AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“About the graffiti?”
“Yes, well…” Luke rubs at the back of his neck. “I’m a teacher at the high school nearby. I overheard some of my students talking in class today. I don’t know for sure, but my gut says they were the ones who did this.”
“Do you teach by gut instinct?”
My sarcastic tone apparently surprises Luke, who tears his eyes away from the graffiti to cock an eyebrow at me. It’s an unexpectedly cute look on such a big guy.
“I’m sorry?” he says.
“I’m messing with you, relax,” I say. “Do you have any proof or is it a hunch?”
“It’s mostly a hunch right now, but I heard them saying…”
“Yeah?” I prompt.
“They, um, they were talking about having done something to a ‘gay little café,’ and I couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but I had a bad feeling it could mean this place, and now I’m here, and, well…” He waves at the window.
“I see. Well, I’ll let my boss know.”
“That’s it?” Luke says.
I shrug a shoulder. “Not much else we can do, right? We don’t have cameras up or anything. And even if we did, I doubt Chloe wants to get a couple dumb kids in trouble for being dumb kids.”
“But that word … what they did…”
“Yeah, it’s not great,” I admit. “But I’ll clean up the glass and that’ll probably be the end of it.”
“Aren’t you worried about … that word? You’re…” Luke cuts himself off, and color flushes into his pale cheeks. Again that word pops into my head: Cute. This guy is so damn cute. Like a big ol’ Teddy bear of a human.
“Very observant,” I drawl. I roll my eyes and flip my ponytail over my shoulder for added effect. I have no illusions about what people see when they look at me. I’m not exactly trying to be subtle about it. “But no, I’m not especially worried about it. I’ve dealt with worse than some kids with a can of spray paint, and I’m sure everyone elsein the café has too. They’ll move on when they don’t get the reaction they want.”
Luke winces again, and I really wish I understood what about this conversation has this guy so twitchy. It’s really sweet for him to be such a concerned ally or whatever, but now that I know this whole incident was caused by some stupid high school kids, I’m even less flustered over it than I was before. Half my friends fling that word at each other out of some sort of “ironic reclaiming” thing, so the younger generation probably finds it even less harsh.
“Well,” Luke says, “I’ll, um, make sure they’re appropriately punished.”
I shrug again. “Sure.”
“And, um,” Luke says, “I feel really bad about all this. I’m sure cleaning graffiti isn’t usually part of your job.”
“No, but it’s not the worst. We do clean the café every day. All those cats in one room means a ton of hair.”
“Well, I’m sorry you have to do that. I’m really sorry.”
He’s tripping over himself to apologize to me, to make amends as though he personally defaced our front window. It’s freaking adorable.
“I’ll speak with the principal,” Luke is saying. “Maybe we can come up with something more meaningful than detention. Kids need to learn this lesson, really learn it. It’s our responsibility as teachers to tackle these kinds of biases when we see them. I want you and the café to knowthat we aren’t going to take any of this lightly. If you … don’t mind passing that along to your boss.”
His little speech leaves him flustered, and I bite back a laugh. Not because I disagree with him, but because it’s so damn endearing.
“You got it, boss,” I say.
He swallows, shifts, lingers like there’s something more he wants to say. After a beat he starts backing away, and something in me can’t let this sweet, dorky, awkward giant disappear without one last jab. There’s no chance it’ll work, but I try anyway, mostly to amuse myself.
“And hey,” I say, halting Luke’s retreat, “if you want to make it up tome, since I’m the one cleaning the window and all, I’m not opposed to that.”
It’s a silly dig, and normally I’d never toss it at some straight guy who’s just trying to be nice. Maybe some of last night’s recklessness is still with me.
To my utter shock, however, Luke pauses. For a long two seconds, he stands there staring at me, his face weirdly blank.
