13. A Coffee
Chapter thirteen
A Coffee
Kira
I sketched at a coffee shop in the morning, before I placed them on a canvas.
Sketch after sketch came off my fingers like they were possessed. I could only do one thing. I was drawing him .
His dark eyes, his deep, high cheekbones, and a square jaw. His face in a rage, in sorrow. His eyes glowing with the small gasp of adoration.
So many faces, but only ever of one man. At first, I did this because I had to. Then, I started doing it because I longed to see him. To see the eyes that hung the moon.
My hands moved like lightning over the page for the first time in my life. Not even in art school had my body ever felt so possessed by an image that it poured out of me like a fever dream. A simple, black and white image emerged, as the charcoal pencil fell apart, the powder covering the table as my coffee grew cold.
I couldn’t fight it.
It was as if he was my muse, extracting the art from me against my will.
Dairo had told me that there was nothing magical about Aoibheann, or the house that I had run from. But the longer I was gone, the more I disagreed. There was some magic or pull that wouldn’t let me extract him from my mind.
I would never have another.
He had cursed me. I knew it, somewhere in my gut that I would be with him, or I would die alone.
When the pencil was nothing but a stub, Eoghan’s face looked back at me. His gorgeous lips around a Dunhill cigarette, as his head tilted back with a satisfied, post-coital afterglow.
It was erotic and charming. The dark glint in his eye promised so many things - love, satisfaction, and bliss all at once.
Jesus… I had finally made art.
A masterpiece.
And it all came down to him.
“That looks good.”
I almost screamed when Aaron Jackson’s face materialized beside mine as he peered at my drawing from over my shoulder.
I immediately covered it with my hands, then flipped the paper over to keep prying eyes from my creation.
“Who is he?” Aaron asked, slowly, his head tilting to one side.
I grabbed my cup with trembling fingers and took a sip. The apple-cinnamon coffee tasted like ash, and I swallowed the cooled liquid down anyway, just for something to do. For a reason not to answer right away.
“It’s no one,” I finally croaked, putting down the coffee mug.
“Is that right?” he said with a tilt of his head. “I don’t know anything about art.”
He pulled out the seat beside me and planted his ass in it like he had a right to, his own mug of coffee in his hand.
“That sketch thing looked… intimate.” I looked up at him, and almost winced at the sweetness in his eyes.
His eyes dipped down, taking a quick glance at my body that was curious, and almost… lustful.
I wasn’t used to being looked at that way. Not anymore.
“Where’d you learn to draw?” Was he throwing me a bone by changing the subject? I couldn’t tell, but I leapt on the new subject like it was a fucking lifeline.
“It's just something I’ve always done.”
Some days, I wish I was more like Blink. He could tell the subtext of a question with just a flick of his eyes. It was like people had subtitles that he could flawlessly read. He’d tried to teach me. I hadn’t learned much, but maybe…
I glanced at the corner of his eyes - they wrinkled with his smile. His eyebrows arched upward, indicating a general curiosity, and even a pleasant surprise. His lips tilted up more on one side than the other, which didn’t really indicate anything, but could just be a pattern of his face.
His body was open, honest. There was no sign of deception in him.
“I went to art school a long time ago, but didn’t really do anything with it,” I admitted, when the silence between us grew awkwardly long. “I wasn’t very good.”
“I don’t agree. Your paintings are extraordinary.” I felt the blush warm my cheeks. “That sketch looked amazing.”
I’d been feeling very warm the last few days, and hoped I wasn’t getting sick. But this was a different kind of heat.
His smile broadened, as he reached out to graze the back of his index finger against my jaw.
“Thank you,” I said in a whisper, as I stared into the strange, hazel-ish eyes. “But there’s far more to art than just a pretty picture.”
Maybe I was judging a book by its cover, but he did not look like the kind of man who’d want to discuss composition, emotion, or tones that conjure certain familiar images. How an artist wields all of that to strike the exact chord they want in the viewer.
I looked at his eyes, to see if I could read something in them. The heart of an artist, maybe? But instead, I was struck by the peculiarity of his eye color. There was something off-putting about them. The way the colors seemed so… solid. There was no blending in his irises. Instead, they looked like shards of crystal color, posted together with jagged edges.
“You’re adorable,” he smiled, gently. “And very self-deprecating.”
The latter he said as an observation, though it also sounded like a compliment.
I blushed even more, feeling like I was turning tomato red.
“I don’t think anyone’s described me that way before.”
“Well, you are!” He said, with a slap of his knee.
“You spend a lot of time watching me, huh?” I asked, letting suspicion leak into my voice. “Kind of creepy if you ask me.”
“It’s a small town, and I’m new,” he said with a gentle groan. “And you kinda stick out.”
That was the opposite of what I needed to be doing. I needed to blend.
There are different kinds of blending.
You can try to look like everyone else, which isn’t a possibility when you’ve got a darker complexion in an otherwise very milky population. Which meant that I could try to look as plain as possible. To be neither attractive, nor unattractive. To be in the middle of everything. Which was why I dropped the black dresses and heels, and got myself baggy mom jeans and oversized sweaters. I looked like I should be slinging vegan baked goods and smell like patchouli.
Like your quirky, baked-out-of-their-mind middle school art teacher.
The heavy bags under my eyes and ruddy skin was a bonus from simply not having time to take care of myself now that I was in my mom-hood.
If I stood out, it wasn’t because I was attractive. It was because I was fucking weird.
Out of nowhere, I sneezed, grabbing a napkin and covering my mouth just in time before anything embarrassing happened.
“Are you okay?” he asked, leaning forward as if I’d just broken a rib.
“Just a cold,” I said, wiping my nose, before bunching up the tissue to hide the slimy contents within. “You know how it is. Having a kid in daycare means that you give them your child in the morning, and in the afternoon, they hand you a biological weapon.”
He chuckled lightly, his eyes bright, as if I had just said something hilarious.
“You’re funny!” He said it as if it was a surprise.
“You don’t think women can be funny?” I narrowed my eyes, suddenly on edge.
I know that not all men are sexists, but… if there’s sexism, there’s always a man involved. So…
“No, I just think it’s tough on us mere mortals when someone as pretty and talented as you also gets blessed with a good sense of humor,” he said, that smile never wavering as his beard tilted up with his smile. “I’m feeling a bit out of my league.”
Jesus. When did I get to the Hallmark Romance part of my existence? Those damn shows, which I had started consuming since my brain had turned to mush after having a child, always talked about a handsome man coming into town and giving the female protagonist everything she needed, and more.
“Listen,” he said, scooting his chair closer to me. “I get that you’re busy and you’ve got a kid. But like I said, I’m new in town. I haven’t really clicked with anyone around here, except you. So… you know. I’d love to get to know you. No pressure, no pushiness. I just think that your paintings are really cool, and I’d love to just talk.”
“Talk?” I said skeptically.
Knowing my luck, this wasn’t a Hallmark romance. It was a Lifetime show. The handsome newcomer to a cute New England town turns out to be a serial killer.
He was definitely good looking and charming. Even with the odd eyes and crooked nose, I bet women were lining up for the pleasure of being duct taped in his trunk.
Since when in the world had a man ever been just okay with talking ? That was really fucking suspicious.
“If you’re not into anything more, no big deal.” Aaron lifted his hands, palms out towards me in a sort of surrendering gesture. “I’m not the kind of guy who thinks guys and girls can’t be friends. And I’m into slow.”
There was nothing on his face that told me he was lying. Not a twitch of the eye, or a tap of a fingertip. Not the movement of a lip, or even the lift of a chin. Based on what Blink had taught me, he’d say there were no markers of deception here.
But there was something in the words themselves that did not make sense to me.
Who wanted slow? Who didn’t want passion? What kind of romance was that?
“You’re… into… slow?” Why did his words sound ridiculously sexual? Like he was the kind of man who would edge a girl for days, until she was begging and weeping puddles on the ground?
It had to be a sex thing. There was no way a guy like that didn’t wham-bam, and thank-you-ma’am.
“Slow.” I said the word like I was tasting it for the first time. “Okay.”
He didn’t know me well. If he did, he would have known it was a dare, and I had no faith that he could do as he said he would. Books with his cover were not patient enough for a long hunt.
“Okay?” he said, his eyes instantly brightening. “Can I… get your number?”
I shook my head. That was too intimate.
His smile didn’t waver.
“Okay…” he said, looking down at his hands for a moment. “When do you open up your kiosk in the morning?”
“Well, around nine.” I wasn’t sure where this was going.
“How about at nine, I come with your coffee order and your favorite pastry. And we can just… chat. Until you get to know me.”
“You’re very insistent.”
“I am, if I think you actually like it,” he shrugged. “What’s your drink of choice?”
“I just like plain black coffee, and a donut.”
“What kind of donut?”
“Surprise me.”
“Okay.” He beamed. “This is going to be fun, Anna Jones.”
He got up from his seat and walked away, his hands in his pockets.