Sadie leaned across the counter with her cheek in her palm. A splash of light reflected from her hoop earrings and tugged Jaylin's attention from his computer monitor. It wasn't usual for him to work day-shifts, but he'd been asked to fill in and after calling out twice in a week, he felt more than obliged–even if it went entirely against his natural sleep cycle.
He sneezed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. There was also that. The cold coming back to bite him.
"Gross," Sadie commented, digging into her button-cluttered satchel and coming up with a sheet of tissue. "You getting sick again?"
"I think." Jaylin took it from her and rubbed away his runny nose.
"How was dinner at the Sigvard's?" Sadie asked. "Was Quentin there? Did you two kiss?" She gasped and leaned in closer. "Did you sleep with him?"
Jaylin spun in his chair to return her question with a hearty no, but Matt's headphones wires had been tangled around the arm and the buds were ripped from his ears.
"Jesus," Matt groaned. He rubbed circles into the shell of his ear and his eyes lifted back to the horizon. "Can y'all chill out? I'm trying to push some heavy eye-contact on the cute blonde with the Mark Twain book."
"Blonde?" Jaylin perused the distance for her. The only blonde he found was studying in a chair next to the autobiography section. Cute, but no Tisper. "I don't know, Matt. She doesn't look your type."
"And what's my type?" Matt dared.
"Women who wanna kick your ass."
"And blondes in ponytails. Besides, we had Chem together in high school, so I know she's smart. Her name's Ashley. Ashley...something."
"Beautiful," said Sadie. "Matt Something. Has a ring to it."
"Why the hell am I taking her last name?" Matt asked.
Sadie returned. "Maybe she doesn't want to be owned by you."
"Oh, Jesus," groaned Matt. "This again."
"I'm just saying. Coverture was basically just like signing a title on a car. Only the car's a woman, and she no longer holds any individualism or power—or a right to anything, ever."
This time Matt looked to Jaylin. He tried to ignore his gaze, but being sought out by Matt was like being gaped at by a lost, gloss-eyed puppy.
"That true?" he asked.
Jaylin had no idea, but he looked from Matt to Sadie, and decided the smartest course of action was to give an ambiguous part-way nod. "So you gave up on Tis, huh?" he asked, sweeping a book beneath the scanner. He didn't even have to look at the screen, at this point the movement was organic.
Matt leaned back and crossed his sun-freckled arms. His eyes stuck to the blonde like a lion after a wounded gazelle. "It was like you said. The ship has sunk."
Jaylin rolled his eyes. "The phrase is 'the ship has sailed'."
Sadie gave a deeply melodramatic sigh. "Damn. Thought you two were cute together."
"Maybe. But I got a good feeling about this Ashley chick," Matt said. "Caught me lookin' earlier and smiled."
"Nah, I think she's checking out Jaylin."
"Like hell she is."
At the sound of his name, Jaylin popped his head up and frowned. "Leave me out of it."
"Have you ever dated a girl, Jaylin?" Sadie asked, her bracelets jingling as she slung her arm on the edge of the counter. "You do like 'em right? Girls?"
"As much as the next guy."
"Then how do you feel about guys?"
Jaylin wasn't quite sure how to answer that. The only man he'd ever been with was Tyler. It had its good and its evils. It started out good. By the end of it, there was nothing left to pick from the bones of its corpse.
But still, he missed the way he felt those first few months. He missed the way Tyler treated him when no one was looking. He was gentle...protective.
I won't let anyone hurt you. Jaylin wiped at his burning cheeks. He'd nearly kissed Quentin Bronx—then thrown up on him within a breath of eachother.
"What about sex?" Sadie was asking "You've had sex with a guy, right?"
"Sadie, Jesus." Matthew gave her a look, like an insulted old woman clutching her pearls.
"What, I'm just curious! I tell you guys all about the girls I bring home."
It was an uncomfortable subject—one Jaylin had been avoiding for years. He scribbled down a damage report on a return and set it off to the side. "Once."
"Really?" Matthew gawked. "You never told me that."
"Why would I tell you? Matt, you're so squeamish with gay things, you cover your eyes when boys kiss on TV."
"Not anymore. After all that porn we watched, I'm desensitized."
Jaylin groaned. "Don't say it like that. We didn't watch gay porn together."
"We kind of did."
"For educational purposes."
"Yeah, for educational purposes."
"Guys," Sadie hushed them, smacking her hand against the counter. Jaylin followed her gaze to the door, where a tall, cut shape had just slipped through a throng of college students.
As always, he was equipped with an arsenal of good looks; sunglasses, a fitted long-sleeved tee and a gentle "excuse me" that had the girl he'd bumped into knocking at the knees. The second Jaylin recognized his face, he scrambled from the chair. Flew from it like he was free-falling from an explosive helicopter in a Michael Bay movie. Never had he hit the ground so fast before. And like his life depended on it, Jaylin army-crawled beneath the checkout desk and sealed his back against the inner wall.
Matt peaked under with a harsh whisper. "The hell are you doing?"
"Shh!"
It was a moment longer before he could hear Quentin approach—see the shadow of his footsteps from the hole in the desk where computer wires had been roped through.
"Hey," Jaylin heard him say from just above. "I need to talk to Jaylin."
There was a painfully long silence as both Matt and Sadie contemplated what to say next. Then it was Matt who came to the rescue with an uncertain, "He's not here. Can I take a message?"
"Yeah," Quentin said. Jaylin could tell by the sound of his voice he was smiling. That devilish grin of his was back in play. "Give him these, will you? Once he decides to come out from under the desk."
Jaylin squeezed his eyes shut and banged his head against his knees. Of course Quentin knew—Quentin always knows.
But he was leaving, just as quickly as he'd appeared. His footsteps faded, but Jaylin stayed put.
"Jay, he's gone. You can come out now."
"Let me die here."
"God, these are good," Sadie exclaimed with a mouthful. "Did he make them? Never met anyone who could bake eclairs right."
Curiosity piqued at Jaylin. "He made eclairs?"
Matthew lowered a glass plate, and Jaylin plucked one from the pile. Everything—from the puff of the pastry, to the cream filling, to the chocolate icing on top—made Jaylin weak to the taste. He regretted it now, not taking those apple muffins when Quentin had offered them.
Just as he was finishing the eclair, he noticed Matthew stiffen in his seat.
Hold up. Mark Twain is flying the coop."
"What?"
"The cute blonde, she's coming his way."
Jaylin peaked through the hole in the desk, and sure enough, she was marching right towards Matt with her book under wing.
Jaylin crawled out from under the counter to scan her books out for her. What he didn't account for was the crumbs and cream that had stuck to his face, and how suggestive it might look to rise from under the desk where Matthew sat, wiping at his mouth like he'd swallowed something far less innocent than a pastry. But Jaylin did exactly that.
The blonde halted, her smile cracking awkwardly away. Instead of approaching them at all, she set the book down on the nearest table and trotted to the exit.
"No, no, Ashley, wait!" Matt pleaded, jumping out of his seat. "That wasn't—he wasn't—" But Ashley didn't stop. She marched to her desk and gathered her things and Matt slunk back down in his chair, hiding his mortified face in his hands.
Jaylin didn't understand the catastrophe he'd caused. All he knew was that Sadie was buckled over, laughing so hard her face had gone red and Matt looked like he needed some time alone.
And then he found a note, placed beneath the pile of eclairs.
Sorry, it said. Below that, seven digits, written in lovely, sprawling script.
In case you lost my number, it read. Call any time.