He didn’t seem to notice me at first. Maybe he was used to people walking by. I glanced at his hands, his two long fingers gliding across the screen of a sleek, futuristic tablet. Lines appeared beneath his fingers. I assumed he was coding. Instead, the lines turned into shapes—two birds mid-flight, their wings outstretched. I glanced at the sky. There they were, the birds Adri was drawing when I’d thought he was just basking in the sun.
I sat down next to him, mesmerized. “Hey,” I said.
Adri seemed to tense, his fingers hovering still above the screen. After a moment, he tilted his face toward me, and hisposture eased with the barest drop of his shoulders. “Hello. How was your shift?”
I smiled because in all our brief conversations, I’d askedhimhow his shift had gone, and he’d only given me short answers that felt like he was mimicking me.
“It was good. Busy as always. Had this—” I shut my mouth with a snap, startled by what I’d almost blurted out. The last thing I wanted was to scare him away. But the more I tried to hold it back, the harder the words pushed… until I had no choice but to let them out. “This handsome Niren ordered an espresso early this morning. The only espresso of the day. Macchiatos are very in fashion, apparently.”
Adri’s skin rippled, as if with goosebumps—a tiny spark of blue, the color of his eyes, shimmering across the surface.
“Too sweet for you, I take it?”
“It’s not the sweetness. I don’t understand wanting to water down coffee.”
I laughed. “You and me both.” Even if Ididenjoy a macchiato now and then.
He fell quiet, staring down at his tablet, tracing a line on the screen with a single finger.
“I thought I’d find you here coding or studying schematics or something. I didn’t expect you to be drawing birds.”
“I’m not working right now.” He kept his eyes on his screen. “And I like birds.”
I could see that. At first, his drawing seemed almost too perfect. They looked so real, with the feathers edged in impossible precision and the lights and shadows from the sun. He hadn’t drawn the sun, but I could still see where its beams hit their bodies.
“It’s gorgeous.” I hadn’t often seen him with bare arms, and I couldn’t stop staring at the blue shimmering across his skin as if reacting to what I said. It made me smile. “How did you capturethose feathers so accurately when the birds fly around like that?”
“I’ve been drawing birds since I was young. And I remember details.”
“Yeah, I bet you do.”
His lips curled into a hint of a smile. “You burned yourself making coffee this morning.”
I had. Hazard of the job—and wayward trainees. “It’s barely a burn.” Only a vague red splotch. Yet he’d spotted it.
“Was it Gandalf?” Adri turned his body toward me ever so slightly.
“You remember my espresso machine’s name?” I barely dared to move for fear he’d turn away again.
“I remember details,” he repeated. There was no cockiness, no bravado. He was just stating a fact.
“It wasn’t Gandalf. It was one of the newer machines. Cyril had a problem with leakage, and I made the mistake of trying to pull a mug away when the steam pipe burst to life.” And Cyril had kept apologizing the whole time it took to cool my skin and fix the problem.
Adri’s fingers twitched as if he wanted to touch my hand. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”
“I’m not hurt.” The color made it seem worse than it was. This was the least of the scalds I’d earned. I was much worse when I was still learning. “They’re decent kids.”
“You call them kids?” There was a dip in his voice where his synchronized tones met. It sounded like surprise.
The notes tugged at me, even as I shrugged. “It’s a figure of speech.”
“Because you’re their manager or because you’re older?”
“Maybe a bit of both. They’re young, and they’re here to learn.”
“And you’re old?”
“Ouch!” I put my hand against my heart. “That hurts. I’m only thirty-six. I’m in my prime.”
