He stared at her hand before slowly pulling his right one out of his hoodie pocket. It trembled while his palm swallowed hers whole, and he seemed to have some trouble gripping, but he still held her firm as he shook her hand.
“It’s nice to meet you too.”
Her smile widened.
When he pulled away and hid his hand in his pocket again, his warmth lingered on her skin.
“You know I’ll text you back, right? You don’t have to wonder if I will or not.” She tilted her head at him. “Are you going to come and see me? I can have coffee with you during my breaks, and I’d like that. I’m here every weekday morning until ten.”
His eye crinkled. “Yeah, I’ll come back. I’ve missed you, I was just worried about…about what you thought.”
“You didn’t have any reason to worry.”
The crinkles faded. “Actually, yes. I did. I saw the video from TikTok. The one that went viral.”
Audrey paled. “Oh.” The video wasn’t very long, but there was a part of it that had captured Theo’s face during the altercation. Some of the comments she’d seen were reason enough for her to hope he didn’t have social media, even though she’d been searching so hard for him there.
“But Theo, so many of the responses talked about how you were doing the right thing by standing up for me and trying to stop Patricia. They weren’t—”
“Freeze frames of my uncovered face were posted on Reddit and Twitter, Audrey.” He shook his head. “A few reporters even found me. I don’t know how they got my contact info, but they tried to interview me, and the last thing I wanted to do was talk about it with them. I had to get my lawyer involved for them to leave me alone and not publish anything.” He closed his eye. “Not everyone was kind.”
“Those people can go fuck themselves.” Her voice shook, and she bit the inside of her lip so hard, she thought she might bleed. She drew in a deep, steadying breath, trying to still her shaking hands. Her anger over the whole thing still simmered so close to the surface, it was hard to hold back.
Theo looked at her for a long moment before finally nodding. “All right,” he murmured. “I’ll come back and see you tomorrow.”
She let out a long, relieved sigh and beamed at him. “Okay then. It’s a date.” She gave his shoulder a squeeze and grabbed her cup,slipping behind the counter and pulling her apron back over her head while she placed the mug in the dirty bin.
“All right, Audacity,” Josh muttered in her ear as she crossed him. “That was smooth. Real smooth. And you’re getting onmeabout a date? You sure you should mix business and pleasure?”
“Shut up, you creeper.” She punched his shoulder and grinned impishly. “But that was good, right? Could’ve gone south really fast.”
She got back to her work, taking over making orders at the Marzocco while Josh worked the register. Theo stayed until 9:30 this time, drawing quietly at his table in his recovered notebook. Every once in a while, Audrey would glance up and catch him watching her, and he’d look away in embarrassment.
But every time he did, it made her smile.
Three
Unknown| Hi, Audrey. This is Theo.
“Oh my god, he followed through,” she muttered in frank disbelief, jolting up so fast from her almost-nap on the couch that her vision went fuzzy and she nearly passed out. Her fingers flew to save his contact information. Even though he’d promised to text her, you never knew with men. She’d been ghosted enough to hope for the best but expect the worst.
Though he did admit he was interested.
And he wouldn’t have drawn her that way if he wasn’t.
Violet poked her head curiously through her top bunk bed curtains. “Your cryptid? He actually came out of his cave to text you?”
New York was expensive, and they saved money by sharing a studio apartment rather than having separate bedrooms. They’d already spent so much time living in close quarters in a dorm that the tiny apartment with a kitchenette and a living area felt positively luxurious by comparison. Plus, it was helping Violet save enough money to make her student loan payments and giving Audrey enough financial leeway to buy some decent groceries. Sometimes. On occasion. Twin bunk beds with makeshift privacy curtains and a rule never to let dates stay over was a small price to pay.
Not that Audrey ever had any dates to bring here.
“Shut up, Violet. And yes, he did.” Full punctuation and everything. Of course he’d use proper grammar.
Audrey| Hi Theo! What are you up to this evening?
He seemed like he was probably a little older than her, so she upped her game. Didn’t want to come across as juvenile with all lowercase and too many emojis or something.
Theo| Nothing. Just watching a movie.
