Page 12 of Angel of Thursdays

Nah but your scallion placement is doing work good job baby duck

That was very nice. He waited.

Louis, perpetually on his phone, replied a minute later with are you dying, followed by:

Louis

no seriously are you okay

May

I’m good!!!

Louis

ok because that was weird

May

It was a compliment

Louis

yeah and you have a brain injury so

May

Me being nice about your eggy tomato isn’t A BRAIN INJURY SYMPTOM

Compliment RETRACTED!!!

fuck your scallions!!!

May decided he’d won that one. He picked up the Sharpie and ticked the checkbox with a satisfying flick. Two boxes in one day—purple and green. The system worked.

He started Scarlet’s Walk on his phone and dropped it into an empty mug on the counter for acoustics. The pill organizer sat next to the sink, days of the week in colored slots—Monday orange, Tuesday blue, Wednesday green, Thursday purple, Friday red, Saturday and Sunday both white. He popped Monday’s lid and took the pills with water from the tap.

Thursday purple. Little Free Library was purple, his win from this morning. Sparrow was purple too, the painted café with the flowers in the window box. Purple was Thursday.

The bills on the counter from whenever ago had been joined by more. They sat together near the edge, one from the hospital and one from an imaging center. May left them where they were because he could do nothing about them.

He went back to the couch and picked up the yellow notebook with its crinkled cover, which was not purple. That was annoying for some reason. He’d have to do something about that. May flipped it open to what he’d been mentally referring to as the Gay Angel Pages since he’d Googled the name Cassiel on the bus home that first day.

STDY Cassiel. Sparrow cafe Irving 10 AM. He likes Choco mint!!?? Argyle sweater lol. Fidget ring, toy thingie? Here he had drawn a fidget cube, which was not a ring. Then on the next line: Fixes watches ← ask about that, followed by: NO ASS JOKES, NO GAY ANGEL REFERENCES ← whew

His thumb traced over the last words he’d written: No scam. Just shy!

He closed the notebook and put it on the arm of the couch. Tori was still singing from his phone. The exclamation mark after shy bothered him now. Too sure. He knew a face, a sweater, a fidget ring, and a drink order. He didn’t know the guy.

THE SECOND THURSDAY

May got off the 29 at Lincoln Way and walked the last two blocks to Irving with his hands in his jacket pockets and his exhales visible in the air. He was early. 9:51 a.m. This was only their second time meeting, and Cassiel had no way of knowing that May was rarely early to anything, but he still wanted the credit.

The morning was clear, Sparrow’s tiny storefront dappled in sunlight. The purple that had looked muddy the first time he’d been here was cheerful and plum-like. The window box flowers were just a bit wilder than they’d been last week—probably. He liked to think they were. As he approached, he smiled at the sketch of the namesake bird on the chalk sign, and headed inside.

The barista from last week gave him a nod, which May dutifully returned. He ordered something called a Thai jasmine milk latte, turned toward the seating, and there was Cassiel.

Last time the fog had been thick and the room had been dim and May had been late and compensating for that, so the details of Cassiel had come in fragments between his own yapping. Today May was early and the light was better and he could see the Gay Angel of Thursday in all his glory.