No Dick Moves

Don't be a Dick

Mace grabbed the back of the cafe chair and pulled it around the table so he could sit facing Dillon. He'd still have a view of the harbour. It was just on 5pm, the mass scale exit from the city was about to begin.

Dillon made a face at the waitress. His flirt face. A raised eyebrow, a smirky try-hard smile.

Mace sighed. "Don't be a dick, okay."

Flirt face having failed to attract attention, Dillon tried it again with some added sitting up straighter. "You're living in my flat, dude. I kicked my girl out for you, and you think I'm going to be a dick."

He had a point. "You kicked Sharon—"

"Sharona."

"Whatever," Mace caught a waitresses eye, "out because she was a dick."

"Yeah, she was kind of. You know she stole money off me." Dillon slumped. "I liked her though."

Mace watched the movement in the cafe. Waitress approaching in six, five, four. "You like anyone who looks at you more than twice."

"This is true."

"So don't be a dick. The only experience Jacinta has had with you was that phone call."

"Hello, Dillon."

Dillon's head swung around to the waitress. "Nix. I didn't see you."

"Ah, but I saw you. I always see you. Usually ducking out on work time to sample my very fine coffee." She checked her watch. "No one is going to sack you for it today."

Mace laughed. Having not long ago quit in a blaze of totally uncharacteristic, less than smart, glory that included standing on a desktop telling jokes, and epically kissing the chick from HR, he found that funny.

Dillon smiled at Nix. Mace knew that look. "This is my friend and current, but not for long, flatmate, Mace. Mace, Nix. This is her show."

Yeah, right, it was Cafe Nix. Mace nodded at Nix. "Hi." More than a waitress. She was young to own this set up.

"It's my family's business. I'm just managing it," she said with a shrug. "Coffee?"

They ordered and Mace watched Dillon watch Nix walk away. "You have a thing for her?"

"Hell, yeah."

"Don't be a dick."

"I'm not. She's. We know each other. I come here all the time. She's got a broken heart, but she's not interested in having me fix it."

Mace picked up a roll of sugar from the canister on the table. "Not Nix. Jacinta. You were a dick."

"Oh, right. That phone call. The one where—"

"You virtually called her a slut." He put the sugar back, otherwise he'd play with it, break it, and it'd end up all over him and the table.

"How was I supposed to know she was in the room listening? Speaker-phone etiquette, man. You tell the other person who's in the room. Anyway from what you say she can easily handle my dick moves."

Some of the tension Mace felt slipped away, grains of sugar littered on a sidewalk. Jacinta could have Dillon on his knees cleaning up the sugar with his tongue in less time than their coffee order was taking. So why was he so fucking nervous about her meeting his best friend?

Because Jacinta did that to him. Made him edgy. Made him think. Made him worry she'd see through him and dump him fast enough to give him gravel rash.

Because she was more than a passing thing. More than a bed warmer; a weekend filler. She was the real deal, and he had no idea how that'd fallen in his lap. She was so out of his league there was another whole playing field for her. One where they only let in members, charged a fortune and made you wear shoes at all times.