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“So, are you coming by the lake bench later? We’re gonna hang out there for a while after our classes.”
I reposition my bag on my shoulder and shift my weight to the left. “I was thinking of just heading to my dorm actually. I barely got any sleep last night.”
Alex smacks her lips together as she runs a hand through her short, dark hair. “Alright, then, go rest. I’ll see you on Monday?”
“Yeah, see you on Monday.”
She waves at me before walking off, her backpack hanging low on her back. Judging by the sun and the amount of students wondering around campus, it’s probably 6pm. I check my phone. 6:07pm it reads. All I want right now is to fill my stomach and get some sleep. There are multiple places I could go to right now to satisfy my hunger, but they’re all either too expensive, or too cheap to actually be considered a meal. You can only live off potato chips from vending machines and ramen noodles for so long. There’s this coffee shop just around the corner that’s relatively close to my dorm. It’s where I usually go when I’m alone and have a couple of minutes to spare. It’s quite a nice place, actually! There aren’t usually many costumers there and the place is pretty cozy. I make my way down the street until I see a white sign that reads “Coffee Delight”. I step in and the small bell on the door greets me cheerfully.
“Welcome to Coffee Delight.” The a boy behind the counter smiles. “What can I get for you today?”
My eyebrows knit together as I stare at the menu behind him. “Hm...I feel like having some cake today, actually. Yeah, make that a double chocolate and strawberry cake, please.”
“Got a sweet tooth, huh?”
“More or less.”
The boy leans down to carefully remove my slice from the display shelf and chuckles. “Well, you are what you eat. That’ll be £2.99.”
I try to make small talk as I reach for my wallet. “Are you new here? I’ve never seen you around before.”
He leans forward on the counter and cups his cheeks with his own hands, resting his elbows on the marble surface. He licks his lips once before shooting a glance at me. “Yeah. Started on monday.”
I hand him three pounds and he puts them away in the cash register. “How’ve things been working out, uh...” I try to peer over his arm that was covering his name tag.
“Dan,” he smirks, lowering his arms to let me read it.
“Dan,” I repeat. I like how easily it rolls off my tongue. “Hi Dan, I’m Phil.”
“Hey Phil. And it’s been fine. I only work a couple of hours, but it’s still enjoyable, and they pay me a reasonable amount of money, so I can’t complain.”
“Are you in college or something?”
“Nah, taking a gap year.”
I nod and he purses his lips, drumming his fingers against the hard surface. “Just needed some time to sort my life out is all.”
“I wish I had taken a gap year. The year has barely even started and everything is already getting way too stressful. Try having a social life, good grades, and sleep at the same time.”
Dan nods, an understanding expression on his face. “The coffee shop is pretty quiet, you can come here whenever you want some alone time.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll start doing that from now on. It’s usually not busy around this time of the day. You work here everyday?”
Dan starts playing with some sugar packets in front of him. “Yup. First shift is from 8am to 11am and the second one starts 5pm and ends at 8pm.” He looks up at me, a smug expression plastered all over his face. “Why, you gonna come here to see me everyday?”
“S-sorry?” I choke.
He chuckles, and I can’t help but notice the little indent on his left cheek. He leans forward and even though his face still probably 8 inches away from mine, I can see specks of gold swimming around in his honey brown eyes. “The cake’s getting cold,” he mocks, glancing down at the cake and back at me.
“O-oh.” I fix my fringe subconsciously and dig my fork into the cake, bringing it up to my mouth.
“No need to get all flustered, princess.” I shudder when the pet name leaves his lips. I hate pet names, I hate them, and I hate that I don’t hate them when they’re coming from Dan’s mouth. His hand is now fiddling with a ball point pen that he probably found laying around the cash register and I notice his fingernails are cut short and his hands are big. Well, bigger than mine anyway. “There are barely any costumers today, it gets kind of boring around here.” I take another bite of my cake, still observing the way his fingers play with the pen, making it spin. “Oh, also,” he opens his other hand to reveal a small coin. “Forgot your change.”
I take the cent and let my fingers brush against his palm softly, inhaling sharply when he shoots a cheesy smile in my direction. “Thanks,” I murmur placing the coin in my pocket. I hate how uneasy he’s making me, his burning eyes intently following each one of my movements, so I keep shoving cake in my mouth in an attempt to keep my nerves at bay.
The high pitched ding of the coffee shop bell snaps us out of our conversation, a short middle aged woman with a purse that’s probably bigger than her making her way in our direction.
“Well...Twas fun chatting. Come by soon.” His eyes are peering their way into my soul, and I swear I’ve never felt more on edge before. “Phil.” I nod, staring down at my empty plate I hadn’t even noticed was already empty. He lets his tongue hoover over his upper lip for a second before bitting it and winking in my direction. What a punk. This is something that I would usually laugh at and just go on about my day, but my stomach is tightening and my face is hot, and he didn’t even have to tell me to come back soon, because the next bloody day, there I was at 10:43am. This time I have my heavy duty college binder and textbooks under my arm and I’m wearing my glasses. I figured he was right about the shop being a quiet place and that I could benefit from studying here.
“Oh, look who’s back!” He’s holding a rag on one hand, a small plate on the other, and a cocky smile on his face. I notice he’s wearing a black, leather cardigan over a plain white t-shirt and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. He places the rag and plate down and leans forward, his hands propped against the counter supporting most of his weight. “Same thing as yesterday?”
“No, just a coffee today, I think.”
“How boring.”
How pretentious.
He turns around, heading to the coffee machine. I can’t help but notice how his shirt rides up to reveal his leopard print underwear when he reaches up to get a mug. This boy is unbelievable. I sit down on one of the stools and open my Linguistics textbook, adjusting the glasses on my face.
“Watcha got there?”
“I’m majoring in English Arts and Linguistics. Pretty interesting, but can be boring at times. Depends on what we’re studying.”
He props the steaming mug of coffee in front of me and rests his head on one of his hands. “Oh, that sounds like fun. Way better than Law.”
“You were taking law?”
“Yup. Not that I want to become a lawyer or anything of that sort. I just, you know, wanted something that would make me look smart and employable.”
“Well, what do you want to be then?”
“I dunno,” he shrugs and runs his index finger down the handle of my coffee mug, his eyes staring off into space. “I was hoping to get that figured out during this gap year. Doubt it’s gonna happen though.”
“Well you could just work here forever, this place isn’t half bad,” I joke.
“You’d like that wouldn’t you?” He smirks in my direction, sending shivers up my spine.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t find him at least a tad attractive. A really big tad. Okay, he was really attractive.
“Mm,” I hum against the rim of my mug.
“Alright Phil, tell me about yourself,” he props his elbows on the counter like he did yesterday, leaning in my direction to gaze at me.
“I already did. My name is Phil and I’m majoring in English arts and Linguistics.”
“That’s the boring answer. That’s like what you answer when the aunt you’ve only seen about 3 times in your life asks you how you’ve been. ‘Good’. Tell me something else. Let’s play a game. Truth or super truth.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like truth or dare but only with truths.”
“That sounds really lame,” I laugh. “Why not with dares?”
He cocks one of his eyebrows up and I can see a smile creeping its way into his lips. “Do you want to play it with dares?”
I shrug. “Yeah, why not?”
He ruffles up his hair and glances at the clock on the wall. “My shift ends soon, so what do you say we hang out somewhere else?”
“Sure,” I smile, ignoring the way my stomach flips at the idea of spending some more alone time with this boy I barely even knew. What the hell, why am I getting so excited?
Not even a minute later, a blonde woman with pink on the tips of her hair rushes through the back door.
“Sorry! Sorry, sorry, I’m late!”
“That’s alright,” Dan smiles, handing her the apron. “How’ve you been?”
“Darcy kept me up all night and Matt is out of town for his work, so I’ve been extra busy.”
“If you need me to watch Darcy one of these days just ask, alright?”
“Thank you, that’s really nice of you, but Zoe’s already helping.”
I stand on the other side of the counter awkwardly listening to their conversation and pretending to be paying attention to whatever I was reading in my textbook.
“Well, alright then. I’m off now, take care, I’ll be back at 5.” He walks around the counter and walks up to me. I notice he’s only a few centimeters taller than me and that he smells really good. That’s probably extremely creepy, but right now all I can think about is his musky smell with hints of coffee. He snakes one of his arms around my textbook and binder. “You ready?”
I hurriedly try to reach for my stuff. “You don’t have to do that.”
“That’s alright, it’s not that heavy anyway.”
“Have fun you two!” the woman shouts as we head out the door. The way she says it makes me nervous, like Dan leaving with some random guy is normal. Does he act like this around everyone? Is he just being nice? How many boys has he played truth or dare with? Hell, is he even into boys?!
“Bye!” Dan waves at her as he props the door open for me with his foot. “That’s Louise,” he says when we start walking. “We’ve been friends for a while. I met her through one of my friends in high school. She was 6 years older than me, but we got along well, so we’ve kept in touch ever since my year 10. She was the one that got me this job actually. She said the other guy working there had moved to America, so now there were these two short shifts that needed to be covered. I needed some money, so I was like why not?”
I nod, following him down the street. “She seems nice.”
“She’s amazing. Her daughter is the sweetest thing too.”
“Is that the girl she mentioned? Darcy?”
“Yeah. I see her sometimes when her husband comes to pick her up. She says I smell nice,” he chuckles.
I agree with the kid on that one. “So, where are we going?”
“I thought I’d keep it a secret for now. I want to surprise you.”
I look down and laugh nervously. “You’re making this sound like a date.”
He looks at me attentively. “Do you want it to be?”
I cough into my fist and look ahead of me, not daring to even take a glance at him. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, Daniel.”
“Don’t worry pretty boy, I’ll take it easy on ya.” My shoulders quake at how easily he’s saying these things. He’s probably just messing around.
We keep walking and talking and I don’t know how or how long it took us to get here but the city landscape soon turns into an extremely small but pretty field with trees and flowers everywhere. “Wow,” I jitter. “This is really pretty.”
“You’ve never been here before?” I shake my head, taking all the green in. “It’s a pretty secluded part of town. Not many people know about this place, but it was relatively easy to fine. I like to come here a lot, usually to think about the meaning of life and such.” He sits down on a somewhat large rock and pats the spot next to him, setting my stuff down on the ground. I carefully sit next to him and make sure my hand doesn’t brush against his as I sit down. “Alright, we’re here. Time to start playing. Truth or dare?”
I fidget in my seat, taking a quick glimpse at him. “Um... Truth.”
He tilts his head to the sky. “What are you passionate about, Phil?”
I pause and let my hands cup my knees as I lean forward. “I really like film making. I’m trying to get a master in Video Production. I would really like to produce my own movie one day,” I smile to myself. “That would be really cool.”
“I can see you as a movie director,” he nods. “I pick truth as well.”
I touch my lips with my index finger and let out a small puff of air. “What’s your favorite band?”
“That’s a really boring question,” he says as he crosses his legs.
“Sorry, I’m not a very interesting person.”
“Sure you are. You just gotta let loose and hit me with every single weird question you’ve ever wanted to ask. But if you really want to know, my favorite band is Muse.”
“Really?” My eyes light up. “Mine too!”
“See? You’re not that boring. Your turn, truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Not ready for a dare yet?”
“Okay, fine, dare.”
“I dare you to climb up that tree and scream the first impression you had of me.”
I burst out laughing, clinging to my sides and rocking back and forth. “Are you serious?”
“One hundred percent.”
I stand and walk up to the tree that was about 3 feet away from us. Suddenly it hits me. I’ve never climbed a tree before. I’ve actually never attempted to climb a tree in my whole entire life. Oh no. Oh no no no no, I’m going to make a fool of myself in front of a hot and compelling boy who seems to actually want to get to know me and oh God oh God, I’m going to look like an absolute fool. I turn around to look at him. “I don’t know how to climb a tree,” I say, staring blankly at him.
He snickers, standing up to walk in my direction. “Really? It’s not that hard.”
“Dan, I’m going to fall and look really stupid.”
Dan gives me and endearing smile. “No you won’t. Come on, just watch me first, alright?”
I move out of the way as he places his foot on a sturdy place on the tree bark and his left hand on the closest tree branch, and expertly lifts himself up. I look at him in astonishment, amazed by how graceful he is and how easy he makes it seem. A few seconds later he is sitting on the third tree branch swaying his legs up and down, smiling down at me. “Your turn.”
“Dan, I don’t think I can do it.”
“Come on, just to this first branch, I’ll help you up if you want.” He moves from his branch down to the first one and sits there, extending his arm towards me. I gulp and try to imitate his movements, placing my foot on the wood and reaching up to grab the base of the branch. “There you go! Keep going, you can do it!” I try to lift myself up, but as soon as my right foot leaves the ground, I slip and fall against the tree.
“Sorry,” I say, scratching the back of my neck.
“That’s alright. Here, let me come down so I can help you.” With one swift motion, he jumps off the branch and is back at my side. “Place your foot here,” he says softly kicking a small dent on the tree. I obey. “Alright, now place your left hand here...” he grabs my hand and positions it on a slightly salient bump. “...and your other hand up here.” He guides my hand to the branch above me and I can’t pay attention to what he’s saying at all because his left hand is on my hip and his breath is chilly against my neck and my head is spinning. “Now push yourself up, and when your right foot leaves the ground, quickly step here,” he points to another dent on the tree. “And then just pull yourself up all the way. I’ll help.”
I nod, trying to do everything he said. His hand is still lingering over my hip and I don’t know what I’m doing, but for some reason I managed to lift my right foot off the floor and not fall backwards on top of him. I place it on the second dent like he told me to.
“Alright, now lift yourself up using your legs and your arms.”
I try to do as I’m told, but my limbs start shaking and I can’t move up. “I can’t-”
He grabs hold of my hips with both hands firmly and lifts me up. It all happens really fast and his hands are now cupping my ass and I’m trying to lift myself up and his hands are all over my waist and bum and I’m inhaling sharply and I’m pulling myself up and I’m sitting on the branch missing Dan’s hands on me.
I stare around myself, eyes and mouth wide open, taking in the view from up here. “I did it!”
“You did it!”
I throw my hands up in celebration. “I did it!” We’re both laughing and I feel so happy right now.
“Don’t forget the second part of the dare.”
“Oh yeah. My first impression of you...” I thought you were the hottest person I had ever had the pleasure of laying my eyes on. “I don’t know...”
“Oh, come on!”
I can’t say it I can’t say it I can’t say it. “I- erm... I don’t know!”
“Fine, then, what do you think of me now?” He motions his hands towards himself.
You’re still a hot piece of ass. “You’re really easy to talk to,” I say, looking down, feeling a blush creep its way into my face. “and you’re also a really pleasant person to hang out with.”
He crosses his arms and cocks his head to the side, a smile lingering on his lips. “Oh is that so?”
“Yes, now can I please get down?”
He looks down and chuckles. “Alright, yeah you can come down.”
I let my legs dangle from the branch and look down. I notice the ground is way further away than I had expected. “Um, how do I do this?”
“Just jump.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s too high, I’m not jumping!”
“Phil, it’s alright,” he said extending his arms in my direction. “’ll catch you.”
I gulp, feeling my hands shake as I adjust myself on the branch. Oh God, why did I not think of the crucial fact that if it was hard getting up it was probably also going to be hard to get down. “Okay...I’m going to jump.”
“Go for it.”
With my hands trembling, I push myself off the branch and oh God I’m falling I’m falling I’m falling, I’m going to land face first on the ground oh God oh God. I feel a pair of hands graze my sides and fully hold on to me when I touch the ground. Dan’s hands are firmly grasping my back and underarms, and damn his face is close. We stare at each other for a moments and as soft as he tries to make it, I can still feel his thumb gently rubbing up and down my side. I look away and take a small step back, touching the crane of my neck. “Sorry.”
He leans against the tree and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Nothing to be sorry for.” I sit back down on the rock and look up at him, watching his intimidating stance. “My turn. I pick truth again.”
I purse my lips and stare at the ground blankly, trying to think of something I would want to know about him. It’s not that I don’t have any questions in mind because, man, do I want to know things about him. I’m just not sure which one I want to know first.
“How many people do you flirt with on a daily basis?”
He digs his hands deeper in his pockets and shrugs. “Not that many at all actually. I’m not too much of a flirting type of guy.”
I laugh and roll my eyes. “Sure you’re not.”
“Only when I feel like the person’s worth it. There’s just some people that catch my attention, you know? And I don’t flirt with someone unless I know I can have them.”
My whole body feels like it’s covered in lava. I’m tapping my foot nervously on the ground and my hands are fidgety. This is so stupid, I’m so stupid, why am I even bothering with this. “Are you implying you’ll have me wrapped around your finger just like that?”
He stares at the tree branch I was previously sat on. “I’m not flirting with you”
My heart drops to my stomach and I feel like I’m going to throw up. I’m such a dweeb of course he isn’t flirting with me, why would he want to flirt with me !? The random kid that just so happened to walk into the coffee shop he works at is probably as interesting as a twig on the side of the road. Probably as “worth it” as an empty can of soda tossed to the side at a bar. He’s probably not even into guys. I’m pathetic.
He pushes himself away from the tree with his foot and walks up to me, a serious expression on his face. I don’t look at him until I realize that by doing this I’m staring at his crotch, and as great as that view might be, now is probably not the time. He takes his long finger and extends it along my jawline, lifting my head up so I meet his eyes. “Do you want me to flirt with you?”
When you hear people talk about butterflies and fuzzy heads in books and movies, you usually just assume they’re just being over dramatic and full of bullcrap, but I never thought I’d actually feel so on the edge by a boy I hardly even know. At this point I can barely hear anything around me because my ears are ringing so much. Dan lowers his head so our faces are mere inches away from each other. “I’m just kidding.” His voice is low and hoarse. “Of course I’m flirting with you, you big dingus. Your turn now, truth or dare?”
I’m scared of what’ll happen if I pick dare. I’m really scared of what’ll happen if I pick dare, so I look down and wipe my hands on my jeans, and let out a small, “Truth.”
He places his right foot on the rock and leans forward so our faces are even closer. “Ever been kissed by a coffee shop boy?”
I inhale sharply and try to look at him in the eyes but I can’t, I simply can’t, I look at everything but his eyes. I look at the grass, at the bark of the tree, at the annoying bug that’s been flying around us this whole time, and by the end, I’m looking at his lips. “I-I-erm... I- don’t su- I don’t suppose so- no- I- n-no...”
He licks his lips once and narrows his eyes. “I skip my turn. Your turn again- Truth or Dare?”
Fuck it. Fuck it, fuck it all, I don’t care anymore. “Dare.”
His smile is crooked this time and I can see his dimple. “Let me kiss you.”
I feel my own breath sweeping its way in and out of my lips and I nod. Dan takes his left hand and carefully fixes my fringe. His touch is delicate, soft, like he’s scared of hurting me. He caresses my cheek, the contact ever so light. He moves forward and stops just before he meets my lips, letting his hot breath hit them. He moves his right hand from his own leg to my arm, trailing gently down it until he reaches my fingertips, our fingers interlocking and his thumb rubbing small circles against the back of my hand. He lets our bottom lips graze against each other and I inhale sharply, my body tensing. I feel him smile for a split of a second before pecking my lips once. It’s a small peck, nothing special, but enough to send jolts through my entire body. He gives them another small peck, and another, and another, each peck becoming less like a peck and more like an intimate kiss, his lips slowly moving against mine. Each time he pulls away I feel myself wanting more, chasing his lips, which results in him backing away, not wanting to give me the satisfaction. I lift my hands up to nervously grab his shirt and he smiles against my lips. It’s easy, kissing Dan. It’s easy letting his hands trace my jawline and move up to my hair. It’s easy because even though he’s just a boy I met at the coffee shop yesterday, it feels right. This feels right in so many ways, and I’ve never felt my heart pound so hard against my chest. My ears feel like they’re on fire and my stomach is going down a never ending roller coaster but this feels so natural and so easy.
When we’re out of breath, we pull away and rest our foreheads against each other. We look at each other and let out small chuckles. His eyes are even pretties up close. I can see every shade of yellow and brown merging together and how his eyelashes bat against his delicate skin.
“That was... A really good dare,” I mutter.
“Guess it’s my turn now. I pick dare.”
“I dare you to stop playing this stupid game and kiss me again.”
I didn’t need to ask him twice, he was already crashing his lips onto mine and letting out little puffs of air each time he pulled away to breathe.
It’s strange how love works. It’s strange how you just know when you’ve found the one. It’s not something you can explain. It’s a tight feeling in your chest, it’s a desperate need to touch the other person, it’s the never ending kisses, and it’s how all of it just feels so easy.