Chapter Four Kami #2
I thanked her and turned around to look for a table. But the first thing I saw was a pair of green eyes. Thiago was sitting there with an empty cup of coffee and his laptop. I hadn’t seen him before because he was in the corner, partly concealed by a white column.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to walk over. As our eyes met, I couldn’t help but feel butterflies in my stomach. “Listen, Thiago…”
“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the chair across from him.
I hesitated but then sat down. I couldn’t help but take a mental snapshot of him: navy-blue shirt with rolled-up sleeves, disheveled hair, unshaven face, penetrating stare. “I wanted to say sorry about this morning.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.” He closed his laptop and leaned his elbows on the table, resting his chin in his hands. I felt his eyes bathe me in warmth. “How are you? Today must have been a tough one for you.”
I tried to pull my brain back down to earth and formulate an answer. “Fine,” I said as Mrs. Mill brought me my coffee and cake, setting both down and saying, “Here you are, honey.” After a glance at the two of us, she asked, “Why are you two so glum?”
Thiago sat back in his chair. He probably hated that, a café owner sticking her nose in our business. He couldn’t stand small-town life, the gossip, the tedium of people in Carsville.
“Just chatting, Mrs. Mill,” I said, since Thiago seemed incapable of filling the silence.
Unruffled, she responded, “Well, that’s fine, but I better not hear this boy trying to break your heart, eh?”
“Mrs. Mill!” I covered my face with my hands in embarrassment.
After she walked off, Thiago said, “It’s times like this when I remember what I liked so much about DC.”
“Does that mean you won’t stick around here once the school year’s done?”
“Why do you ask? Do you want me to go?”
“I didn’t say that,” I clarified. “It’s just this town… You don’t really fit in here.”
“And you do?”
I shrugged in response and then said, after a moment’s thought, “I don’t think I’ll stay here forever.”
“Yeah, I heard you wanted to go to Yale.”
I nodded and took a sip of coffee.
“Why?” he asked, and he seemed genuinely curious.
“To study art.”
He nodded. “Let me get this straight, though. You want to study art, but you also hide your talent from absolutely everybody. So what are you going to do when you go to college and you have no choice but to exhibit your work?”
“Isn’t college supposed to change you?” I asked hopefully.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t stay long enough to find out.”
I felt sorry for him. He must have had so many plans for his future. And now he was stuck here. The old guilt swelled inside me. It could have been so different if his sister hadn’t died, I thought. “Aren’t you thinking of going back?”
“All I wanted to do was play ball, but no college team will take me with my record.”
I knew that was hard for him to admit. Even though he played it cool on the surface, it was eating away at him. “Could you consider studying something else?”
Thiago shook his head, reached over, grabbed my cup, and stole a sip, leaving me speechless. “My brother’s more the college type. I don’t have what it takes to put up with that shit for four years.”
There was no conviction in his words. “You’re amazing, Thiago. You could do anything you put your mind to.”
His eyes warned me not to push it. “What about you and my brother? How are you going to manage it?”
“Manage what?”
He took a bite of my cake. “I mean, Harvard’s in Massachusetts and Yale is in Connecticut.”
I hadn’t thought about it, and I told him, feeling uncomfortable that we’d never discussed it. I didn’t like talking to Thiago about my relationship with Taylor.
“That sure is a long bike ride,” he commented with a grin.
He was so handsome, I had to smile back. “Right… I guess I’ll need to buy a car. So I’d better start saving.” I wrapped my fingers around my mug to warm them up.
“Is your allowance enough for you to buy another one?”
“I don’t get an allowance anymore,” I admitted.
“Poor thing,” he teased.
“I need a job, actually, at least if I’m ever going to do anything more interesting than sit around my house. You haven’t heard of any openings, have you?”
“No,” he said. “So you’re on a job hunt. Looks like you’re growing up.” He seemed proud.
“You sound like my dad.”
“Listen up: Whatever my feelings are for you, I can promise you they’re not paternal.”
Was that a compliment? “Really, though,” I said, “I need work, if you hear of anything.”
Thiago took another sip of my coffee, and just as I was about to tell him to get his own, he pointed at something behind me. I turned. There it was right on the chalkboard with the day’s specials: Help wanted. I couldn’t believe it.
“No shit!”
Thiago opened his laptop, getting back to work, as he murmured, “I’ll admit, I do like the idea of you serving me coffee and cookies.”
I ignored him and walked to the counter.
“Mrs. Mill,” I said, “I hear you’re hiring.”
She beamed. “That’s right, dear. With Mr. Mill not doing well, I need someone to lend a hand around here.”
“I could do it,” I said enthusiastically.
“You?” She seemed unconvinced.
“Please, Mrs. Mill. I promise I’ll be the best employee you’ve ever had.”
She thought it over and replied, “All right then, I’ll talk it over with Mr. Mill. You’d have to come in and try it out for a day. But if you can handle it, then why not?”
I smiled so bright it must have lit up the whole café. “Thank you, Mrs. Mill! How about tomorrow afternoon?”
“Sure, dear,” she said sweetly. She seemed amused to see me so happy about it.
I walked back to the table, overjoyed, and saw Taylor had shown up and was sitting with his brother.
“Did you get the job?” Taylor asked, looking amused. Thiago was trying to smile along with him, but a shadow had fallen over his face.
“I think so!” I said, approaching them. “When did you get here?”
“While you were over there talking.” He reached up, grabbed my hand, and pulled me into his lap. With his brother there, that show of affection felt strange, and I wanted to get up, but I knew that would hurt Taylor’s feelings.
“I see you two are talking again,” Taylor said, looking back and forth between Thiago and me.
“When you’re bored, I guess any ear will do, right?” his brother responded, closing his laptop and gathering his things. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Wait, don’t go,” his brother said, forcing a smile. “Does this mean we’re all friends again? Because no one informed me.”
“Taylor…” I tried to butt in.
“We’re all friends,” his brother announced abruptly. “I need to go, though. Is that OK?” He suddenly looked bored.
“Stick around for a while. It won’t kill you to hang out with your brother and his girlfriend, will it?”
Oh, Taylor, won’t you please shut up!
Thiago sat down and observed us the way someone might stare at a painting.
“So it’s official now? You’re boyfriend and girlfriend?”
We’d never actually talked about it. People just assumed, and we hadn’t corrected them.
“Seems like it,” Taylor said and squeezed my waist. In the ensuing silence, I got an uneasy feeling and wished I could think of something to say to make the situation less awkward.
But Taylor beat me to it. “I’ve got an idea!
” He smiled. “Remember that time capsule we buried in the yard way back when?”
Thiago tensed up the way he always did when we talked about the old days. “What about it?” he asked, toying with the sugar shaker on the table.
“We should dig it up!”
Thiago put the shaker down and stood. “Sorry, no time.”
“Come on, Thiago!”
Looking at the two brothers, I remembered that day as though it were yesterday. We had grabbed our favorite things and stuck them in a metal box we’d bought at the hardware store. And we’d each written a note we were supposed to read ten years later.
“We agreed we’d wait ten years. It’s only been eight,” Thiago said.
“Who cares?” Taylor objected. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Even I liked the idea. “Why don’t we wait and do it on the night of the Halloween party?” I suggested. “We buried it on Halloween, right? So it’ll be like an anniversary.”
“Yeah,” Taylor responded, clearly happy I was enthusiastic about it too.
Thiago wasn’t, though. His mood had gone from skeptical to hostile, or so I thought until his frown turned into a grin and he grumbled, “You two are still a couple of babies. But fuck it. I’ll go just to make sure you don’t dig the hole too deep and fall in.”
Taylor and I laughed.
“Friday at seven, by the tree house then?” Taylor said.
Thiago and I both nodded. I felt the same excitement from long ago at the thought of a new adventure. But this time, it would be with two incredibly attractive guys. And I had something going on with both of them. Even if I didn’t know exactly what it was.