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Rowan began to sweat.
“Are you gonna move, dude?”
Rowan’s eyes found the speaker directly behind him, with a backward cap and glasses on inside. He looked like an absolute douchebag.
“I’ll pay you one hundred dollars for your hat and glasses,” Rowan hissed, grasping for the crumpled bills in his jacket pocket.
One eyebrow rose behind the reflective surface. “Two hundred.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
The guy smirked. “I dunno, man. I really like my hat.”
“Next customer please!” Milo’s voice rang out.
“One fifty,” Rowan bargained.
“Two hundred.”
“That’s not how haggling works,” Rowan spat through his teeth.
“Helllooo!”
Rowan threw the man the money and grabbed the hat and glasses, slamming them on before turning, keeping his chin tilted down as he approached the counter. He avoided eye contact.
“One large coffee, please. Black,” he mumbled in a voice he pitched higher. There was no point pitching it lower, it was already smoke and bass.
He forwent the pretzel, even though it made him want to cry. He just needed to get through paying and leave. Maybe Milo wouldn’t recognize him, he thought hopefully.
“Rowan?” Milo exclaimed.
“I don’t know who that is,” Rowan said, continuing his fake voice. “One black coffee, please.”
“You’re wearing the same clothes from yesterday.” God dammit. “Excluding the douchebag shades. Figures you’d own a pair though.”
“They’re not even mine!” Rowan snapped, whipping them off as his face heated in embarrassment. “They just cost me two hundred dollars!”
Milo looked smug, like Rowan had just played into his hands. “So you do own them?”
“What are you even doing here?” Rowan demanded.
Milo rolled his eyes. “Are we doing this again?”
“Why are you everywhere? Why do you have fifteen different jobs?”
“Well there’s this thing called the wage gap, which you wouldn’t know about, you rich mother—”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it!” Rowan braced both hands on the counter and leaned over so their faces were inches apart. “Why are you haunting my life?!”
“Haunting your life? I’m not the one who keeps showing up at your workplace! Well, except that one time. And that was technically your fault as well! Add in the fact that you tried to burn my workplace down and then ran away after trying to get dragon sexy with me in the bathroom, and I think you’re the one who needs to explain yourself.”
Milo crossed his arms and stared him down. In fact, the whole coffeeshop was quiet by now, watching the exchange.
“That’s not how it went!” Rowan said loudly to the patrons and staff. “It’s really not how it went. I am a totally upstanding, non-perverted, normal dragon.”
“Can your perverted ass order so we can get on with our days?” the douche behind him said.
“I’m not a—”
