Chapter Six #3
Ours, his dragon insisted happily. He’s talking to us and making us coffee. Such a wonderful mate.
The latte and flat white appeared. Rux paid. Drank them both while trying to engage Sam in conversation about milk foam density. Sam answered in increasingly short sentences, his smile now permanently fixed in that customer service expression that meant I’m being paid to be nice to you.
By the sixth drink - an Americano because Rux was running out of menu options - Sam set down the cup and didn’t immediately walk away.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Rux blinked. “What?”
“That’s six coffees in twenty minutes.” Sam’s professional mask had slipped entirely, replaced by genuine concern. “That’s a lot of caffeine. Like, a potentially dangerous amount of caffeine.”
He cares. He’s worried about us.
“I have a high tolerance.”
“Nobody has that high a tolerance.” Sam crossed his arms. “Seriously, are you having some kind of...day? Is something wrong?”
Everything was wrong. His Treasure was standing three feet away, looking concerned and wary, and Rux couldn’t tell him they were fated mates, couldn’t explain that his dragon recognized Sam as theirs, couldn’t do anything except stand there vibrating with caffeine and a desperate urge to tell the truth.
The café appeared empty – it was just the two of them. Sam was watching him with those warm brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, a small frown creasing his forehead.
Rux’s hand shot out, and he grabbed a receipt from the stack beside the register before pulling a pen from the cup near the till.
“What are you…”
Rux’s hand shook as he gripped the pen. His dragon was screaming - stay, talk to him, make him understand - while every human instinct he’d learned over centuries told him to run before he made the situation worse - because he was making it worse.
If he stayed, he’d order another coffee. Maybe eight more. Maybe he’d start talking about grout patterns or ceiling tiles or whatever desperate thing his brain latched onto next. But if he left - gods, if he left without giving Sam some way to find him again…
Rux scrawled his number across the paper. His handwriting came out jagged, partly from caffeine jitters and partly from the way his heart stone was hammering against his ribs. He shoved the receipt toward Sam.
“Call me. Please.” The words tumbled out. “Rux. That’s my name. Call me.”
Sam stared at the receipt, at the number, and then at Rux. His mouth opened, but no words came out.
Not wanting to hear a refusal, Rux fled, straight out the door into the brilliant October sunshine, leaving six empty cups on the counter and his dignity somewhere near the laminate flooring.
His dragon wailed in mortification - we ran, we ran from our mate, coward, fool - but his legs kept moving until he reached the Range Rover parked two streets over.
Slamming the driver’s door shut behind him, Rux gripped the steering wheel.
His entire body vibrated from caffeine and adrenaline, and all he could see in his mind was Sam’s shocked expression as he left the coffee shop.
As he started the engine, he started to laugh.
There really wasn’t anything else he could do.
/~/~/~/~/
“I gave him my number.”
Mabon looked up from his laptop in the study. Urien appeared at the top of the stairs.
“He’ll definitely call.” Rux looked between his mates, silently urging them to appreciate what a huge step that was.
Mabon’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you shaking?”
“Caffeine.” Rux couldn’t stop grinning, much the same as he couldn’t stop the tremor in his hands. “I had six coffees.”
“Six…” Urien descended the stairs. “Why did you have six coffees?”
“To talk to him. To stay at the shop.” Rux pulled out his phone, checked the screen even though he’d looked at it thirty seconds ago in the car. “I gave him my number. Wrote it on a receipt. Told him to call me.”
“And what did he say?” Mabon set down his laptop.
“Nothing. I ran out.”
Silence.
“You...ran out,” Mabon repeated slowly.
“Yes.”
“After giving him your number.”
“Yes.”
“And telling him to call you.”
“Yes!”
Urien and Mabon exchanged a look.
“He’ll call,” Rux insisted, checking his phone again. No notifications. “Definitely. Any minute now.”
An hour passed, and in that time Rux checked his phone forty-seven times.
“It hasn’t been that long,” Mabon said from his chair, though he kept glancing at his own phone. “He’s probably still at work.”
“What if he threw the receipt away?” Urien paced near the window. “What if he thought you were mad? Six coffees, Rux. Six.”
“I was making conversation like you told me to.”
“You were making yourself ill.”
Another hour. Rux’s phone sat on the coffee table. All three of them stared at it.
“Maybe he lost the receipt,” Mabon offered.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to call,” Urien countered.
“He’ll call.” Rux grabbed his phone, checked again. Nothing. “He kept all our gifts. He was concerned about my caffeine intake. Those are positive signs.”
“Are they?”
“Yes!” Rux refused to think any differently. He’d reached out. Sam would respond.
The phone didn’t ring.