Chapter 3

  The wire grate of the outdoor table digs into my elbows like twine on a roast. Cigarette forgotten between my fingers as I scan the parking lot for that stupid pink cloud of- Casey. I scan for Casey.

  Tara manages to sneak up behind me and sms my bck ice coffee down on the table in front of me. I jump of course, sending my fresh cigarette to the ground and a frown onto my face.

  “You know, she doesn’t come by on Fridays." Tara says smugly.

  “What? Who? I just wanted coffee.”

  “Casey. Casey doesn’t come by when you’re not working,” she says in a surprisingly soft tone as she pulls out the other chair and joins me. “She only comes by Sunday through Thursday.”

  “Shit” the swear seeps out of my lips and I suddenly feel silly for getting dressed and doing my makeup on a Friday.

  “You didn’t get dressed up just for her right?” Tara asks with a smirk

  “No… I have to go to the bank after this.” The words whine out from around the straw as I sip my coffee. “You’re not getting a tip for this.”

  Tara gasps in mock offense “how dare you, I had to refill the ice bucket for that! Jake sure as hell wasn’t going to do it…”

  The ugh is unavoidable so I let it out “Jake is such a zy piece of shit.”

  Comfortable quiet washes over the two of us for a few minutes and my mind wanders to what Casey does when she’s not stalking me at the coffee shop. I know she has cats because she’s always covered in cat hair.

  “Tara. You ever uh… talk to her at all?” I can already feel my cheeks warming a little.

  If Tara notices the pink tint she’s being awfully kind by not mentioning it. “Nah. I mean I complimented her shoes one time, she had these sick as hell, like, hot pink Doc Martens. I’ve never seen those before.”

  “Hot pink Docs? Doesn’t that kinda defeat the whole point of docs?” Chewing my straw while imagining it “that is kinda sick though I won’t lie”

  “The heresy” Tara whispers

  “Oh fuck off, preppy bitch.” Laughter ensues from both of us and that comfortable silence is back for a brief moment before I get a wild idea. My hands go up in a ‘V’ shape and I look Tara in the eyes. She matches my pose and we speak simultaneously “non-judgment cone, ACTIVATE!”

  “I think I’m crushing hard on that stupid pink thing and I don’t want to tell her because I don’t want our tiny interactions to change andshehonestlykindofannoystheshitoutofme” i take a deep breath after getting that off my chest and wait for Tara to tear me a new one.

  “Yeah, no shit. You two are like oil and water of course she annoys the shit out of you. You’re an asshole, she’s a productive member of society.”

  “Hey, what the hell Tara, I thought we said no judgement zone?”

  “Quit judging my observations this is a non-judgement zone, Brooke.”

  My fingers break away from Tara’s, shattering the cone of non-judgment, I cross my arms and zip my lip. Eyes stare daggers at Tara wyering her way into insulting me without any ability to defend myself.

  After a beat I kick my chair out and stand up. “I’m going to the bookstore. They have better coffee and you can’t follow me.” I raise my nose at Tara and take one step before stopping and gncing at Tara “have a good shift, text me ter when you’re off.” And I storm off to the book store across the street.

  It’s a short breezy walk to ‘The Folded Corner’, maybe ten minutes or so. It’s definitely enough time for the sun to heat up my bck shirt and make me sweat. The gss door squeaks to life as I barge into it and the cool air blows across my sweat-dampened clothes like ice.

  I head straight to the fiction section, which of course is a scattered mess of disorganized books that were clearly picked up, gnced at, and unceremoniously dropped like Woody from Toystory.

  “I don’t want to py with you anymore” I mumble to myself as I kneel in front of the pile and start looking for a book.

  Many fshy covers, a few cyberpunk novels that look interesting, a few ‘cssics’ that don’t. One novel in particur grabs my attention, Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta. The cover depicts two women who seem to be on a team of some kind, one with a glowing blue hand, one with a sword. Oh yeah, and a giant fucking robot head in the background.

  The blurb on the back has me sold immediately, lesbian angst and mechas, my two guilty pleasures combined into one. My first instinct is to get up and head to the checkout immediately but the remaining pile of books catches my eye and locks my knees to the floor. I spend the next few minutes gathering the strewn books into four separate stacks on the floor in front of the shelves. I'm not sure how they’re supposed to be organized so I just stick to stacking.

  Hand to carpet, knees lift, hand to book, smile to face. About-face. Eye contact. Heart:dropped. Casey is staring right at me with a big stupid smile from behind the clerk desk in the center of the book store. I frantically scan the rest of the store, the only other employee I can find is the barista behind the coffee bar, I cmber over to him and quietly, oh so very quietly I ask a simple question.

  “Can I please pay for this book here?”

  “Nah, you gotta go to the sugarplum fairy over there, man.” He says in a slow sentence while pointing directly to the direction I’m trying to avoid. One peek over my shoulder and I’m greeted by the sight of Casey, chin in hand, eyes on me, a simple look of joy across her soft features. She's enjoying this, she knows something is up.

  SgathaChristie