Shit. What am I doing? Trying to impress him with my knowledge of the local thugs? Oh yes, mysterious hot stranger who probably has a gun, let me tell you about the criminal elements in our neighborhood. I'm sure you, in your thousand-dollar suit, are super interested in which small-time dealers Mick buys his coke from.
Fuck.
The silence becomes unbearable. It’s the awful kind of quiet that makes you aware of every sound—the coffee maker's death rattle, the fluorescent light's buzz, my own breathing that's suddenly too loud.
"I'll be at the counter," I manage, the words coming out rushed and awkward.
I retreat, feeling like I'm walking through water. Don't trip. Don't spill the coffee. Don't look back to see if he's watching.
Yeah right. He's not watching. Why would he be watching?
Back at my station, I feel more awkward than ever. The counter is safe, familiar. There's a groove worn in the floor where I stand, probably decades of night shift waitresses wearing away the linoleum one shuffle at a time.
The clock shows 3:02.
Eight minutes to go. Usually, he stays for ten, sometimes eleven if he's feeling generous. Ten minutes of him sitting, nursing that single cup of coffee, and me standing here, both existing in the same space but different worlds entirely.
I need to say something. Not waste the time like yesterday, when I stood here drawing, and he left without a word. Or the day before, when I asked if he wanted a refill, and he shook his head. And the entire week before that, when I managed nothing beyond "coffee" and "here's your change," even though he never wants change.
I run through conversation ideas, each one worse than the last. Nothing interesting happened in my day. Let's see: I woke up at 2 p.m. to my upstairs neighbor having sex. Had cereal for breakfast. Watched three episodes of a show about people buying houses I'll never afford. Got yelled at by a customer for the eggs being too runny, even though I don't even cook the eggs. Riveting stuff. I'm sure he'd be fascinated.
His name.
The thought hits me. I don't even know his name. Three months of drawing him, thinking about him, constructing elaborate fantasies where he notices me—really notices me—and I don't know the most basic thing.
I should ask. It's a normal question. People ask names all the time. "What's your name?" Simple. Direct. Normal human interaction.
But what if he doesn't want to tell me? What if he likesbeing mysterious? God, I'm overthinking this. The minutes are ticking by. They always do. That's the thing about ten-minute windows—they're never enough.
Before I know it, my hand is moving across the sketchbook, scribbling random patterns in the margins. Spirals and crosshatches and the shape of his hands that I've drawn so many times that I could do it with my eyes closed.
It's a nervous habit now. When I can't figure out what to say or do, I draw. His face has become almost as natural as breathing. The angle of his jaw. The way his hair falls across his forehead when he looks down at his phone, which he does a lot, probably texting other mysterious people about mysterious things. The hollow of his throat where his collar stays unbuttoned, just that one button, like he started to loosen his tie and then forgot or didn't care.
I glance at the clock. 3:06.
Wait.
What?
No. He usually stays until 3:10, sometimes 3:11. I've timed it. I've watched it happen dozens of times. He sits, drinks his coffee, and leaves at ten or eleven minutes past three like he's got somewhere specific to be.
But he's already standing up, unfolding from the booth with that fluid grace that makes me think of water or smoke—anything impossible to hold
He's walking toward the counter. Toward me.
Fuck.
I flip the sketchbook pages frantically, trying to find a drawing that isn't him. Page after page of his face, his hands, his profile, that one ambitious attempt at a full-body sketch where he looks like a steamy book cover model, which isn't entirely wrong but also isn't entirely right. Where's a normal page? A blank page? Anything?
Finally, I land on my grocery list. Milk, eggs, ramen (the cheap kind), coffee. Boring. Safe. Normal.
He stops at the counter, and I can feel his eyes on the page. My face heats.
Great. Now he knows I can't afford good ramen.
"You draw?"
The question catches me off guard. This isn't how it goes. This isn't the script. I'm supposed to be the one fumbling for conversation while he stays mysterious, distant, and untouchable.
