When I walk into the coffee house, a waitress addresses me in French, but it's drowned out by a guy doing an acoustic set in the corner. The air is thick with smoke and people are chattering and drinking black coffee, a lot more pretentious than the sweating crowd down the road. This time I take in the excessive Christmas decorations of the place as well: cardboard Santas and reindeer taped to the walls.
I lower my hood and blink at the waitress still waiting for a reply. She stares at me when she sees my face, slightly transfixed, and I recognise the honeyed look that suddenly glazes her blue eyes. I smile at her with painstaking effort, and her cheeks redden. She says something in French again, but this time her tone is sweet.
"I'm sorry, what?" My voice is rough, raw somehow.
"Oh. We're closing in half an hour."
"That's fine. Can I get coffee? Black."
"Sure." Her eyes follow me when I go to one of the empty tables, and I sit down with my eyes to the door so that I don't miss Sisky when he arrives. The waitress has got long legs and nice tits. She's narrow in the middle, widening at her hips, she's all around beautiful, and I could. She bites on her bottom lip when she brings the coffee over, her long black hair in a ponytail and resting on one shoulder. She makes eye contact, and I could.
But screwing cute girls in the bathrooms of various establishments does not feel that appealing anymore. I look around the café, and there's a hot guy two tables away, messy brown hair, chocolate eyes, and my guts twist slightly at the thought of taking him instead, and it's more appealing but just as hollow.
They're not him.
The waitress walks away, looking slightly disappointed when I don't return her interest.
But my insides feel heavy, my thoughts a mess. I dig into my coat and pull out a flask, the familiar engraved letters of G.R.R. under my thumb. This one's for you, Dad. Or in your memory. They all are.
I pour vodka into the coffee when no one's looking.
Sisky still hasn't arrived, and so I focus on craning my neck to watch the guy play in the corner, focus on his sloppy fingering of the strings, anything to make me not think about how he is probably getting on that bus soon. Probably not for another hour or so, but eventually, and then he will go his way and I will go mine. And the thought is painful.
It's also ridiculous because he and I have not even crossed paths. Not really. I've only been in the same room unbeknownst to him for a while, and that doesn't count as him and I having collided. It doesn't mean anything at all except that I caved in first, I had to come see him and then I chickened out.
So I guess he's still winning.
I only came to see if the rumours were true. If what the magazines say was true. And it is. He's a star and my name is not foreign to his lips.
So there.
There, there.
I didn't come with some foolish hope of everything getting magically fixed.
He's fine on his own. And now I'll never see him again.
Just as the sudden lump in my throat nearly cuts off my breathing, I hear a, "Look, you just pour some coffee into the thermos, right? Not that hard," from behind me. I turn back around, and Mike is now in the coffee house. He's holding a thermos bottle, trying to get the girl to take it, and next to him is one of the roadies I saw by the stage just fifteen minutes ago.
"Alright, alright," the girl hisses while I duck my head as shit shit shit proves to be a dominant thought. Mike would recognise me instantly.
