"I—sometimes. Yeah."
He tilts his head, studying my grocery list. "Interesting technique. The way you've captured the essence of 'milk, eggs, ramen.' Revolutionary."
Oh my God. He has a sense of humor. An actual, dry, perfect sense of humor hiding under all that dangerous mystery.
A laugh escapes before I can stop it, surprising us both. "It's my minimalist phase."
"I see." He pulls out a hundred-dollar bill and sets it on the counter between us like it's nothing. Like it's not more than I make in an entire shift. "For the coffee. And the art lesson."
He's already heading for the door, and I want to speak—anything to make him stay a few seconds longer—but my throat feels locked up. This is it. Another night, another ten minutes—no, six minutes—gone.
He pauses at the door, hand on the handle. The streetlight outside halos him for a second, and he looks like a figure pulled straight from one of my sketches. He looks back.
"Ivan."
"What?" The word comes out breathy, confused.
"My name's Ivan."
Then he's gone, the bell chiming his departure into the Chicago night.
Ivan.
I stand there, frozen, the hundred-dollar bill on the counter between where he was and where I am. The distance feels significant. Symbolic. The kind of distance that hundred-dollar bills can't actually bridge.
Ivan. His name is Ivan.
My hand moves without thinking, grabbing the pencil. I flip back through the pages until I find my favorite drawing of him—the one where I finally got the eyes right, where he looks dangerous but also tired, like someone who's seen too much but keeps looking anyway. Next to it, in careful letters like I'm carving something sacred, I write:Ivan.
Then, because I can't help myself, because the truth wants out, I add:
Dangerous. Definitely killed someone. Would destroy me completely.
But also makes jokes about grocery lists.
Ivan.
I stare at the name. It fits him. Sharp and clean and slightly foreign. Russian maybe? Definitely Eastern European. The kind of name that sounds even better when he says it himself, with whatever accent he's carefully trained out of his voice, but that still lingers on the edges.
Why now? Why tell me his name after three months of nothing but black coffee and generous tips? After three months of me wondering, imagining, creating entire identities for him in my head? He could have been anyone. A stockbroker. A hitman. A secret prince. A regular insomniac with too much money.
But now he's Ivan.
In my books, this would signal a change. A turning point. The moment when the dangerous man finally notices the ordinary girl, when he decides she's worth knowing, worth talking to, worth telling his name. The beginning of an inevitable,consuming spiral, but in that good way that makes your stomach flip and your heart race.
Only this isn't a book. This is real life, where men like him—Ivan—don't fall for coffee shop waitresses who can't afford the good ramen. Where names are names, not invitations or promises or the first step in some dark fairy tale.
I'm not meant to be the main character in this story. I know that. I've always known that. Main characters are special. They have mysterious pasts, hidden talents, or at least really good hair. They don't spend their shifts drawing strangers and making up stories about lives they'll never live…
The bell chimes again, and for a stupid, hopeful second I think maybe?—
But it's not Ivan coming back. It's three dockworkers, already drunk even though their shift probably doesn't start for another two hours. They stumble through the door like bears waking up from hibernation, all bulk and hunger and hands that grab.
"Hey there, sweetheart," one of them calls out. "Coffee and whatever else you're serving."
The others laugh like it's the funniest thing they've ever heard. Like they haven't made the same joke every time they come in. Like I haven't heard variations of it from a hundred different mouths, all thinking they're clever, all thinking I'm the kind of girl who responds well to being called "sweetheart" by men who smell like motor oil and shit.
I tuck the sketchbook under the counter.
