Chapter 32
David
After what happened last week, I didn’t expect to be sitting here again, at the same table, with the same man. With him.
“Why do you put so much sugar in your coffee?” The question makes me smile. He knows the answer, but he sticks to our game and asks it anyway. “You could drink Coke you know, it has caffeine in it too and even more sugar, if that’s what you’re craving.”
I lean forward, closer to him, and he understands immediately, following my example so that we are only a few inches apart.
The closeness feels strange. So familiar and yet so new.
The feeling of knowing him better than anyone else in the world and yet knowing nothing about him because I missed the last five and a half years makes my head and my stomach spin, and I decide to answer the question truthfully for the first time in my life.
“I don’t like coffee. Actually, I hate coffee. I don’t like the taste, and I like the smell even less.”
Louis’s eyes widen. “That’s not true. You’re kidding me, right? You’ve been drinking this stuff ever since I’ve known you.”
“We’ve only known each other since tonight.
” That was cheeky for me, a typical thing for Louis to say, but I’m not like that.
I’m a well-behaved lapdog, and I don’t particularly like myself for it.
But I guess that’s what happens when you grow up with an authoritarian father and an emotionally absent mother.
“You’re right.” Louis grins. His eyes shine, and once again I shake my head in disbelief that this beautiful man is giving me another chance to sit here with him. I don’t deserve this, I know that. “Tell me more about your coffee consumption.”
“I only drink coffee when I’m out with people.
When everyone started drinking coffee at fifteen or sixteen and thought it was really cool, I thought I had to do it too to keep up.
The sugar made the taste bearable somehow, and the smell.
.. I just closed my eyes and got through it.
And at some point, there was no way out anymore because everyone thought I liked what I was drinking.
” Ashamed, I let my head sink to my chest.
A few fingers gently poke my hand, and I look up. Louis’s gaze is soft and understanding. “What do you drink when you’re alone?”
“Tea.” My voice breaks halfway and all coming out is a rasp.
“A specific kind?” If only I could say something cool like black tea or peppermint, but no.
“I like rooibos tea, or um... lemon verbena.”
“Really? Paps’s best friend, Nika, doesn’t drink coffee either, and we always have lemon verbena tea on hand for her. Will you excuse me for a moment?”
I’m surprised, but I can’t really say no.
Still, I have to admit that the question unsettles me.
In the past, I would’ve laughed because it’s so typical for Louis.
He has ideas, always and everywhere, and when something pops into his head, he has to do it.
Now. Immediately. And without thinking about the consequences.
Apparently, that hasn’t changed and actually, I loved that about him because he pulled me out of every corner of the comfort zone, I wanted to hide in.
I nod and he jumps up. At the counter, he exchanges a few words with the saleswoman, but so quietly I can’t understand him. What is he up to?
With a satisfied grin, Louis returns to the table and takes the coffee cup from my hand. “You don’t need that anymore. Not with me.”
He comes back with a steaming cup of hot water and four different tea bags, including rooibos tea, and my heart skips a beat.
When Louis said we were making a fresh start, I wasn’t sure how that would work. Too much has happened, and too many feelings fill the space between us. But he wants this, just like I do.
“Thank you.”
Louis spreads a thick layer of butter on one half of his two chocolate buns, and old memories come flooding back.
Sunday mornings, family breakfasts. I was always welcome, there was always a whole-grain roll and a pretzel for me.
Always cheese, which I still love so much but never got at home.
Real butter, not margarine—and yes, you can taste the difference.
And two chocolate buns for Louis. That hasn’t changed.
“Tell me about yourself, David. How old are you? What do you do? Where are you from?” He takes a bite with relish, leans back, and waits for my answer.
“I’m twenty-five. I come from a small town about fifty miles south.”
“Oh, really? Me too. Which school did you go to?” I raise my eyebrows in what I hope is an emphatic “Really?”, but Louis just looks at me innocently. Damn, that’s exactly what I always loved about him. I still love it. The unyieldingness, the playfulness, and a smile curls around my lips.
“Goethe-Gymnasium.”
“Oh, me too. You were probably one year my senior, otherwise we would’ve met before. Funny that we never crossed paths. And what are you doing now?”
He really pulls this off without batting an eye.
Impressive. As if this were all completely normal, he keeps the conversation going, as if he wasn’t the only person in the world who knows everything about me.
Maybe he doesn’t know what I’m studying or where exactly I live, but he knows me on another level.
There’s no part of my body he hasn’t touched or even kissed.
Only he knows how I like to be touched, what drives me crazy, what takes my breath away.
“I studied business administration in Mannheim and now I’m doing my master’s degree here. What do you do?”
“I’m studying math and French to become a teacher.”
“Math, like your father.” That just slipped out. Damn it.
“To teach at high schools.” Ah, Louis’s father is a middle school teacher. “Why business administration? Is it fun? Isn’t it relatively boring with lots of numbers and stuff?”
I choke violently on my now cooled tea, laughing. “Math doesn’t have numbers, does it?”
“Details. You didn’t answer my question.” He rolls his eyes with a grin and shoves the last bite of chocolate bun into his mouth.
“I want to take over my father’s company.
” I don’t add that I only have this option because my half-sister took herself out of the game ten years ago.
I have the potential, too, what I’m doing here is completely insane when you consider what’s at stake.
And then I look at Louis and everything else fades into the background.