Page 60 of Don't Tell Me How It Ends
James’s eyes go wide and his skin goes ashen. He spins to face the darkened dining room andSorry, We’re Closedsign at his back. “Oh shit!”
Seeing the scene through my eyes draws quick beads of panicked sweat from the ridge at James’s brow. His genuine horror at his misstep gives me the confidence I need to finally join him on the sidewalk. He’s too squeamish for homicide.
“I just thought it’d be cool to do a private cooking lesson,” James says, adjusting the thick black frames of his glasses. “Fuck, when did I get so bad at this? I wasn’t thinking. I guess it’s been a while.”
I peer through the window at the purposefully mismatched chairs and the salvaged wooden tables dotted with yellow daisies. The whole place is giving hipster-farmer adorableness, same as the man before me.
“Well,” I say, stepping back to meet the worry in his eyes, “for me, it’s basically been forever, so why don’t we go inside and be terrible at it together. But you should know that I shed like a dog and I’m gonna leave my fingerprints everywhere.”
James pinches the spot under the bridge of his glasses before digging his hands back into his pockets with a shrug. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”
I nod decisively, smiling at how little this date feels like a date so far when I tell him, “That’s fair.”
—
“How’s the wine?” James asks from behind the bar.
Working in this space where he’s so obviously at home has given James a confidence he didn’t have outside. Every movement is choreography, the entire café an extension of his lean body.
Watching James do his thing reminds me so much of seeing Ro in his element at the gallery—a person doing exactly what they were born to do. It’s not the first time I’ve thought of Ro since I got here. My fingers itch to check for a missed text or call, but after a week of silence, I know I’ll only be disappointed.
“It’s delicious,” I tell James from my reclaimed barstool, hands clasped together in my lap to keep them from my phone.
“I wasn’t sure if we should start with white or red,” he says, not knowing I would’ve been just as happy with fermented grape juice poured from a plastic bag. “My ex only drank white. But our first course tonight is heavier, so I wanted something that could stand up to it.”
I add that little tidbit to my growing mental list of things I’ve learned about James’s ex in the past twenty minutes. Like how she helped him source the furniture from local flea markets, convinced him to partner with a bee farm that offered the CBD honey she liked in her tea, and there was something else about the café’s name being tied to her grandma, but that particular detail is fuzzy because I was too busynotchecking my phone.
“Well, it’s great,” I tell him, taking another sip. “The whole place is. How long have you had it?”
James bites at the inside of his cheek. His full lips twisting to allow for the expression. “It’ll be two years next week.”
“I can see how much it means to you. I’m always jealous of people who’ve already found their passion.”
It seems theRo honesty effectis happening now even in his absence.
James pulls out the stool next to mine and sits facing me with bent knees spread casually wide. Though my body’s still positioned ahead toward the bar, I’m acutely aware of how close James is at my side. I see the moment he realizes it too.
He rises from the seat he’s only just taken, circling the bar to retrieve the wine bottle neither of us need. “Remind me what you do.”
“Teaching, I guess. Or I should be.”
“Should be?” he asks, needlessly replenishing the two small sips I’ve skimmed from my wineglass.
“I just graduated a couple months ago, so I should already have a teaching position lined up for the fall. But I’ve been watching openings get snatched up for months, and I can’t make myself care. I don’t really think I’m meant to teach.”
This newfound emotional promiscuity is absolutely Ro’s fault, but James isn’t helping. He’s doing that bartender-therapist thing—wiping the same spot of nothingness from the wood between us. The hypnotic motion of his towel keeps me talking.
“Eventually I’m sure I’ll just do it anyway. It’s not like any other overnight passions have dropped into my lap lately. Maybe teaching’s as close as I’ll get.”
James’s hand pauses mid-circle. “What’s the rush? Is there a deadline on passion?”
“You ask that as someone who’s already found theirs. That’s whatJosephine’sis, right?”
James considers my question, but from the look on his face something’s not fitting quite right. “I don’t know. I gave up so much for this place, so I need it to do well. And I’ve been lucky so far. But sometimes it feels like spite’s driving me more than passion. Like I gotta prove it was all worth it.”
I return his smile, easily. “Well, I for one will always drink to spite. And to these little cheese crisps,” I say reaching into the snack bowl beside my glass. “These are ridiculous.”
James melts at the compliment. “I can’t take credit. It was my ex’s idea to serve a signature bite with every bar order. I would’ve been good with peanuts.”
