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I might be yearning to do the right thing this time around, but at the end of the day, I’m still a coward. I still don’t want anyone to know my secret. I still don’t want to end up like…
I pack up my stuff before my thoughts can go down paths I shuttered long ago and hurry out of the school and toward my car.
Chapter Three
Sebastian
I DIDN’T HAVE TIME to do more than cover the word spray painted on the window before we opened. It wasn’t the prettiest solution, especially since I had to tape paper over both sides of the window to conceal the word, but it was the best I could do while running late thanks to last night’s escapades. I barely managed to cover the word up before I had to be behind the coffee bar filling orders. My desperately needed and lusted after coffee eluded me for the first two hours of my shift, and the entire time I had to answer the same question about what happened to the window. “Just a crack. We’ll patch it up soon,” I said every time.
When Henry arrives later in the day, I have to tell him the truth.
“Are you serious?” he says after I explain.
His sweet baby blue eyes widen in disbelief. Henry is every bit as kind and gentle as his appearance suggests, and it’s honestly a shock to him to hear that someone would target us with something so hateful. I love him to death, but I’m really glad he got himself a boyfriend, now fiancé, who’s a bit more grounded than he is. Henry’s in good hands with Alex.
“Yeah, but it’s okay,” I say. “I’ll scrub it off.”
“I can help.”
I wave him off. Henry is always trying to help other people, often to his own detriment. That has improved in the year since he started dating Alex, but every once in a while that self-sacrificing nature of his pops up again.
“Your shift is just starting,” I say. “Mine is ending. I’ll take care of it on my way out. It’s fine, okay?”
“Well, fine, but only because we need someone at the coffee bar.”
“Exactly.” I slap him on the shoulder. He’s a little shorter and slimmer than me, which is impressive considering I’m not a big guy myself. “Stay here. I’ve got this. I’m going to grab some cleaning supplies.”
“I think there’s dish soap in the back,” Henry calls as I head to the supply closet. “I’ve heard it works well on glass.”
I wave in acknowledgment but don’t interrupt my progress toward the closet. I want to get this windowcleaned and get out of here as quickly as I can. I’m still completely exhausted thanks to last night’s questionable decisions, and nothing in the world sounds as good to me as my own bed. One shitty bigoted word stands between me and sleep, and I intend to scrub it off like I’m trying to wipe that word out of the English language itself.
I grab Windex, dish soap, nail polish remover — any chemical that seems like it might work. Then I collect towels and a bit of water and carry all the supplies outside to the front of the shop. The sun beats down on my back as I set up my things on the sidewalk in front of the café. I peel off the paper I taped over the window and there it is, the word I’ve been trying not to think about all day.
I sigh. What kind of shithead slings around slurs like this? It has to be a kid, but there’s an outside chance someone more sinister is behind this. I don’t really want to think about that because it suggests the café could be a target for something far worse than a bit of spray paint, and this place has always felt so safe.
I try the dish soap first, at Henry’s suggestion, and it actually works pretty well. That doesn’t mean the job is easy. After a first pass, the word on the window is faded, if legible, and my arm is sore from having to scrub so hard. Exhaustion makes the work harder and the day hotter. It’s only late May, but heat already thickens the air whenever the breeze lets up. Or maybe that’s another sideeffect of me not sleeping enough last night after being at the club.
I’m about to try the nail polish remover on some of the tougher spots when I hear someone approaching. I turn to find a huge guy heading down the sidewalk toward me. He’s gotta be over six foot, and he has a bushy dirty blond beard that matches his hair. His green eyes are focused solely on me, and for an instant, hot and cold flush through me in a confusing jumble. Hot because some part of me wants to climb this sexy giant like a tree, but cold because he could be everything I feared come to life. He could be the one responsible for the graffiti, a crazy bigot living alone out in the woods somewhere and returning to the scene of the crime to finish the job.
I straighten up. I’m not six foot tall, and I’m skinny on top of that. My type of dancing doesn’t exactly pack on the muscle. Standing here with my long black ponytail, dangly earring and leftover eyeliner from last night, I hardly feel like I’m in a position to intimidate anyone.
The giant stops a few steps away from me, which I pray is out of swinging distance. His arms are so long that that may be a vain hope, however.
“Hi, um, do you work here?” the giant says.
“Yes?” If I sound uncertain, it’s because I don’t know if that’s a safe answer or an answer that gets me decked.
The giant sticks out his hand. “I’m Luke.”
I hesitate before taking his hand.
“Sebastian,” I say.
For all his size, Luke holds my hand surprisingly lightly, like he’s all too aware of how much larger than me he is. He shakes briefly and lets me go, then his eyes flicker to the window at the front of the store. Luke flinches as he takes in the word scrawled there, like it’s directed at him personally and not the café. Except few guys I’ve met read “straight” as loudly as him. He’s wearing the most God awful slacks I’ve ever seen in my life, for one thing. Maybe they’re for work, but still. We have to have some standards.
“Can I help you?” I say, trying to steer this interaction back toward something familiar. We don’t typically have customers coming up to us on the street.
Luke visibly shakes himself. “Sorry. Yes. I think. I, um, I might have heard about this.”
