chic, well into the territory of someone just picking whatever piece they thought was pretty and shoving it into a space that fit.
The counter was the only place that looked deliberate. Poured concrete with a gleaming espresso machine, bags of beans lined neatly next to grinders, a glass display case with a few shelves of delicious looking pastries. You could hear the humming of a fridge somewhere when it hit you. No music. There was no soft jazz to lull you into staying, no alternative rock to give an edge.
You couldn't see a jukebox either, no novelty record player tucked into a corner. This place was the opposite of curated, it had no vibe of which to speak. It seemed to have simply sprung into existence, wedged between two buildings as it was, some fever dream of a coked out college student and a piece of real estate you knew would have cost millions.
You saw the same flash of soft hair appear behind the display. Could hear the whisper over the sounds of the storm, the scrape of something on the wooden floor. A yelp and half a crash as you watched a man spill out from behind the counter, a milk crate skittering behind him. He was mumbling a string of curse words as the barista helped him to his feet, turning away to muffle laughter into his shoulder.
He was scruffy. That was the polite word. Disheveled. Unkempt. Not dirty, but certainly uncaring of his appearance. He was wearing crocs, mismatched colours at that and what appeared to be a bathrobe, but could also be a Kanye West exclusive worth thousands of dollars. You watched their half argument almost absently as you studied him, the rings on his fingers catching the light as he pushed his sleeves up, only for them to immediately fall down again.
Soft. He looked soft. You watched as he ran his hands through his hair, messing it up more somehow before turning back to your journal, your eyes swimming into focus as you started your daily notes. You had barely scribbled 08/08 in the corner before you heard footsteps, and the sound of a barstool being scraped towards you.
“It’s lucky” the unkempt man said. His voice was like sand, gritty and deep as he put a chipped plate with a muffin on it, steam curling from the top. Rich, fat blueberries had stained the mix, bleeding purple onto the plate.
“I’m sorry?” you asked.
“Today, it’s lucky. The number eight brings power and strength. Self confidence, freedom.”
You snorted, rolling your eyes as you looked back down at your journal, beginning the measuring of lines to mark the hours you had spent today. Water intake, working hours, tasks completed, tasks not completed.
Another scrape of the chair.
“In love, it symbolises infinite perfection. Your one true mate. Today of all days, the eighth of the eighth, you could find your perfect match the same time they find you”
Looking up you meet his eyes. They're a warm cinnamon brown, creases around his eyes as he smiles for looking at you, the stretching of his soft plush lips as he points at the muffin.
“For you”
“I don’t believe in any of that shit” you say, shaking your head. There’s something about his presence. You’re not tempted to tell him to fuck off, you’re not itching for privacy. The gravel of his voice is soothing, like a human white noise machine. And his gaze is fixed on your face, not the still wet shirt clinging to your breasts.
“It believes in you” he says, before getting up and leaving you with the still warm muffin.
“I didn't order this” you call after him.
“On the house” he replies, not looking back as he vanishes behind a beaded curtain you didn't notice.
Dieter could be having a heart attack. It feels like the time at Tunnel where he took too much cocaine and mixed it with extra cherries in his rum and coke. Everything is too fast, too much, his nerves on fire. But he’s only smoked two joints today, no other pills or powders in his system. Which means it must be you.
“You good?” Owen asks, sticking his head through the curtain. Dieter nods, his brain playing a loop the honey sweetness of your voice.
God you’re more beautiful than he would have ever imagined. If he didn't know it was you, would he be feeling this way? Like a heavenly being had just graced his presence, floated down into his life like a feather on the wind. If he passed you in the street, would he focus on the dent in your bottom lip, the way you worry at it with your teeth.
Would he think about the way you moved, the peek he took from behind the counter to watch your hips sway, your plush ass squeezed into a drenched pencil skirt, the stick of hair on the nape of your neck. God you had sucked on the end of that pen, tapped it twice against your lip as you measured and wrote in that journal. He could have come in his pants.
You look like an old Hollywood movie star. He wants to drag the sheets from his bed and set up the film projector, have you walk in the same way Bette Davis did, watch your eyes narrow like Hepburns, see the playfulness of Garbo, watch the way they all moulded together for him, to make you.
You were made for him. Those hips that were wide enough to grab, how he could watch the ripple of your flesh as he slammed into you from behind. Those gorgeous fucking tits that he deserved a medal for not staring at. They would spill over his palms, your nipples hard like candy as he soaped them in a bath, fucked between them and watched his cum paint your face. It would suit you perfectly, a canvas covered in his spend.
He put his head between his legs on the stairs, taking deep breaths and willing his erection to go down. He had to go and talk to you, had to hear more things spill out of those perfect lips, and he wasn't going to be able to do that with his cock as hard as it was now, throbbing painfully beneath his sweats as his brain offered an image of you straddling his face, your juicy cunt just inches from his mouth as he palmed your perfect ass.
“Stop it” he growled at his crotch, receiving only an angry throb in return. He tried to remember the last thing his yoga instructor has taught him. Remembering that he fucked his yoga instructor and was no long welcome back in the studio was what finally made it go down. Despite how strong their core muscles were he was still irrationally pissed off that he couldn't get back in for a strawberry and mango smoothie.
You were still there, absorbed in the scratching of your pen on a page. He focused fully on your hands, the grip of the pen, the way you leaned so close to the paper, your eyes flicking fast beneath long lashes to follow your own handwriting. He was going to paint you later. He was sure he still had space on his bedroom wall. You were absently picking at the muffin, pulling blueberries from the pastry and slipping them between those sinful lips.
He forced himself through the beaded curtain before his cock got any more ideas. Owen was typing furiously on his phone, probably to Molly or Blake, he was sure this story was being told via group chat on some app he’d never heard of. In a way he was glad. It was a primary source to the first chapter of your story.
The man came back again, this time pulling an arm chair from another corner to sit level with you. He didnt ask you anything, just watched as you studiously ignored him, seeming completely at ease with one pant leg rolled up over his knee. His skin was smooth and looked warm and as soft as the rest of him.
“How was the muffin?” he asked softly, waiting for a break in the rhythm of your writing as you sat back to let the ink dry.
“It was very nice, thank you. But I didn't order it” you replied.
“On the house” he said again.
“Whose house”
“Mine. Literally actually, I have an apartment upstairs” He seemed nervous, his jeweled fingers twitching as he looked at you. If you didn’t know better you thought he was going to try and hold your hand.
“Oh, this is your place?” you asked, matching the eccentric furniture with his fashion sense as he nodded.
“Did you have a bad day?” He asked, running his hand across his thigh. He seemed unable to sit still, grabbing at threads on his robe, tugging at the hem of his shirt.
“Yes” you admit cautiously. “The muffin helped.”
“Do you want me to read your palm?” he asked suddenly.
You laughed, looking at him with a raised brow.
“You know, so you can see if bad days are ahead” He shrugged. This guy was weird. Not deliberately quirky or acting out a hipster fantasy, but capital W weird. But he smiled whenever he looked at you, and by the laid back nature of the barista currently sitting on the counter, you were reasonably sure he wasn’t dangerous in any way. He owned the business after all. Maybe this was his shtick, to keep the customers coming back.
“I don’t believe in that shit” You repeated, slipping your pen away, freeing your hands regardless.
He shrugged, reaching for you slowly, as though he was inching towards a feral cat. Both hands in plain sight as you didn't pull away. Shaking your head you offered him your left with a roll of your eyes. Better to humour him you figured.
Electricity zapped through your skin when his fingers enclosed your wrist. Warm had been the right assessment, heat traveling through your veins as he thumbed across your pulse, thick fingers with soft callouses as he traced your palm, encouraged it to lay flat in his own.
“This is your head line” he said, his voice dropping low, the smoky rasp sending an unexpected shiver up your spine. “Deep and long, you’re a clear and logical thinker.”
His touch was like a whisper on your skin as he traced your palm with his index finger. “There’s a break, just here, in your lifeline. Means a change in lifestyle”
You snort at that. “Just got dumped. I guess you got one”
His eyes whip to yours at that, a brief flash of an emotion you cant decipher as he stares directly at you, his lips pursed. He looks back down at your hand, letting out a long breath before continuing his delicate exploration of your palm.
“This here is what I'm most interested in” he says, stroking back and forth across the pad of softness below your thumb. “It’s called a mount of Venus. Yours is very pronounced”
You go to jerk your hand back, half offended as he tightens his grip on your wrist with a smile.
“No it’s perfect. It’s just like mine actually, its thick and padded, nice and plush. Perfect in fact” he seems so enraptured by it, his fingers drawing whirl patterns on the skin.
“Why is it perfect?” you ask, curiosity finally getting the best of you.
“Best I don’t tell you that just yet” he says, looking at you with a wink. He grins as he does so and you smile back, the smallest bloom of happiness unfurling in your chest at the intensity of his gaze.
“You have a beautiful smile, Bette” he says, his own grin growing wider.
“Bette?”
“Davis” he says with no other explanation.
“So, what’s my future then?” you ask, as he curls your fingers back into your palm, flipping your fist in his grasp so he can stroke across your knuckles, seemingly distracted by the slope of them.
“Oh, you’re going to fall in love” he says.
“Not interested.” you reply.
“Not yet” he says, looking up from the freckle on the back of your hand. “I don’t think it will take too long though. By New Year’s, you’ll be in love - desperately so. Soulmates are like that.”
“I don’t believe in soulmates” you repeat, slightly exasperated.
“Doesn’t mean they aren’t real.” He replies, an edge of stubbornness in his voice. “No, you’re perfect for one another. You’ll end up like an old Hollywood movie, living happily ever after without a care in the world. Dieter Bravo is definitely the one for you”
“And who is Dieter Bravo?” you ask, rolling your eyes.
He pulls your knuckles to his mouth, brushing the barest hint of a kiss across them, his breath warm on your still damp skin.
“I am”.