Before I knew it, the week came and went. Holly returned at the beginning of the week from her grandparents with baked goods. Both of my friends returned to college. As for me? I was back to work at the coffee shop, Vanilla and Spice.

The coffee shop was in town, situated on a corner, and it is surprisingly pretty mellow. The owner is a lovely lady, who is friends with Holly’s grandmother. Which is, in part, how she managed to secure me this job. 

I was round the back, when another employer, who I came to know as Bex, appeared looking rather flush.

“Oh… Oh my…” She breathed.

“Is something the matter?” I asked her, as I picked up a box to move it.

“Put down that box and look out there.”

I obliged her, mostly so that I can be nosey at whatever she’s spouting on about. As I peeked through the window that was in the door, I scanned the main floor. I saw a few customers and the other employees on shift. Nothing really out of the ordinary.

“I see nothing…”

“In the corner, table seven…”

Table seven? Given where that was, it has to be….. As my eyes took in table seven, I saw that there he was. That handsome stranger in all his handsome glory. I oddly noted that he kinda blended in with the black beam that was in that corner, and that made me wonder again, does he even own any other colours?

“You see him, right?” Bex urged from behind me. 

“Yeah, I see him.”

“Oh, good. So I wasn't going mad.”

At the precise moment when I was looking through the window, I swear he looked in my direction and, feeling flustered, I tore my eyes away and faced Bex. Bex was a pale petite girl, with a head full of brown Shirley Temple curls and a bright smile. 

“Is something the matter?” 

“Oh, no…” She waved her hand at me. “Just the fact that I can’t be out there, but it’s fine. I’ll finish off here, you take my place out there.”

Before I had a chance to protest, she pushed me out of the storeroom. Was she scared of him or something else? Either way, I strolled up to the cashier where Dorothy, the owner, stood. A genteel older woman, who always wore her hair in a bun, she saw me as I came up to her side.

“Oh, sweetie. Bex seems to have scampered off, could you take table seven’s order?”

“Right on.” Grabbing the pen and notepad, I lifted up my chin and approached the table.

The stranger didn’t react as I approached him. Instead, he seemed to be reading the menu. However, it’s not often that I see anyone read a menu with just one hand, but here he was. I cleared my throat before I spoke:

“May I take your order, sir?”

Me speaking to him, finally made him react to my presence and he turned to look at me.

“I didn’t know you worked here.”

“Well, not all of us can be promoters…”

Something with what I said made him laugh, and he put the menu down, and leaned on his knuckle, staring up at me.

“Touche.”

“But…” I held up the pen and notepad. “Want to order something? It would be terrible to have to remove you because you’re not a paying customer.”

“Darling… I would like to see you try.” He purred at me.

I blinked several times, was that some sort of flirt? I… Honestly, I was taken aback by that and just shook my head.

“Either way, sir. Order?”

“A latte, and one of those little blonde beauties.”

“Latte and a… A what?” I had to double check as to what exactly he just said then.

“A blonde beauty.” He repeated.

My mouth went dry, is he serious?

“I think your boss calls them… Vanilla cupcakes?”

I think I just got stabbed. So he wasn’t referring to me at all. Instead he was referring to the trademark cupcakes. I was rather disappointed by the truth. But, as I looked at his face, I noticed that there was a tinge of a smirk at the side of his mouth. 

“I’ll go get them for you.” 

With a slight bow, I returned to where Dorothy was, behind the counter. As I started to make the latte, Dorothy spoke to me.

“Sweetie, if you want to take the rest of the day off to mount that like a tree… I won’t stop you.”

I tried my hardest not to burn myself when Dorothy said that.

“I… I don’t know what you mean…” 

“If only I was forty years younger…”

“And not married.” I added on.

“That too.”

As I finished pouring the latte and picking up a cupcake, I returned to him. Although not before Dorothy gave me a thumbs up. I placed the drink in front of him with a napkin, followed by the cupcake. 

“Would that be everything, sir?”

“A few moments of your time, perhaps?”

“I’m… I’m on the clock…”

And, almost like she was eavesdropping, Dorothy had appeared at my side, and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Take a little break sweetie, I got this…” She whispered in my ear before darting off again. I let out a sigh.

“I guess I have the time.” I informed him, as I took the seat opposite him.

I watched him as he eyed up the drink, took it and took a sip. For the briefest of moments, his face was of pure disgust, and then it was gone.

“I guess that’s still a thing…” He mumbled as he placed the mug down, and reached for the sugar packets. One by one, he started to open them and poured them in. I counted four of them. 

“Got a sweet tooth?”

“Something like that…” He vaguely answered, as he took the mug and took another sip. This time, there was no face of disgust, no matter how brief it was.

“So, erm…” I fidgeted. “You wanted to speak to me?”

“I wanted a few moments of your time.” He corrected me.

“Isn’t that the same?”

Putting the mug down, he leant back in his seat. “Not in this context.”

“I… I see…”

I looked down at the hands in my lap, and I could feel his eyes on me. 

“You’re rather fiery one moment, and then really docile the next. Tell me, Miss Cordelia… What one is the real you?”

“I… Excuse me?” I looked up, and I saw him staring right at me. I tried to look somewhere else, so I wasn’t looking directly at him. Maybe that part of his hair that kind of framed his face.  “I’m neither of those things…” ‘At least I don’t think so’, the rest of that sentence I said in my thoughts.

“How… Intriguing…”

There they were, those two little words that he said before. I tore my eyes from that bit of hair strand, and met his eyes. The man’s head was tilted, like he was trying to work something out.

“I’m just me…” I told him. “Now…” I decided to change subjects. “I never found out your name.”

“Again…” He leaned forward a little. “You never asked.”

“Didn’t I? I asked you a few days ago.”

“Actually…” He held up a finger. “You did say that you didn’t know my name, however you didn’t ask for it directly and just introduced yourself.”

Blinking at him, I recalled what I asked when I met him in town. Memory serves that I did mention that I didn’t know his name, and also that he was right. I only introduced myself.

“I recall you left me before I had a chance to ask…” 

Again, he titled his head, but in the opposite way that he did a few moments before.

“So.. What is your name?”

It was odd, he didn’t answer me straight away. Instead, he leaned back, with a hand on his chin.

“Now, that is a good question…”

What a weird way to answer. I studied his face, it honestly looked like he was debating on even actually answering me.

“I mean, if it’s too personal…” I spoke up. “It’s fine, I mean we aren’t friends or anything to each other, so we aren’t obliged to answer.”

Giving me a smile, he leaned forward and picked up the cupcake, plucking a little bit of it and plopping it in his mouth.

“You can call me…” He stopped for a moment, and then spoke again. “Nocte, although I do have another name.”

“Nocte…” I repeated out loud.  “Another name? What did you mean by that?” I questioned.

“Nocte is the name that I’m known by friends and family, my other name is what I call myself…”

“Oh… So like a name you’ve chosen for yourself.”

“I guess…” He picked at the cupcake again.

“What is it?” 

Nocte stopped picking at the cupcake and leaned towards me and half whispered.

“Darling, a man needs some secrets.”

I blushed at that, and looked away from him, staring up at the clock.

“I should get back to work…”

“Lovely as always chatting with you.”

I moved to get up, and then stopped myself, turning back to look at him.

“How often are you at that club?”

“You mean Nox?” He answered, still picking at the cupcake.

I nodded.

“Have you been looking for me?” He gave me one hell of a devilish smirk, and my mouth was going to say ‘no’ but the traitor said ‘yes’ instead. “Love an honest woman who gets straight to the point.” 

“I mean…” I tried to correct that particular course. “You seem to know that place well, you never gave me a tour…” What a weak course correction that was.

Nocte raised one eyebrow. “You want a tour?”

I mean, if it means hanging out with him more, then I was all for it. Luckily, my traitorous mouth didn’t voice that, and I nodded.

“Well…” He thought for a moment. “I’ll make sure I’m around to give you this tour next time…”

“I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Without waiting for his reply, I quickly scampered off back to where Dorothy was once again standing, giving me a very sly smile. 

My face was hot, and my body felt like it was on fire when I left him. I felt like I needed four cold showers, so I dipped into the staff break room. As I took a seat, I put my head in between my legs, and whined.

“What have I done?”

I asked him. I asked that hot ‘stranger’, who calls himself ‘Nocte’, out, more or less. Well, I guess maybe not entirely, I just want a tour of that club. I let out another whine and moped around in the break room.

I wasn’t sure how long I was in there, but when I managed to calm and cool myself down, I returned to the main floor. When I came out onto the main floor, I quickly realised that there were a lot of people, of the female variety, hanging around. Going up to Dorothy, who was still at the counter, I whispered to her.

“What’s going on?”

“Just look over there…” She indicated, with her chin and, as I followed it along, somewhere in between the vast amount of women who had gathered, I could just make out that man. Looks like Nocte hadn’t actually left whilst I was hiding in the breakroom, and whilst I was in there? It looked like half the female population had arrived. 

Something in the pit of my stomach jumped. But not in a good way. It felt similar to when I went for exams. I was worried. Was I worried for him or myself? I watched as one woman went right up to him and he whispered in her ear. That was when he looked directly at me, and he didn’t tear his eyes from me as he continued to whisper in her ear. It felt like an hour, and I had to break eye-contact first, because everything about me was getting hot again. My palms started to become sweaty, so I had to use one of the towels to dry them. 

My shift finally ended. 

The last few hours of it felt like torture. 

More and more women turned up, which honestly sounded unbelievable, but it was. Dorothy didn’t mind, since they were all paying customers, and she made quite a bit of profit today. But she also joked around by saying that she should hire that man to sit there and look pretty. Which he did, he literally did nothing except sit there, and all these women just flocked to him. When it was close to closing time, I had to push them all out. Nocte found it amusing, which I did not. But when they finally went, he left himself, stating that the afternoon had been entertaining. Which I personally found weird, since every time I looked over at him, surrounded by these women? He looked bored. So I don’t know what he found so darn entertaining, but I only know one thing, and that was the fact that I was both physically and mentally drained.

Dorothy sent me off as she was closing up and left, and I made my way to the tram. On the way home, I swore that I was going to drop off, but I swore to stay awake.

Somehow, I managed to get back home, but I noticed that neither of the girls were home, so I slumped onto the sofa. Maybe, just maybe, an hour's nap would do me good and, even before my head hit the cushion, I was gone.

I awoke sometime after, and checked the time. I realised that I was asleep for just over an hour. But, still too tired to move, I turned the TV on.

“Just in, a young woman in her twenties was found near the river.”

Oh, Holly must’ve been watching the news before they left this morning. But, when they showed the woman's face, it felt like I was slapped. There, as clear as day, was the same woman that was in the shop, the one that Nocte had whispered something to. Whatever sleepiness I had was gone, and I was now wide awake. I listened intently as the news reporter carried on.

“Her cause of death seems to be heat exhaustion but, given that it’s not been hot, we also suspect foul play.”

Wait… Wait… WAIT!

Did I just hear that correctly? Heat exhaustion…. Cause of death? No fucking way. They think it’s heat exhaustion? How? It’s not really that hot, it’s been mild for a few weeks now. How? What? HOW? Before I could listen to any more, I turned the TV off. I saw that woman alive and well in the coffee shop no more than a few hours ago, and now she has somehow rounded up dead by the river? Impossible. 

I wanted to do something.

Anything that took my mind off what I just learned.

And, for the first time in a while, I studied.