All characters depicted are over the age of 18. More stories on my [Patreon](https://patreon.com/kentkaron?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link).
My favorite place to work had always been the small coffee shop on Main, between tenth and eleventh streets. I would go there every day after work, and spend all day there on my days off. I sat at different tables, drank different drinks depending on my mood, but there was always the writing. Just the writing. Until he came along.
I saw him the second he walked in on a slower than usual Saturday. I watched him from the table in the corner that I loved because of its vantage point of the shop and the street outside. He took off his sunglasses and glanced around, taking in the eclectic space and smiling. As he went to the counter I went back to my work. He sat down nearby as Jen the barista came over and took the cup with “Alex” scribbled on the side to refill it. She always knew when I was on a roll. I paused to thank her when she brought it back, setting my pen down and taking a sip. I glanced around, my writing reverie broken for a moment, just to do a bit of people watching. As my eyes roved over him I got the distinct impression that his had just flitted away from my face. He had a drawing pad and seemed to be furiously moving a pencil around it. I went back to my writing. Ten minutes later, I’d forgotten about him, and got up to use the restroom. He smiled at me slightly as I walked by and I smiled back. When I came back to my table he was gone, but there was a new paper on top of my notebook. I picked it up to see a detailed pencil drawing of a figure hunched at a table, writing. It was me, hunched over the table, writing in a position my mother always said would give me back problems. The detail was stunning. I looked around, not sure how to feel about it, but he was gone.
I stared at the drawing, part of me thinking that I should be creeped out by it, but most of me intrigued. He had sat there for such a short amount of time, and managed to render such detail. It was stunning. I slipped the page into a folder and went back to work.
When I got to the shop on Wednesday he was there. His back was to the door but I saw the drawing pad, the pencil moving across it in deft strokes. I went to the counter and ordered. When I turned around to find a spot to sit I glanced at him again, and was seized with a sudden feeling. I followed it and went and looked over his shoulder. He was drawing the cabinet in the corner, an antique buffet they used for the sugar and cream and such. He sensed my presence and glanced up. The look of concentration that had etched a furrow in his brow softened into a small smile.
“So you don’t just do people then?” I asked.
“No. No I don’t,” he set the pad on his lap. “Would you like to sit down?”
“Sure.” I took the seat across from him.
“I hope you didn’t mind the drawing. Sometimes people feel like it’s an invasion of privacy.”
“No, I really liked it. I was impressed that you did that in such a short time.”
“I’ve learned to do so quick. I make myself do a sketch like that every day to keep practice up.” He took a sip of his coffee. “You’re a writer.” Statement, not question.
“Yes I am.”
“Anything I would know?”
“Not yet. But soon.”
His head tilted slightly to the left and the smile widened. “I like that you didn’t do the self-defeating artist thing of adding ‘hopefully’ to that statement.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that. Before I could respond Jen brought over my tea. “Thanks Jen.”
“No problem,” she said, giving me a look that clearly showed that she was intrigued with what was happening.
“You come here a lot.” Again a statement, not a question.
“Yeah, just about every day. It’s kind of my office. But I haven’t seen you until the other day.”
“I just moved here from Chicago.”
“Oh wow. That’s a shift. What brought you here?”
“Mountain air. And cheaper real estate. I have an apartment twice the size and a studio space for what I paid for just the apartment in Chicago.”
“You have a studio space? So you do more than just drawings.”
“Yeah, I mostly paint. Mostly abstract.”
“I love that.”
“I’d be happy to show you sometime.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Maybe tomorrow night? We could get some dinner and go by my studio, or vice versa.”
I thought for a minute. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“Cool. I’m Emilio by the way.”
“Alex.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” he looked at his watch. “I should get going. Do you want to just meet here and go from there tomorrow?”
“Sure. I’ll be here around four and I usually stay a few hours, so whenever works for you.”
“Great,” he got up, putting the pad and pencil case into a small bag. “Looking forward to it.”
I went over to my usual table after he left. I found it harder than normal to get going with my writing, just thinking about him. The idea that I had agreed to go out with him without even knowing his name. Then the thought hit me that maybe it wasn’t a date at all. I rewound the conversation in my head. Had the word date actually been used? I couldn’t remember. And why did that fluster me so much? I was never prone to any romantic notions of things like love at first sight or anything like that. I found him intriguing for sure, but that could mean anything. I wrote my way through all of these feelings for the first few minutes of the notebook, finally deciding not to blow things out of proportion. I would show up tomorrow and do my usual work. If he came along I would go from there. There was always the chance that he wouldn’t show. I tried to deny the slight sinking feeling in my stomach at that thought.
I got to the coffee shop a little after four. Jen was behind the counter, and when she saw me she broke into the smile that I knew she wore for gossip, then glanced over in the corner, toward the table I liked. Emilio was sitting there, his eyes fixed outside the window, hand poised over his drawing pad. Now trying to ignore the soaring feeling in my stomach I walked over and sat down across from him.
The look of concentration shifted fluidly from slight annoyance to a big smile. The former I assumed happened when his thought process was interrupted. The latter I was delighted to assume was because of me. “You’re at my favorite table,” I said, trying to play it cool.
“Am I? I didn’t know. It’s good for watching the people walk by.”
“That’s why I like it. I’m an expert people watcher.”
“Are you really?”
“Yes. Have to be as a writer.”
“As an artist too.” He settled back and looked at me, studying me with another look that would become familiar to me.
“What?”
“Nothing. I am just intrigued by you,” he said casually. “If you’d like I could leave you alone at your favorite spot so you can get some work done.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to go to dinner?”
“Oh no, I definitely do. I just thought we could stay and do some work for a bit first.”
“Oh. Yeah, sure.”
“Do you want me to leave you here?”
“No, you’re fine.” I set my notebook and pens on the table, then got up to go get a drink.
“He’s cute. What’s going on there?” Jen asked as she rang me up for a tea.
“Nothing yet. We’re going to work for a bit and then go to dinner.”
“Like a date.”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? He’s clearly into you.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You didn’t see the way he looked at you when you got up,” she grinned and turned to fix my tea.
I turned back to look at him. He smiled and then went back to his drawing pad. Tea in hand I went back over and sat down.
We spent an hour and a half at the table working, conversation occasionally starting for a bit whenever one of us would take a break and look up from what we were doing. It was oddly comfortable, each of us just working in our own world, occasionally checking in on each other. If you saw it from the outside you might think we’d been doing things that way for years.
When six o’clock rolled around he closed his pad and put his pencils in his case. I looked up at that. “All done?” I asked.
“For the moment. But you take as much time as you need. Once you’re ready we can go to dinner.”
“Sure, I’m almost there,” I said, head already lowering back into the page. It was maybe another five minutes before I set the pen down and closed my own notebook. I looked up to see him grinning at me.
“I like watching you write.”
“Why is that?”
“You just get so into it. I love it.”
“Thanks I guess,” I said awkwardly, unsure how to handle someone being so frank in their attraction to me. I’d also never thought about the way I physically write being something that could be complimented.
“You ready to go?”
“Sure.” I threw my stuff in my bag and stood up. “Where do you want to go?”
“I haven’t actually eaten at any of the sit down places in town since I got here, so I don’t know anything. Give me some options.”
“Well, there’s a big range of price points and styles here for a town this size. We could do Mexican or Chinese, or there’s a diner type place a few blocks down. They have a great patty melt.”
“I like a great patty melt,” he said as we walked out onto Main. We walked the two blocks, the conversation flowing very easily between us. Suspiciously easy. The entire time I was thinking that it couldn’t be this good in the back of my mind. I thought I had hidden it well until we got to the restaurant and sat down.
“Are you alright? You seem like something’s on your mind,” he said.
“Wow you are… okay. Is this a date?”
“I was thinking it was. But if you don’t want it to be we can just call it a hangout or whatever the kids do with their friends these days.”
“No, I… I like the idea of a date.”
“But?”
“But I.. I guess. This just seems… too easy.”
He laughed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, how is it that we get along so well? I agreed to go out with you before I even knew your name. I still don’t know your last name actually. It just seems too good to be true.”
“And you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“I guess so, yeah.”
He smiled, and reached out and put a hand on mine. “Well, I get that. But I’ve always operated under the idea that it should be easy if it fits right. And honestly I’m just as confused about it as you are.”
“You are? You don’t seem to be.”
“Well I think it manifests differently in me. I’m excited about it, and you’re nervous. Two sides of the same coin.”
I opened my mouth to argue, not liking the word nervous, but closed it because I knew it was the right one.
“Tell you what, let’s just have dinner, and we’ll go from there. Just keep talking like we have been, and we’ll see if it stays easy. Deal?”
“Okay, I think I can do that.”
“Good,” he leaned back, and grabbed the menu. Glancing through it a bit he suddenly said, “Oh, and Lazzarre.”
“What?”
“My last name. It’s Lazzarre.”
“Bridges.”
“What?”
“Mine’s Bridges.”
“Oh.” We looked at each other for a second, and then both started laughing.
It stayed easy, all through dinner. He insisted on paying the check, telling me that I could get the next one. We walked out onto main, surprised at how dark it had gotten.
“Well, now what?” I asked, slightly nervous again.
“We could go to my studio if you’d like. I told you I’d show you some of my paintings.”
“Sure, that sounds nice. Where is it?”
“Just a couple blocks actually.” We set off back the way we came, heading toward the coffee shop. We passed it and went one more block before turning north and heading up the small hill toward second street. We turned halfway up and he led me down the small alleyway near a pottery store I’d passed several times but never gone into. He unlocked the door and flicked on a light, moving aside to let me pass.
“Just straight up the stairs,” he said.
“Is this the building with that used bookstore?”
“It is, I believe we actually share a wall, but this entrance is completely separate. It’s an odd building.” He flipped another switch at the top of the stairs. There was a small living area with a couch and coffee table in front of a small kitchen. Boxes were scattered throughout in various states of unpacked. On the other side of the half wall created by the kitchen counters were a bed and more boxes. Two bookshelves stood against the wall across from the foot of the bed.
“Sorry the place is such a mess,” Emilio said as he took my hand to lead me through the maze of unpacking. “Only been here a week and stuff keeps arriving.”
“No problem,” I said through the swooping sensation that had gone through my stomach when he took my hand. He led me to a door directly opposite from the top of the stairs.
“Now this isn’t much, but it works for me. The real deal is this,” he opened the door and flicked another switch as he led me into the room.
It was a wide open space, the brick walls of the old building exposed but painted white. The ceiling was tall and had several skylights dotted across it. The space was easily twice as big as the studio apartment in the other room. A couple of work benches lined the wall across from the door. There were canvasses of all sizes leaning against the walls, with a large box in the corner that seemed to be full of them. Three easels were scattered across the space at varied angles, along with a few boxes in the same state of unpacking as the living area.
“This is something else,” I said.
“Yeah. I was lucky to find it. I guess the building was being developed for something but the previous owner ran out of money. The new owner was just leasing it for storage in here and lived in the studio next door. Now it’s mine for a very decent price.”
My eyes roamed over the paintings across the room. Some were large splashes of color in various states. Others were very detailed paintings of various objects. Others were a combination of the two. My eyes fixed on one of these; a smoky gray swirl of brush strokes covering a very detailed portrait of a man leaned over, covering his face. Emilio stood in the doorway as I took a few steps toward it. I stared at it, filled with an odd sense of wonder and sadness. It was beautiful and haunting all at once.
I’m not sure how long I stood there before I realized he was beside me, his arm almost touching mine. Wordlessly I took my hand and grabbed his, interlacing our fingers. He didn’t resist at all, and we didn’t look at each other, I just continued to drink in the painting.
Eventually I turned and looked at him, he smiled gently, which made me realize that a tear had welled up in my eyes. “I know. That’s how I felt as I painted it,” he whispered. I reached up slowly, and cupped his cheek in my hand. Slowly we leaned in until our lips met. When they did so I felt a surge of emotion flood through my body, mixing with the emotions inspired by the painting. Unsure of exactly what was happening, but feeling more connected to someone than I ever had, I surrendered to the feeling as we wrapped our arms around each other.