7. Tea and Truths
Chapter seven
Tea and Truths
Mandy
The Inked Teacup smells like oranges, dried lavender, and the kind of sanctuary you can only find in a place where the furniture doesn't match and nobody asks how your day is unless they actually want to know.
It's the antithesis of the loft's cold, industrial perfection.
Here, the floorboards creak underfoot like a comforting old secret, and the walls are covered in local art that ranges from breathtakingly talented to 'my toddler did this with a crayon and a dream. '
Kayla is behind the counter, arms folded, piercings gleaming in the harsh white light as she glares at a macaron pyramid.
Half the tables are occupied by laptop refugees or college students, but my usual table, the one by the window with the wobbly leg, is free.
I slide into my seat and let my bag drop to the floor, waiting for Kayla to acknowledge me like a queen bestowing an audience on a particularly needy peasant.
She doesn’t make me wait long. She grabs a mug and sets the kettle to boil. No words. No menu. We’ve done this so many times the ritual is locked in, muscle memory and contempt in perfect sync.
I pull out my sketchbook and flip to a blank page, though I don’t draw. I just run the edge of my thumbnail along the spiral binding, round and round, until the sound drills a hole in my head.
“Drink this. You look like shit,” Kayla says, dropping a heavy ceramic mug onto the scarred wood of my table.
She slides into the velvet armchair opposite me, her short black bob sharp against her pale skin.
She's wearing a t-shirt that says Not Today, Satan and enough eyeliner to make a racoon jealous.
I glance up. “Is it the hair or is the permanent psychological damage that obvious?”
She shrugs, neither confirming nor denying. “Spill it, Amanda. And I don't mean the herbal tea.” She motions to the cup in front of me. “What is going on? You are extra twitchy today.”
“Nothing is going on. It's a logistics situation. I was homeless, he has a guest room. It's basically a municipal service, like the library or a public park. I'm just another resident in need of temporary housing.”
Kayla leans forward, her dark eyes narrowing. She has a way of looking at me that makes me feel like an unfinished sketch with all the messy construction lines still visible. She's my best friend, but she's also a human lie detector with a specific focus on my romantic failures.
“Right. A municipal service with broad shoulders and a hero complex. Try again. You haven't looked me in the eye once since you walked in, and you've been shredding that napkin since I sat down.”
I look down. The napkin is indeed a pile of white confetti, scattered across the table like snow.
I can still see it…the way the water beaded on his skin, the line of the scar on his forearm that looked like a jagged silver river, the terrifyingly casual way that towel just...
gave up. I can't stop thinking about the topography of him.
The sheer, unyielding reality of a man built for rescue.
My throat feels like it's been lined with sandpaper, and my heart starts that same frantic, rhythmic thumping against my ribs.
I grab the mug in front of me with both hands and take a sip.
“I walked in on him,” I whisper, the admission feeling like a confession of a high-profile crime. “Yesterday morning. In his bedroom. He was... fresh from the shower and now my brain is permanently mis-wired.”
Kayla blinks. “Was he…?”
“Oh, yeah.” I do not hesitate. “Completely unsupervised. There was a towel situation. Gravity did what gravity does.” I wave my hand for emphasis before covering my face.
Kayla's eyebrows shoot toward her hairline. A slow, predatory grin spread across her face, the kind that usually precedes a very loud, very inappropriate comment. She leans in until I can smell the peppermint on her breath.
“Oh? And how was the view? On a scale of one to 'I need a cold shower and a priest,' where are we at? Give me the specifics, Mandy. I'm an artist. I need details. Lighting, muscle definition, the works.”
“Kayla, stop. It was an accident. I needed pants.
I didn't have any pants, and I thought he was still at the gym, and it was just... a lot of Sterling. All at once. In high definition. It was like seeing a statue come to life, but with more water and less… marble.” I hide my face in my hands, my ears burning hot enough to steam.
“I'm a walking disaster. I should have knocked.
I've lived alone for three years; I've forgotten how to coexist with a person who has... anatomy. Real, functional, terrifyingly… athletic anatomy.”
Kayla lets out a cackle that is loud enough to make a girl at the next table jump and spill her chai.
Several heads turn toward our corner, but Kayla doesn't care.
She thrives on the disruption. She reaches across the table and swats my arm, her rings clicking against the wood.
“Mands, he's a firefighter. They're basically made of granite and good intentions. Please tell me you at least got a good look at the architecture before you bolted. Give me something to work with here. Was there a six-pack? A four-pack? An entire case of beer?”
“It wasn't a case of beer,” I mumble into my palms, the image of his torso flashing behind my eyelids like a strobe light. “It was... efficient. Everything was very... structurally sound.” I can feel the heat creeping up my face.
“Structurally sound,” Kayla repeats, her voice dripping with dry amusement.
“Only you would describe a naked man in terms of his load-bearing capabilities.
You're hopeless. But you're also lying to yourself.
You're not just rattled because you saw some peen.
You're rattled because you liked it. Because for the first time in forever, you're looking at a man who isn't a project or a puzzle to be solved.
He's just... there. And he's good at being there.”
I drop my hands, finally meeting her gaze.
The humor in her eyes has softened into something sharper, something more observant.
“It's not that. It's just... trauma-bonding.
My apartment blew up, Kayla. I watched my life turn into ash and flame.
My system is just misfiring because he's the person who gave me a place to sleep and llama socks.
It's biology, a primitive response to safety, not... anything real. My brain is just searching for an anchor, and he happens to be the one standing there with the rope.”
“Is it?” Kayla asks, her voice uncharacteristically quiet.
She traces the rim of her mug with a sharp, black-painted fingernail.
“Or are you just so used to Derek's brand of manipulative 'love', that conditional, 'be-better' bullshit, that you don't know what to do with a man who treats you like you're actually worth the space you take up even when you're in mismatched pajamas?
Sterling's been your friend for years, Mands.
You've had six years to 'trauma-bond' with him over bad dates and work stress.
But he's not just a friend right now. He's the guy who remembers what you wore to a gallery opening a year ago.
He's the guy who buys you a green sweater because he thinks it matches your soul, not just your eyes.
He's responding to you, Mandy. Not to the fire. To you.”
“I can't deal with this right now.” I reach for my laptop bag, hoping movement alone will end the conversation.
Kayla snorts.
“Nice try. Sit down.”
I hesitate.
“Amanda.”
I sigh dramatically and sink back into the chair.
She leans in, eyes sparkling. “So? Was it worth the trauma?”
I make a face. “You’re the worst.”
“Not an answer.”
I take a sip of tea. It is scalding and barely drinkable, but it buys me three seconds of plausible deniability. “I don’t know. Maybe? It’s like when I saw him my brain left my body and filed for divorce.”
Kayla waits, patient as a crocodile. “And you’re here because…?”
“I don’t know!” This comes out louder than planned. I glance around, but the laptop people are already lost in their noise, cancelling cocoons. “I just had to leave the apartment. I think I was going to start talking to the appliances.”
“Or just the cat, again.” Kayla says.
“He hates me now. It’s mutual.”
Kayla props her chin on her palm and watches me with undisguised interest. “Do you have a crush on this man, or are you just horny from the trauma?”
I choke on my tea and cough so hard my eyes water. “I do not have a crush,” I say with the unwavering confidence of someone who absolutely has a crush.
Kayla tilts her head. “So horny from trauma, got it.” She grins and I can feel my face turning red again.
“No, not that either.” I snap but my tone is hushed.
“Then why are you in here, at ass, o’clock on a Saturday, instead of at home with him, eating cookie dough and rewatching SVU?”
“It’s just…” I drum my fingers on the table. “Maybe because being in his apartment is like being under a microscope, and every time I touch something, I feel like I’m trespassing.”
“Amanda,” Kayla deadpans, “You put your bare ass inside his underwear and you’re telling me you didn’t want to be in his space?”
I cross my arms tight. “It was all I had after my actual wardrobe went up in smoke.”
“Excuses, excuses.” Kayla is relentless. “Was it weird?”
I frown. “What? Seeing him naked? Or living with him?”
“Both.”
I open my mouth, but there is no answer. The closest thing is a sound, a little squeak of uncertainty, that I try to drown in more tea. “It’s not weird. It’s just, different. He’s always been the guy that people gravitate to. I never saw him, you know, alone, up close. Not like this.”
Kayla nods, and for a second, I think she’s going to drop it. But then, “You’re still hung up on Derek, aren’t you?”
I flinch. “No. I am not. That ship has sailed, crashed, and been picked clean by barnacles.”
She narrows her eyes. “Then why do you sound like you’re waiting for the next disaster?”
“Because disaster is the only thing that happens to people like me.”
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
They're ugly.
Worse, they're familiar.
“Bullshit,” Kayla says. “You get the good stuff, too. You just don’t trust it.”
I want to argue. I stare at the table instead, at the gouged wood and the glue stain shaped like Florida.
“Okay,” Kayla says. “What’s his worst quality.”
I open my mouth. Close it. “He can take meal prepping to an annoying extreme.”
She waits.
“That’s it,” I say. “That’s the whole list.”
Kayla looks at me with an expression that could strip paint. “You are so cooked.”
We both stare at each other for a minute before laughing at the complete absurdity of this entire conversation.
Kayla shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “If you want to hit on the firefighter, do it. But don’t do it because he saved your ass or your dignity. Do it because you actually like him.”
“I don’t actually like him.” I say it, and it’s a lie.
She grins. “Then just do it because the trauma made you horny.”
“Kayla, it’s not like that.”
She points at my sketchbook. “Prove me wrong. Draw something that isn’t him.”
I look down. Somewhere, in the margin, my hand has drawn a perfect, hyper, realistic outline of Sterling’s jaw, complete with the morning stubble that no one ever gets to see.
I hadn’t even noticed.
Kayla barks a laugh, then gets up to refill my mug and take care of the customer at the counter. When she comes back, she sits, folds her arms, and just watches.
I stare at the sketch, at the neatness of the lines, at how the pencil has picked out the one feature I always made fun of but secretly admired. I close the book with a snap.
“Hey,” Kayla reaches across the table and puts her hand over mine, just for a second. “Remember. He’s not Derek.” She says, standing up as a bell chimes at the front door, signaling a rush of students looking for caffeine.