“What about you, man?” West asks.
I can feel Darcy tense, but I’m used to it. Correcting people, that is, so I shrug. How he responds next will pretty much seal his fate for me. I don’t expect people toknow,but I expect them to be respectful. “Not a man, actually,” I say. I’m not mean, just firm, and even though he looks confused, I also see genuine remorse.
“I’m sorry?”
He looks at Darcy, panic rising in his expressions, so I decide to go easy on him. I hold out my hand. “I’m Parker. You can call me Parker. Or Park would be fine. My pronouns are they/them.”
Recognition lights up his face, and he smiles. “Okay. No problem. I’m sorry.”
I shrug. “You didn’t know. No harm, no foul.”
And I mean it; I really don’t mind telling people. What they do with the information afterward tells me all I need to know about them.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you. So, coffee?”
“Sure, handsome. I’ll take it as sweet as they can make it.”
Darcy kicks me under the table, and my face screws up. “Did you just fucking kick me, Darcy?”
He shrugs, completely unbothered. “Maybe. Stop flirting.”
I smirk. “Oh, baby. I am who I am.”
I love fucking with him. He knows it, and I know it. It’s been this way since we were young. If he ever truly wanted me to stop, though, I would.
He huffs out an annoyed sound. “A menace. That’s what you are.”
After West leaves to get our drinks, I turn to Darcy. “He’s something else, huh?”
Darcy drags his eyes away from West’s back. “God, isn’t he, though?”
Sure, if you like perfect men with gorgeous hair and even prettier eyes. Ben flashes in my mind. For some reason I can’t stop thinking about him and the night we spent just eating cookies and watching true crime documentaries. I had fun. A lot of fun. And when he left, he gave me his number. It’s in my phone, just sitting there. I’m not sure what to do with it. He said he wanted to be friends, and hell, he seemed genuine, but do I really want to open that can of worms with someone I’m so wildly attracted to? Probably not.
“He’s not bad,” I say, raising a shoulder.
Darcy rolls his eyes, shooting me a playful glare. “Handsome,” he says, mimicking my voice, and this time, I’m the one kicking him under the table.
Our conversation gets cut off when West comes back to the table, placing our drinks in front of us. I pick up my cup and take a sip. Super sweet, indeed. It’s good as hell. I need to ask him what he ordered.
He sits down beside Darcy, leaning into his space, and I decide asking can wait. This is much more entertaining. West glances at the notebook in front of Darcy. “So, what’s the next lesson, Professor Darcy?”
Oh, what the fuck? I gasp. “No fair. Why doesheget to call you that?”
Darcy ignores me. Doesn’t even spare me a glance. “The Reign of Terror. It’s fun.”
I take another sip of my coffee, closing my eyes as the flavor bursts across my tongue. The coffee is a deep, mossy brown. I don’t know how else to explain it. Deep, mossy brown with hints of royal purple.
I tune out Darcy and West, ignoring them completely as I paint a mental picture of my delicious coffee.
Staring at Ben’s number in my phone has become a constant game of should I or shouldn’t I.
It’s not that I don’t want to hang out with him; I do. It’s just that I’m overthinking it. This would have been so much easier if he had just gotten my number instead. I have no doubt that he would have already texted me.
With a huff, I stand, then connect my phone to the Bluetooth and turn on some music.
I flip through my playlist until I find the vibe I’m looking for. There’s no rhyme or reason to the song selection. Just like with my paintings, it’s by feelings and not by sound or even sight.
When the vibe is good, I can lose myself in art. When it’s not, I struggle to get anything out of my brain and onto the canvas. Right now, I want to work out some energy, so I settle on some rock and close my eyes, letting the feelings course through me.
