Boner Scrapbook #2
With a huff, Dex gripped their arm, pads of his fingers pressing gently right above their elbow. “Listen, if you don’t want me to tutor you, that’s whatever, but at least tell me so I’m not wasting time that I could be tutoring someone else and getting paid for it.”
“The school pays you?” they asked, distracted by the warmth of his callused fingers on their skin.
“Only if you actually show up,” he said as he released their arm. “Maybe twenty bucks a session isn’t a lot, but not all of us have personal drivers and an endless supply of gold jewelry, you know?”
He spoke calmly. Kindly, even. An accepting, matter-of-fact statement rather than an accusation. But the words still landed like a slap to the face, and Cya reared back.
Without awaiting a response, Dex offered them a muted smile, then made his way back to the register to watch the screen over Rusty’s shoulder. Cya stared for several long seconds as the guilt in their stomach churned into something closer to shame.
They spent the rest of the morning pouting silently. They took their lunch break in Quin’s office, working on homework for their economics class, and they convinced themself that they weren’t annoyed when Gem, Toni, and Dex all lunched together outside.
Through the big front window, Cya scowled as Dex and Toni talked animatedly with big sweeping hand motions while Gem laughed and danced around them. Dex had been here half a day, and already, everyone loved him.
A little before three, Yve arrived to take Gem’s spot behind the register so he could relieve Cya at the espresso machine.
Cya had worked evenings with Yve, an Avia around their age with unsettlingly large eyes and pretty white feathers, speckled with warm browns and grays.
She was bubbly and sweet, and they’d gotten along well enough, even if she tended to talk Cya’s hear off whenever she had the chance.
While Dex retrieved his bags from Quin’s office, Cya took their leave, not wanting to be stuck walking to the station with him.
If they were lucky, they could board a train back to Pride before the Lupyn caught up to them.
But since destiny really was out to fuck them, the three o’clock train left exactly on time for what had to be the first time ever, forcing them to wait for the next one.
Spotting them through the crowd, Dex bounded up to them, tail wagging far too joyously. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“A treat, indeed,” they ground out.
“See? I knew you’d warm up to me,” he teased, knocking their arm with his elbow.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
He snorted. “Whatever, princess.”
“I’m not a girl,” they reminded him, and Dex’s smile vanished instantly.
“I know. I wasn’t making a dig at your gender.” At Cya’s disbelieving brow arch, he winced. “Though, I see how that could be misconcepted.”
The tip of their tail flicked. “You mean misconstrued.”
“Okay,” he agreed readily. “But for real. I was making a dig at your richness and general spoiled brattiness.”
“Oh, well, that’s much better, then, isn’t it?”
Like he had missed their sarcasm entirely, Dex’s ears perked up, his grin returning. “Right? I knew you had a sense of humor. We’re two seeds in a koca pod, me and you.”
“If that were true, I would have lobotomized myself years ago,” they deadpanned.
Dex laughed.
Cya didn’t.
Dex stopped laughing.
“Whoa, that was kinda dark.”
They couldn’t resist a small hair-flip. “What can I say? I contain multitudes.”
“You’re funny. Hella intense, but funny.”
Infuriatingly, the compliment had warmth pooling in Cya’s cheeks, and they looked away.
They spun their gold bracelet around their wrist to give their hands something to do, and the motion made the delicate chains draping down their forearm clink.
It was a calming sound, and they closed their eyes and focused on it as the speaker overhead crackled with the announcement of the incoming train.
“You sound like wind chimes.”
Soft fur brushed over their biceps, and Cya’s eyes shot open a moment before Dex slipped two fingers under the chain. They resisted the urge to jerk away, not wanting to break the chain, but they stiffened all the same. He was big and bumbling; one clumsy move, and he’d snap the chain in two.
“Careful, it’s…” They drifted off as he gently, almost reverently, ran his thumb over the links of gold.
“It’s what?” Dex asked, eyes of tourmaline and blue topaz lifting to meet theirs.
Cya swallowed thickly to wet their suddenly dry throat. “Delicate.”
“I won’t break it,” he promised, and it was so sincere they believed him.
They relaxed and shifted their arm an inch in his direction so he could see it better. He followed the chain up their forearm to the cuff clasped above their elbow. His index finger tapped against the stone embedded in the metal.
“What’s this?”
“Amazonite. It’s one of my favorite stones,” they admitted.
“It’s really pretty.”
Another flood of warmth prickled their cheeks and neck, and they offered him another confession. “I made it.”
“The bracelet part?”
“All of it. I mean, my jewelry.” They gestured vaguely to their earrings and teardrop necklace. “I make all my jewelry.”