“The thing is, I saw something else at the lake.” He sounds like he’s telling a secret now. I cross my arms and lean back on the counter behind me, the one with the sink. “Everyone there had a friend or a type of family member or love interest or even a group of any of the given, and they all looked like they were having an excellent time.” I rolled my eyes. “I had a fine time, sure, but I wondered if it would’ve been better if I brought someone with me. Plus it seems customary for that kind of place, and it’s only appropriate.” He stares at me for a moment. I must have heard the words, but didn’t decode everything.

“So then bring someone.” That didn’t do it, he’s still staring at me. I can’t help but feel a little violated because this guy is making me sit in the stiffest silence of my life. I’m being held hostage here, playing a game that I don’t really understand or even want to be a part of. I don’t know what he wants from me, or that he fully grasps what I just said. Does he want me to tell him who to bring? Does he even know anyone that would… no. No, no, no. It just hit me. I probably made a face or something because Simon was dialing back his grin for a little while he waited for me to ‘get it,’ and now he’s thrilled now that he sees I’ve figured it out, and he’s nodding as his smile creeps across his face.

“You’re… you’re asking me to go to the lake?”

“Yeah.”

“With you?”

“Yeah!”

“Er… no.”

Simon’s whole body, like, melts. His shoulders slump, letting his arms dangle and his knees bend a little. Imagine one of those giant yoga balls, and someone takes a needle to it, or maybe one of those bounce castles. It’s like that. It doesn’t pop and go immediately flat, it just slowly but very obviously loses air and sinks.

“Whaaat?” His voice is suddenly very soft and stops sounding like he’s talking from his throat. Don’t get me started on his face. He was not only disappointed with my answer, but it looked like he was starting to feel bad for even asking me. I didn’t really expect him to feel that way- if he was feeling that way- and for some reason, that really threw me for a loop. He’s weird, sure, and yeah, sometimes I feel like every day is his first day on Earth, but… I know that isn’t true. Obviously. For some reason, I didn’t think he was capable of feeling that way, and certainly not that I of all people had the power to make him feel that way- unwanted. Yeah, it’s true, I do not want to hang or be seen around him, but even thinking that made me feel bad, too. This isn’t me kicking him while he’s down, I just genuinely wonder if no one’s ever said 'yes' to him in his life. I overexaggerated right there, I know, but right now, I’m starting to get that lump in my throat, and it sucks. I don’t think I even felt this bad when Laila begged me to stay. I can’t look at him anymore. I sigh and turn around, I’ll fill the espresso chute with more beans.

“Why not?” He doesn’t even whine, he just sounds defeated. I’m crouched and looking through the cabinet where we keep the unground beans.

“Because…” I planned to end my explanation there, because I really didn’t have one, but felt the need to say something more as I got back up with the bucket of beans in my arms. Besides, Rhea always tells me ‘because’ isn’t an answer. “I’m way busy.” What am I talking about? This job is the only thing I have going on right now. I grab the metal scoop and shovel just half of it full. The chute really didn’t need refilling, and I knew that; even the half scoop was too much, so I unceremoniously poured what I took out back into the container. I look over and see that Simon’s pulled himself together, good for him.

“Right, well,” he crosses his arms, “I’ll have you know that I don’t exactly have the most time in the world either, and yet I came here to ask you specifically to accompany me there.” He puts his hands on his hips. “Plus, you’re lying.”

What the fuck. What the hell do you know!? I don’t even know where I shoved the scoop down into, I just needed to throw it down. I whipped around to face him and attempt to defend myself.

“What!? No, I just- How did you even-!?” Failed. I totally failed that. Ever Belmonte sucks at the art of deflection, in other news, the sky is fucking blue. I panicked, okay? Simon has a look on his face that tells me seeing me fluster like that was all the revenge he needed for me shooting him down just now.

“Huh!” he exclaims, holding one of his hands up to his face, intrigued. It’s like he was studying me. I felt weird again. “I was only kidding, but you do look pretty guilty…”

It was like all the heat in my body decided to rush entirely up in my face; I swear the breath that came out of my mouth was hotter than usual. I felt like I was gonna explode. I could probably set the whole café on fire if I just exhale a little too hard. Fine.

“Fine.”

“‘Fine?’”

“Fine. I’ll go to the lake with you.”

Simon perks right back up. I guess that’s sort of quaint. “Yaaay!” He quietly cheers as he holds his palms together and applauds with only his fingertips.

“But don’t expect this to become a regular ‘thing,’” I say with the point of a finger.

“But you might like it,” he asserts. I have no clue where he got that idea.

“I’m not-” I accidentally raise my voice again, but Laila comes back out to save the day once more. She’s got some rubber gloves, a couple of cleaning chemicals in spray bottles, and a few small towels. She sets everything down on the table next to the gross one.

“Alright, this is probably gonna take me a sec, so what was it you wanted to show me, Simon?” she asks.

Simon pulls away from the counter and stands up straight again, his hands darting to one of his pockets. “Right, right!” He continues digging around in his pockets. “Er, you must take some care while handling it, yes?” Laila walks from behind the counter and is standing in front of him, and I’m just bracing myself in case whatever this ‘thing’ is is somehow a hazard… and what do you know; I was right.

“Owch!” Goddamnit. I jump and quickly walk around the register to Laila when she squeaks. Simon is profusely apologizing and sounds pretty panicked. I honestly don’t understand how it happened, but I’m seeing a little- but somewhat deep- gash on her pointer finger. It was maybe half the length of the last section of her finger, and a couple of drops of blood were already falling onto the floor. Again, no clue how Laila managed that, because the thing in question was an envelope. I don’t think I’m even really that mad at Simon; for one, it’s a piece of paper, how do you get cut so hard on it? And two, he did warn her, even if that’s sort of a weird thing to warrant and warning.

“O-oh no, oh my goodness!” Simon pulls the next two things out of his pocket pretty quickly; it’s a little bandage and a cotton ball. Well, he might be stupid, but at least he’s resourceful. “Here-” He gingerly took Laila’s wrist and held the ball on her finger for a couple of seconds before cramming it back in his pocket, opening and unfolding the tabs on the bandage and wrapping it quite neatly around her cut. “Gosh, I am so sorry, my dear, does it hurt?” Simon held his arms close to himself, starting to look pretty nervous. Anyone that’s met her knows she wouldn’t, but it looked like he was preparing for a verbal beatdown from Laila.

“Oh, no, Simon, it’s okay, really,” she insists, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. “That was pretty dumb of me; don’t worry about it. Thanks for the help.”

“Alright, alright…” Simon doesn’t look fully convinced, guilt is lingering on his face, and I can sense that he wants to do nothing more than run away right now, with his hunched posture and everything. I have to say something.

“Hey,” I almost reach out and pat his shoulder, but then think twice about it and put my hand back down, “nice job keeping those on you. You’re prepared for anything, huh?”

Simon takes a moment, but I see the corners of his lips go up just a touch, and that’s good enough for me. He nods, then stops picking at his nails, putting his hands back to his sides and standing up straight again.

“Well, then. I really should get going, now.”

“You don’t want a drink?” Laila interjects.

I remember the latte. “Oh, yeah, uhh, I made something earlier, but no one picked it up. It’s probably way cold now, though…”

Simon’s eyebrows raise a little, or at least, they probably did, because I saw the hem of his beanie shift up for a second, then back down. “Ah, sure!” He seemed excited, but Laila whips around to me so fast her hair hits her cheek and squints.

“You’re gonna give him a cold latte?” she scolds, and I just hold my hands up in defense.

“He can microwave it or something!”

“What?!” Yeah, it was no secret that Laila took coffee pretty seriously. Good thing she’s in this line of work. I hope Becky hands off the store manager title to her for this shop once we open up a second one in Redlands. We were too busy bickering to realize that Simon came back with the paper cup full of cold coffee I was talking about.

“It’s really not a problem, Miss Laila. Besides, waste not, right?” He takes a sip, sighing contentedly after.

Laila sighs, too, but it’s more of an ‘I can’t believe this is happening’ kind of sigh. “If you really don’t mind the temperature. It’s cold out there, and the milk is probably all wrong. I can just remake it for you,” she offers, but Simon shakes his head.

“No need, I’m on a bit of a time crunch, so I’ve really got to go!” With that, he turns around and walks out. “Goodbye, Miss Laila. See you at the lake, Ever!” Ah, shit, I forgot. The door closes.

“He’s so cute, I love his accent,” Laila remarks.

I held my breath for a sec, knowing what she was going to want to talk about next. After some silence, I felt Laila’s inquisitive stare in my direction.

“The lake… Which one?”

“...Echo Park,” I mutter.

Laila gasps. “Nooo wayyy!” She’s way too excited for this. “With you? Oh. My. God. Sounds like you have a little friend date!”

I scoff and start to feel a little sick; I don’t really love hearing the words ‘friend’ or ‘date’ when they’re referring to Simon at all. “No, I have a chore. A chore, Laila.”

“Aww, but-”

“Don’t you wanna see what’s in the envelope?” Hopefully, I’ve changed the subject. Laila looks at the paper in her hand, then exclaims in surprise as if she’d forgotten it was there. Right away, she opens it up, carefully pulling out… a flower. Well, three flowers, but they were all attached to the same dark green stem. I don’t really know the names of plants or anything, but they were pink, had five petals, and were honestly real pretty. They smelled nice, too.

“Aww, he’s such a sweetie.”

“He got those from Hawthorne.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s where he said he went and found them… all just this morning. Imagine how he managed to find the time for that.”

Laila laughs and goes to the back to put the flowers down somewhere. “He’s pretty strange, isn’t he?” she asks while I follow her.

I just sigh. “I don’t get it. You two are much closer than I am to him, why didn’t he ask you?” Laila turns to face me after she sets the flowers down on the table in the back.

“Oh, Ever, he did,” she explains. Huh. I had no idea they ever hung out. “We didn’t go there, but we walked around one of the trails. It’s just… I dunno, I like seeing him from time to time, but sometimes it’s a little hard for me to talk to him. He’s not creepy or anything-” -I fully disagree- “-but he gets… really quiet. And honestly, Ever, I know you don’t know this,” she lowers her voice, “but he doesn’t really talk that much when it’s just me or someone else.” I start to feel my chest tense a little. “He really only opens up when you’re here.” I open my mouth to say something, but I don’t even know what. I don’t know what I feel right now. I’m super sad, but weirdly proud. It’s like when a dog owner tells you that their dog is usually really anxious and hates strangers, but then you meet the dog, and it just flops over and asks for belly rubs. That was the pride part, I don’t know what the sadness is all about right now. “I really think you should go. He really likes you, Ever.”

I sigh again. “...Well, I’m not really sure how I’ll manage that, because he forgot to tell me a time.” I would have asked before he left if I really wanted to go, but a lot of me was hoping he’d forget, and I could use the lack of a time as an excuse. I feel pretty shitty about that now.

“Aw, no!” Laila exclaims.

“He really should get a little better at planning, I-” We were still in the back, but we heard the door open pretty raucously, and I’m pretty sure we both knew immediately who it was.

“Oh my goodness! Ever! I forgot!”