Chapter Three
Three
Unknown | Hi, Audrey. This is Theo.
“Oh my god, he followed through,” she muttered in frank disbelief, jolting up so fast from her almost-nap on the couch that her vision went fuzzy and she nearly passed out.
Her fingers flew to save his contact information.
Even though he’d promised to text her, you never knew with men.
She’d been ghosted enough to hope for the best but expect the worst.
Though he did admit he was interested.
And he wouldn’t have drawn her that way if he wasn’t.
Violet poked her head curiously through her top bunk bed curtains. “Your cryptid? He actually came out of his cave to text you?”
New York was expensive, and they saved money by sharing a studio apartment rather than having separate bedrooms. They’d already spent so much time living in close quarters in a dorm that the tiny apartment with a kitchenette and a living area felt positively luxurious by comparison.
Plus, it was helping Violet save enough money to make her student loan payments and giving Audrey enough financial leeway to buy some decent groceries.
Sometimes. On occasion. Twin bunk beds with makeshift privacy curtains and a rule never to let dates stay over was a small price to pay.
Not that Audrey ever had any dates to bring here.
“Shut up, Violet. And yes, he did.” Full punctuation and everything. Of course he’d use proper grammar.
Audrey | Hi Theo! What are you up to this evening?
He seemed like he was probably a little older than her, so she upped her game. Didn’t want to come across as juvenile with all lowercase and too many emojis or something.
Theo | Nothing. Just watching a movie.
Audrey | Which one?
Theo | John Wick—the first one.
Audrey | The best one, you mean
Violet groaned as she watched Audrey frantically type her responses. “You’re going to go off and get yourself a boyfriend who worships the ground you walk on and then never spend time with me again, aren’t you?”
“I am not going to abandon you and you know it,” Audrey shot back while still staring at her phone screen.
God, what a rush. Theo had said more words to her today than he had in the six weeks he’d been a regular at the café.
Was this what being high felt like? Had she actually managed to crack him open a little?
“But you do need to let me have this. You know how chronically single I’ve been. ”
“Understatement of the century.”
Her phone buzzed again. Theo had sent her a photo of a new drawing in his little black notebook. She expanded it and a sketch of a tree-lined street filled with leaves soaked in blazing, fluid watercolors of red, orange, and gold filled her screen.
Theo | I drew this one today. Fall in the city’s my favorite season.
Theo | What’s yours?
Her heart beat faster.
“All right, fine.” Violet pulled herself back inside her makeshift bedroom and started to close the curtains. “Have fun texting your new mystery man.”
She flashed her roommate a smug look as her face disappeared in the seams of the fabric. “I am and I will.” Violet shut herself inside for the night, and Audrey turned back to her messages.
Audrey | What a gorgeous sketch.
Audrey | Fall’s my favorite too.
Just like always, Theo slid inside the café at 8:17 a.m.
Fridays were magnificent, if only because Audrey didn’t have class and she actually had weekends off these days.
She was missing out on the extra income from those shifts, but she’d wanted to dedicate herself to adjusting to a more typical workweek schedule in anticipation of finally graduating, not to mention needing to catch up on homework and reading for school.
So for the first time in years, Fridays actually were the beginning of her weekends.
And this one was even better than they normally were.
He waited in line and sidled up to the register like he always did. But rather than hesitating this time, his eye had already crinkled beneath the shadow of his hat.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” Audrey grinned so wide, it was almost painful. But she couldn’t help it. The thrill of seeing him again in front of her now was too intoxicating, and the way his gaze seemed to brighten when he looked at her only made it worse.
It was a delicious sort of ache, one to linger on and savor.
He had to have been grinning just as widely under that mask as she was now. But the suspense of not knowing for sure was killing her.
Josh banged some packed espresso on the counter a little more aggressively than strictly necessary, jerking her back to reality. Audrey cleared her throat.
“Would you like something different today, or just the usual?”
Theo thought for a moment before reaching into his satchel and pulling out his travel mug. “Can I have what you like? I want to try your drink.”
“A flat white? You got it.”
She took his mug from him and rang him up, but she didn’t even need to signal to Josh to switch this time.
He was already hovering behind her at the register.
Theo dumped the rest of his change in their tip jar like he usually did, plus an extra twenty, while Audrey stepped over to the espresso machine.
He waited quietly at his usual table for her to join him, tapping his hand on his leg anxiously.
Same time, different drink, same nervousness.
She hung her apron on a hook and slipped out to the lounge, setting his mug down in front of him while she slid into the empty seat across.
“You know, you’re going to have to let me show you some latte art sometime. I can make you a good coffee in your tumbler, but I can’t make it pretty. The foam’s too delicate, and there’s not enough room.” She gave him a wry look over her cup, and a blush crept up his cheeks from under the mask.
“You don’t have to go to the trouble to—”
“Theo, I’m asking you to let me show off for you.”
He quieted, and his blush deepened. “Oh. Well, okay then. I’d love to see your art.”
“Thank you.” She took a sip of her coffee. “What do you do, anyway? Are you an artist? Professionally, I mean.” She’d been dying to know for a few months now.
He tilted his head from side to side. “Yeah, normally I’m kind of an artist.”
“ ‘Kind of an artist’?” She raised an eyebrow. “You seem like you’re very definitely an artist to me. Your work’s beautiful.”
He huffed. “Well, you haven’t actually seen it—not the real stuff.
You’ve only seen scribbles, and not even the good ones at that.
But thank you all the same.” Theo rubbed the back of his neck.
She could see that it too had gone red from the front.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “And okay, yes. I am—I was—an artist and a designer. Professionally. But I’m not sure I am anymore. ”
“Why not?”
He raised his right hand. It shook as he held it in the air, and even resting his elbow on the table didn’t seem to help with the trembling. “Nerve and muscle damage.”
Oh.
That wasn’t from shyness like she’d thought, then.
He closed his eye and sighed before making a fist and hiding his hand in his lap, and she felt his despair sour in the pit of her own stomach.
From what she could tell, he seemed devastated.
“Sketching is mostly fine, watercolors are fine,” he murmured.
“You don’t need to be precise for either of those.
But my usual medium? It’s a no-go. It’d be really dangerous to try if my hands shook like they do right now. ”
“What’s your usual medium?”
“Glass.”
They both grew quiet.
Audrey hadn’t expected that. Everything she knew about blowing glass did seem like it would be far too dangerous to do if you were recovering from the type of injuries Theo must have sustained. “Wow. Glass? So what are you—”
“I do physical therapy and my doctors’ appointments on Mondays, and—and the other kind of therapy on Wednesdays.
It’s getting better, but…” He trailed off and shook his head.
“I don’t know. I’m not really working right now.
Mostly I’m just trying to piece myself back together, I guess.
It’s—” Theo shook his head again. “No, never mind. I don’t really want to talk about it right now, if that’s all right.
I’m sick of talking about it. It’s all I ever do. ”
He withdrew. Audrey saw it happen in real time when he folded in on himself, quieted, hunched his shoulders. He tried to make himself smaller, less conspicuous, less noticeable.
That wouldn’t do at all.
“It’s okay with me if you want to talk about something else.
” She reached out and rested her hand on the top of his left one like she’d done the day before, only now Theo seemed far less shocked about the contact.
Though the way he eyed her hand suggested he still didn’t entirely trust any of this to be real.
“I’m really enjoying sitting here with you, Audrey.
” He dipped his head apologetically and lowered his voice.
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you stuff like this, it’s just that I don’t—well, I want to keep enjoying this.
I’d rather just be with you here right now and not think about everything else. ”
“I get it, don’t worry,” she whispered. “Just be with me, then.”
His gaze softened as he looked at her, and he drew in a slow, deep breath while he searched her face.
Audrey didn’t say anything. She only watched.
Everything about Theo was a puzzle: fragmented, scattered, broken, but just waiting to be pieced together.
She wanted to lay him out on a table, all the scraps of him separate, and work out how best to make the picture of him whole.
She wanted to know what the image of him amounted to, all of him, every disparate, quiet bit of him as a fraction of an entirety.
But he was clearly broken into so many pieces. It would take so much time.
Good thing she loved puzzles.