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Duncan shoves his bare hands into the pockets of his jeans. The bitter fall air was suffocating. He had left his gloves at home. He rounds a corner and joins a line to enter a bustling coffee shop, decked out in pumpkins, faux leaves, and fairy lights.
He would have preferred getting coffee for him and Ma somewhere that felt less like he was stepping onto the set of Gilmore Girls, but she had requested coffee specifically from this shop, and who was he to say no? He hadn’t expected the line to be out the door, but he’d just have to deal with it.
As he had hypothesized, the clientele of the coffee shop was mostly women. He shrugs, hoping he didn’t stick out too much among the sea of perfume and knit scarves. He taps his foot on the concrete, willing the line to move faster than it currently was.
He eavesdrops on a conversation coming from the lunching ladies in front of him. They were covertly whispering about him, something about him looking like a troublemaker. He can’t help breaking out into a garish smile. They didn’t even know the half of it.
“Duncan?” A soft, feminine voice sounds from behind him.
Duncan pauses, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He turns around slowly. “Princess?”
“I can’t believe it’s you,” she uncrosses her arms. “My name is and always has been Courtney, by the way.” She looked the same as she had as a teenager, just older now. Much more sophisticated, as well. She had an expensive purse hanging off her arm and designer sunglasses resting on her head, despite it being overcast outside.
“Oh, come on, Court. You know you’ll always be Princess to me.”
Courtney scoffs, a sound he hadn’t realized he missed. “You’d think that you would gain some decency after all these years.”
“Don’t be like that, Princess,” Duncan says, feeling disappointed as they march closer to the shop entrance. He expected the end of the world sooner than he expected to see the only girl he had ever loved again, in the flesh. He had so many questions. “What are you doing out in the suburbs? Finally got tired of the city lights?”
Her face twists into a glare. “It’s none of your business.”
“I thought we were catching up,” Duncan pretends to pout. He takes a step forward in line.
“Okay, Duncan,” she humors him. “Did you enjoy prison?”
He chuckles, thinking back to what she had said to him before their very first kiss. “I did. I’m a free man now, though, as you can tell.”
“So my prayers of you getting a life sentence weren’t answered, I take it,” she comments. “Move up.”
Duncan chuckles, shifting forwards. He stands now at the entrance, where he can clearly hear the jingle of the door chime as the lunching ladies enter the coffee shop. “Really, Princess. What are you doing here?”
Courtney’s shoulders slouch in surrender. “If you must know, I just put a down payment on a house in this neighborhood.”
He quirks an eyebrow. “A house, huh? I’m impressed.”
“My fiancé and I have been saving up for a couple of years. We need a big house for, you know, when we have children and stuff.”
Duncan’s mind goes blank. Fiancé? House? Children?
“Move up, Duncan. God, you’re like a child. It’s a miracle you’ve made it this far in life,” Courtney scolds after he doesn’t cross the threshold into the shop. He steps backwards onto the maple wood and she follows. He’s grateful to finally be inside the warm shop, but he still feels a coldness.
“You’re… engaged?”
She purses her lips and nods, holding her left hand up for him. There it was. The enormous rock on her ring finger glitters brighter than all the jewelry worn by every woman in the shop, combined. “It’s kind of a spectacle,” she hurriedly shoves her hand back into her own jean pockets.
Duncan feels a foreboding sense of dread, and he doesn’t have the slightest clue as to why. He hadn’t thought about Courtney in a long time, but seeing her again brought a tsunami of feelings crashing right back onto his shore. He didn’t expect her to still be thinking of him — people move on, and she clearly had — but he secretly hoped that his window could have lasted longer than a minute.
“Uh, congratulations, I guess,” he looks down at his sneakers to avoid meeting her eyes. “How’d you guys meet?” He doesn’t know why he’s asking, because the last thing he wants to hear is the whirlwind story of Courtney falling in love with some guy that isn’t him.
“In law school. He’s an attorney, too,” she returns. “Move up. It’s almost your turn to order.”
Duncan feels small after she reveals his occupation. He responds in the only way he knows how when his masculinity feels threatened. “Figures that you’d go for a boring lawyer. I’m sure he has a massive pole up his ass just like you.”
Courtney gasps. “You are so vile, Duncan. You should temper your jealousy by actually making something of yourself, rather than tearing successful people down.”
“You really think I’m jealous of your white-collar husband and your white picket fence?” Duncan scoffs. “To top it off, a psychotic bitch for a wife. Sounds like my worst nightmare.”
“You are so miserable. To think, I thought we’d actually be able to have a civilized conversation! I should’ve known better than to fraternize with somebody with the emotional intelligence of a toddler! I hate you,” Courtney spits. “It’s your turn to order, asshole.”
He glares at her one last time before turning around. The lunching ladies now sit at a table, having received their pastries and drinks. Finally, he could order and get out of this prissy hellhole. “Two coffees, please. I’d like a medium pumpkin spice latte and a small americano.”
“That’ll be $9.16,” the barista informs after punching in his order.
He rolls his eyes and reaches for his wallet. Damn these charming coffee shops and their extortionate pricing. His eyes widen when he doesn’t feel his wallet in either of his back pockets. He empties out his front pockets, now panicked at the absence of his means of paying.
“I, uh, can’t find my wallet,” he confesses, his face beet red.
“Well, if you can’t pay, you aren’t getting any drinks,” the barista swivels the iPad on the counter back around to her side. “If you could exit to create room for paying customers, sir.”
Duncan opens his mouth, but stops himself. He didn’t want to create a scene with Courtney just steps behind him, and he knew finding his wallet was infinitely more important. He sighs. There were just bigger fish to fry today. He uncomfortably turns back around, and much to his chagrin, he casts a brief glance at a horrified Courtney biting her lip, probably to hold in laughter.
He escapes the entrapment of the store, embarrassed beyond words. He was sure Courtney’s fiancé wasn’t the type to be asked to leave coffee shops because he couldn’t pay. Duncan takes a seat on a green bench outside, his head in his hands. He wasn’t sure why this encounter was affecting him so much.
Duncan concludes that it probably has something to do with Courtney telling him that she hates him and that he’s jealous of her affluent fiancé right before. He sits alone, in the stillness of the epiphany that maybe he still cared more about Courtney than he thought, until he feels somebody take a seat next to him.
“Medium pumpkin spice latte and a small americano,” Courtney says. She holds a full drink carrier in her arms. “The two on the right are yours. The ones on the left are mine.”
He doesn’t understand what could have prompted her to do such a gracious favor for him, especially after the way he treated her in line. He takes the drinks from the carrier, delighting in how the hot drinks warm his frigid hands. He doesn’t know how he feels, but he’s grateful for her act of kindness. “Thanks, Courtney,” Duncan says sheepishly. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”
“I know,” she tucks a strand of hair behind her ears and looks directly into his teal blues. “You owe me two coffees.” With that, she picks up her drink carrier and walks away. She swiftly rounds the corner, disappearing from his view. Duncan stares at her fading silhouette, perplexed.
Clearly, she didn’t hate him as much as she claimed.