Not to mention a heart more hopelessly enamored than ever.
Over the hours I’ve spent tucked up in a corner of the coffee shop, using my laptop and a few research books as cover for the fact that I’m actually scrambling to work up the courage to ask him out, I can’t deny that I haven’t been able to stop glancing up at Tristan from behind my façade of work. His effortless smiles light the room, along with the easy, bouncy enthusiasm of his voice and the musical lilt of his frequent laughter.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Tristan isn’t just gorgeous and irresistibly charming, but also as compassionate and thoughtful as he seems.
It’s impossible not to notice how genuine his interest is as he listens to the stories of chatty customers and how sincere his answering words of congratulations, sympathy, or understanding are. His smile is infectious, and I can’t deny that I’ve spent way more time than I have any business to have spent quietly eavesdropping, taking in the small kindnesses he so freely gives.
Like yesterday, when a girl’s card was declined at the register. Tristan kept his voice low so that his words weren’t broadcasted across the quiet space, but the girl’s loudly embarrassed explanations about how she’dpaidher bill andcouldn’t understand, made what had happened clear.
Tristan hadn’t hesitated to cut through her words with an easy, smiling, “I’ve got you,” as he scooped a few bills out of the tip jar and popped them into the till before spinning off to make her the drink she’d ordered.
Maybe all of it should make me feel more able to approach him, knowing that, if he does turn me down, it will be kindly and gently. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Because with every little thing I notice about him, every new revelation of his sweetness or humor or effortless grace, my desperate crush only grows.
At least he hasn’t stopped calling me sunshine.
Do you think you’d want to get dinner with me sometime?
Could I take you out for dinner this weekend?
Wanna grab a bite together when you’re off work?
The trouble is, every time I’m standing at that polished wood counter, face to face with Tristan’s copper and green flecked eyes and that teasing, one-dimpled smile, every possible way I could ask the question only sounds worse and worse in my own head. So unbearably awkward it makes me cringe and clam up.
Jesus, I’m lucky if I manage to force out a choked, “How’s your day?”
I’m not too proud to admit that I have taken the oldest advice in the book and literally practiced these questions in front of my mirror. At low volume, lest my virtuoso neighbor hear me acting like the antisocial weirdo that I am.
That, however—whatever strange pseudo-friendship that I’m forming with said virtuoso neighbor—is a significantly different matter.
Our odd, through-the-wall duets have become the second highlight of my days with amazing speed. At least this one, unlike the other, doesn’t come with a hefty dose of angst and self-doubt.
Through no fault of my own, I know now that my neighbor gets home every night around seven forty. It’s not that I’m creepily eavesdropping or anything like that, but the wallbetween our apartments is paper thin and completely useless at blocking out sound. As a result, considering the fact that, after dinner, my evening routine never consists of anything louder than typing, heavily skewed toward the use of my backspace key these days, there’s no missing the telltale open and close of the door of the adjacent apartment, or the creak of footsteps mapping out their owner’s path around the space.
It's when those footsteps go quiet and the first melodic chords sound that I set down my work and untuck myself from my chair to cross over to where my piano sits against our shared wall. Since Wednesday, the evening I’d found the courage to join him in another duet, he’s done this every night, playing those brief, welcoming chords. Inviting me to join him.
And I have. While I’ve tapped out the best of the simplified music my online lessons have covered, he’s picked up the melody, turning my amateur efforts into something extraordinary.
It’s only a few pieces we play together each night. I don’t know enough to do more than that without getting repetitious, and yet there’s something strangely intimate in the interaction. Something that feels comfortable and companionable, despite the fact that we’ve never exchanged a single word nor seen each other’s faces. I don’t know a thing about the man on the other side of the wall, but somehow, he’s become my friend.
Alex would say that this is sad and lonely and the ultimate proof that I need to get myself out and into the real world. Likely, this is why, though I’ve offered up the miserable yet thrilling Upshot barista saga to him in texted updates as proof that I’mworkingon his ultimatum of finding someone totake out on a date, I haven’t mentioned my neighbor to him. Because, eccentric as the exchange is, I don’t feel like it’s a lonely one.
In the last few days, probably aided by the fact that I now have the very real and very appealing image of Tristan’s black hair-veiled, ever-laughing eyes, dimpled smile, and toned, slim body teasing through his ridiculously thin, tight shirts to overshadow it, I’ve quite wisely allowed my fantasy of Mr. Darcy-ish melancholy sexiness to fade. Instead, regardless of what comes of it, I’m simply curious to meet the man with whom I’ve developed this unique affinity.
As the vibrations of the last notes fade from my piano, I’m on the verge of marching over this moment to do it. Only when I’m partway through pushing back the stool to stand do I remember that, despite the fact that we’re both obviously awake, it’s now edging on nine o’clock, and showing up at a stranger’s door this late isn’t the most normal thing to do.
Tomorrow. I’ll go over tomorrow. A decent interval after I hear him get home.
7
Tristan
Ablank canvas scares the hell out of me, and I fucking love it. There isn’t a mark on it, not one single hint of what I should do or how it will turn out. It means I can do whatever I feel like with it.
Totally the opposite of my life.
Most of my canvases aren’t actually blank, just painted over with layers and layers of acrylic. It’s not that everything I covered up was shitty, just that canvases are expensive, and since I don’t have anything to do with my paintings anyway, covering over the old to make space for the new has always been my go-to.
Unlike the terrifying freedom of a blank space that’s mine to fill however the mood strikes me, those covered-over layers of the old, hidden by the new, hit far closer to home. The old paint’s still there, all ragged and sharp beneath the fresh-looking surface.
