Chapter 4
Theo
Iknew I’d made the wrong decision before I was fully out the café’s door. Several wrong decisions. It was a terrible idea to run out on Diccon just because I’d been startled like a cat with a cucumber dropped beside it, but bailing like that was low.
It was a terrible idea to kiss Diccon in the first place.
Maybe he had initiated it, but I couldn’t help thinking I’d pushed things somehow.
Maybe I’d given off too many needy signals, but the way the evening had unfolded convinced me that Diccon was the sweetest, funniest, most magnetic person I’d ever met.
He must have somehow sensed that I was attracted to him and wanted that kiss, so he felt obligated to—
I sighed and finally slowed my pace as I headed home, hands thrust into my pockets in defeat.
I needed to stop thinking like that. As much as I had wished I could be as a kid, I wasn’t actually telepathic and couldn’t convince people to do my bidding just by staring at them and thinking hard.
But I also couldn’t escape the teenage scars of assuming my crush—back then it was Jeff Greer—was also gay, and finding out the hard way with a bloody nose after trying to kiss him that he wasn’t.
“You’re not sixteen anymore,” I reminded myself as I let myself into my apartment and went straight to the bedroom, wanting nothing more than to hide under the covers and sleep until I didn’t remember the taste of Diccon’s mouth anymore.
Like that was going to happen anytime soon.
By the time I changed into pajama bottoms and washed up for bed, I was convinced that the worst decision I’d made all day was to go to the open mic night to begin with.
Just like Diccon had hinted while we were waiting for the show to start, the whole event was yet another break in my routine, and sure enough, disaster had struck.
I still tried to tell myself it wasn’t so bad as I lay on my back, staring up at the crack in the ceiling above my bed while definitely not being asleep.
All things considered, I’d had a good time.
Diccon was lovely. Maybe he wasn’t just being friendly the way he was with everyone.
Maybe he actually had wanted to kiss me.
Maybe I wanted to kiss him again.
Fat chance of that. I rolled to my side and curled into a ball, willing sleep to put me out of my misery. I’d run out on Diccon. He was probably offended. He might not want anything to do with me ever again.
Sleep finally happened, but just before I drifted off, I could feel a part of myself whispering, “You don’t have to be so hard on yourself. Just because romance hasn’t exactly worked out for you before, that doesn’t mean you don’t stand a chance in the future.”
I woke up the next morning with a bittersweet jumble of leftover shame and sprouting hope that maybe I could fix things with Diccon.
The night before had ended terribly, but it had shown promise before that.
I was an architect. The whole point of what I did every day was to come up with plans to build things.
Maybe I could plan to build a relationship, too.
I spent way more time than usual picking out what I was going to wear for the day. I wanted to look nice when I slinked back into Common Grounds for my morning coffee and possibly a groveling session, but not too nice. I didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard.
I went through several potential outfits, all in the space of five minutes as my internal clock ticked loudly, telling me to get a move on or I would be late, and in true me fashion, I ended up wearing the same shirt, trousers, and tie combination that I wore every Thursday, despite my intentions to do things differently.
At least I felt fractionally more comfortable in my usual routine.
I was a few minutes late out the door, but after that, the walk to Common Grounds seemed to take forever. It was a nice, summer morning, not too hot yet and only a tiny bit humid, but I felt like my internal furnace had been turned up all the way.
There was a line at the counter in the café, as usual.
I slipped quietly in at the back, alternately looking ahead to where, sure enough, Diccon was working up front and greeting each customer with his usual sunny smile, and staring at my shoes so I could avoid the frost that I knew would be in his expression when I finally made it to the counter.
“Ooh, that’s a new one,” Diccon said cheerfully to the customer he was serving. “Low-fat oat milk mocha with cinnamon sprinkles!” he called out.
“Low-fat oat milk mocha with cinnamon sprinkles!” Brian echoed from the machine where he prepared an earlier order.
“Low-fat oat milk mocha with cinnamon sprinkles!” Hannah sang in her gorgeous voice from the tiny kitchen, finishing with what sounded like banging a wooden spoon on the edge of a metal bowl as she baked up some new treat.
I smiled despite myself. Common Grounds had a routine as much as I did, and it was fun. I hoped that everyone appreciated it. There would be a lot more people to appreciate it soon, once the new development I was on the team for next door went in.
That hopeful thought didn’t last long. Within minutes, it was my turn to step up to the counter. I did so with my eyes downcast and only looked up at Diccon, my face burning with potential shame, when I was right up against the counter.
“Good morning,” Diccon greeted me with a smile.
A smile that was not quite as broad or as open as usual.
I swallowed hard, knowing I was in trouble. “Morning,” I mumbled.
I needed to say something. I needed to apologize for being a jerk and running away. I needed to tell Diccon that I’d wanted the kiss, that I’d had such a good time talking to him the night before. I’d even liked singing in front of people. Well, I’d liked singing for Diccon.
Instead, I stood there like I’d forgotten what words were and just stared at him.
The faintest hint of a genuine smile pulled at the corner of Diccon’s mouth, and his eyes danced with something soft and sweet. “The usual?” he asked.
It was my big moment to make things right, but the ghosts of a dozen relationships and crushes gone wrong in the past kept my lips glued together and my heart beating in my throat. “Yeah,” I croaked out at last, unable to say anything else.
Diccon nodded solemnly, though his eyes still sparkled. “The usual,” he called out, more like making a serious announcement than celebrating my order.
“The usual,” Brian repeated with equal solemnity and in a way that made me certain he knew the story of what had happened last night.
“The usual,” Hannah said with just a hint of disapproval.
And that was it. I stood there for a few seconds more, getting out my card to pay after an embarrassing delay, then finally shifted to the side to wait for my coffee once the guy behind me cleared his throat in annoyance.
Diccon watched me as I moved, but he couldn’t exactly take off his apron, close the counter down, and take me aside to talk to me.
He dealt with the next customer while I shuffled my feet at the corner of the counter, wondering why I was so completely inept at basic human interactions with a guy I liked.
It felt like a special kind of defeat a minute later when Brian handed me my coffee with a sympathetic look, when I left the café to continue on to the office, and when I took my first sip from the paper cup, only to discover it actually was my regular coffee and not the special blueberry blend Diccon had teased me with the day before.
That really felt like the end of things.
I tried not to let it get me down as I hurried down Easton Road to the office.
I already knew I was a failure in the charisma department, so that wasn’t anything new.
I resigned myself to file the beautiful day with Diccon aside in my mental box of memories that weren’t half bad and to maybe find a different coffee shop next week.
Those thoughts were cut short when I stepped into the offices of Gershwin and Anglesea to find a crew deep in the process of tearing up all the carpets and taking what remained of the wallpaper down.
The place looked even worse than it had the day before.
I knew the office would be closed, but I hadn’t imagined it would be that bad.
I’d hoped to pick up a few things from my work area and to find a clear spot to set up shop, but that wasn’t happening.
“Didn’t you get the email Chuck sent out?” Pam asked as I stood there, coffee in one hand, satchel weighing down my shoulder.
“I forgot to check this morning,” I said, an uneasy feeling growing in my gut.
“Well, as you can see, they found someone to clean up the office and do a quick renovation,” Pam explained as she gathered what looked like files from our workroom into a large backpack.
“But Chuck still hasn’t found us a temporary workspace.
Christopher and David have headed to the library to see if they can use one of their conference rooms for the day, but the rest of us are working from home. ”
“I see,” I said, looking around at the disaster as I crossed to my workstation to pick up the file I needed. It felt a little too close to home, if I was honest.
“Just log on to the office system from wherever you’re working, like the rest of us,” Pam said as she finished with the backpack and slung it over her shoulder. “I know you’re super busy with the Jameson Industries project. Do you have any client meetings scheduled?”
“Not until next week,” I said, still a little overwhelmed.
“Okay, then. Go have fun working remotely. I’ll call you if I need you for anything.”
That was pretty much that. My coffee wasn’t even cool yet as I left the office and headed back to the street. Once I was there, I stood still for a second, knowing what I had to do but dreading it more than a little.