Cupid's Left Hook

☆⋅⋆ ────⋆⋅ ╰┈➤ ⋅⋆── ⋆⋅☆

OUR FIRST ACTUAL CONVERSATION ended with his fist colliding with my jaw.

We were outside the Mellow Mug, and I had just finished telling myself that this was definitely none of my business.

But I was bored. And he smelled like citrus, and he was admittedly way more interesting than the straw wrapper wads I was previously trying to throw into an empty coffee cup.

I was also a stupendous idiot.

A mind-numbingly slow Saturday shift left me with nothing else but to notice he was pathetically, hopelessly in love with our shared acquaintance, Theo Choi.

The heat was stupidly thick for autumn, turning the air into that gross, sticky feeling. But he still took it upon himself to sweep stray leaves off the sidewalk.

Pointless, given the breeze, but he was doing it anyway.

Or rather, pretending to. Because he literally sucked at sweeping. Way too preoccupied with staring across the street at the local flower shop.

Where Theo was hauling crates of marigolds off a delivery truck. Yeah. Theo tended to do that. Make ordinary things look remarkable. Half-Korean, half-angel if I'm being honest.

The kind of guy who'd wave at you and somehow make it feel like that was the best part of your day. I didn't get it. I got that other people got it.

My co-worker, apparently, got it a lot.

His chest did this thing every time Theo laughed—some kind of hitch, like his lungs had signed a shady deal with oxygen that he wasn't ready for. A flush worked up his neck that had nothing to do with the weather.

Here's the thing. Unrequited love wasn't romantic. In fact, love itself was just freaking stupid.

I stepped up beside him.

"You know," I said, 'if you keep staring like that, he's gonna notice."

"What?"

"Just saying." I shielded my eyes from the sun, mostly so I didn't have to commit to eye contact. "It's obvious you like him."

He blinked at me. Fully and genuinely, with strangely long eyelashes, as if I'd randomly pulled an alien language out of my ass.

"Who are you?"

I mean—okay. It's just, we had worked the same counter since September. And had been shoved into the same English group literally the day before by Mrs. Hicks.

I almost laughed. There were only three people in our group. The two of us, and the guy across the street currently making him malfunction.

But—okay.

"I'm the guy who handles the register while you doodle on the cups," I said flatly.

We were both quiet. His fingers suddenly found the hem of his apron. They were going a shade lighter with every twist.

It's not like our town runs people out for who they love. Nobody's burning anybody at the stake. Sure, a little gossip causes a serotonin spike now and then.

Mothers might mention something on their stroller walks, or an old guy might not talk to you unless you know what five across was in the crossword.

But it's a decent place, all things considered. But decent doesn't mean easy, and seventeen doesn't come with a manual, and this was the part where I should have stopped talking.

"So, you're gay?"

I said it the way you'd ask someone if they wanted extra cream or sugar, mildly like the answer didn't matter. Because it genuinely didn't.

It, obviously, mattered to the guy who sucked at sweeping. And the second it left my mouth, I knew I had said it too casually.

His eyes went wide enough that I saw my own face, the delivery truck leave, and Theo dropping a crate of flowers then recovered effortlessly. I heard Theo laughing—or maybe I just imagined that part.

Then his fist connected with my jaw, and none of that mattered anymore, because my teeth were doing something teeth weren't supposed to be doing.

I hit the brick wall behind me. Tasted copper. Somewhere very far away, a car alarm went off, which regrettably felt appropriate. I probably imagined that too.

The funny, not so funny thing was, he seemed even more shocked than I was. He shook his hand immediately after the punch, his eyes darting wildly to check if anyone had heard me.

Still, this wasn't a cheesy movie. He didn't bolt down an alley like a fugitive; he had forty-five minutes left on his shift. So, he gripped the broom, turned his back, and swept the same patch repeatedly.

At least, I got him to finally start sweeping. I took an early lunch.

By Monday, the bruise had matured into a genuinely impressive shade of purple, the kind that made sophomores actively dodge me in the cafeteria.

"Who did it?" Emery asked. She slammed her lunch down across from me.

"Whatever could you possibly mean?" I said, staring at my apple.

"Dude, give me a name. I will key their car, or worse, boil their teeth."

"Gross."

Emery had decided to be my best friend in eighth grade and had never once asked my opinion on the matter, which is honestly the only reason it worked.

"I tripped," I said, tugging my hoodie strings.

"Into somebody's knuckles?" She ripped into her turkey sandwich. "You're a terrible liar, Wyatt. You don't even try. It's like you don't care if I believe you."

She knew I detached when things got complicated. Observing the world like a TV show I wasn't invested in. I'd learned that trick three years ago during the slow collapse of my parents' marriage. My mom woke up one day, realized she needed two suitcases to go get milk, or something like that.

I, unfortunately, realized that feelings, left unattended, made you stupid. I preferred to leave mine unattended somewhere far away, ideally on another planet they don't consider a planet anymore.

My sister Lauren was of course the uber smart one. She turned those smarts into a college acceptance letter, and had her bags already packed. Fleeing the holy grail of awkward silence that was our household.

Even if my co-worker's absolute silent panic at the Mellow Mug had felt uncomfortably familiar. I refused to call what this was empathy.

In fact, it was something I didn't feel like dealing with or even acknowledge at all.

Yeah. That was more on brand for me.

Emery lobbed a carrot stick at my tray. It bounced off my apple. "Hicks wants English groups to meet up this week. The classical lit thing."

"Don't remind me." My headache came back on schedule. "It's a huge part of our grade, and Mrs. Hicks thinks she's hilarious for giving my group Cupid and Psyche."

"Better than haikus."

"I have to present about a baby in a diaper."

"He has arrows. That's lowkey badass." She shrugged, like it was a personal victory.

"Yeah. Excellent. He shoots people with arrows that no one consented to. It's the greatest mistake of their lives."

"Okay, a smidge dramatic," She sighed. Then bit into her sandwich again, officially killing the faux turkey meat. "It's chaotic evil at best. Relatable, honestly."

"Your group got Romeo and Juliet. Tragic, simple, straightforward."

"Romeo was a walking communication failure who peaked at fourteen, but sure." She smiled, all teeth. "Still. Watching you present is going to be comedy gold, Wyatt Vance."

I was about to say something back, something with actual sting to it, when a plaid sleeve dropped over my shoulder from behind, uninvited.

"Hey, trouble," Nolan said to Emery, grinning. Totally unearned.

Nolan was the kid who ate erasers in kindergarten and had apparently never developed a second personality trait since. He functioned as Theo's unofficial hype man, sometimes his secretary, always his shadow, and he had spent three straight weeks orbiting around us with the confident, unbothered energy of a man who is completely okay with constant rejection.

"Move, Nolan," Emery smirked. "Not when I'm eating. Your face makes me wanna barf."

"Always a pleasure, Em," Nolan chuckled, then squinted at my jaw like it was something he found fascinating. "Whoa. Nice shiner, Wyatt. Did you fight a pole?"

"Work hazard."

"Brutal." I hated that he said it with genuine admiration. "Anyway — Theo says he's free Thursday for the English stuff. Before his shift at the shop."

"He can't text that himself?" Emery said.

"Busy guy. Besides, this way you get to look at my face for an extra thirty seconds." He reached for one of Emery's carrot sticks; she tried to smack at his hand and barely missed, which only seemed to delight him more. Masochist. "So, Thursday work? Who's your third, the café guy?"

"Julian," I said. My stomach did something small and unhelpful on the way out.

"Right, the new kid."

"He moved here at the end of summer. It's October. That's not new anymore."

I looked across the cafeteria. Sitting alone at the end of a long table, Julian was staring at his notebook, fingers nervously tracing the binding. Completely oblivious to the fact that we were currently talking about him.

"Whatever, is he free?"

"Yeah," I told Nolan. " Thursday should be fine. We'll sort it out at work."

He gave a crisp, unearned salute, stole a carrot off Emery's tray on his way past, and disappeared back toward the tray return like a golden retriever who'd successfully brought back a stick nobody asked him to fetch.

Emery watched him go with an intense expression. "One day," she said, "I'm going to end that boy."

"You say that every day."

"One day I'll mean it."

The next time I spoke with Julian was Tuesday at work. The bruise turned slightly dull, less punch and more bad decision. He came in through the back door smelling like mandarins and froze the second he saw my face.

"Nice left hook," I said, slinging a rag over my shoulder. "Ever consider boxing? Or anger management. Either works."

His skin went pink so fast I almost felt bad. "I didn't mean to hit you that hard. You shouldn't have said it where someone could hear, though."

"I asked a question. You answered with assault. Most people just say yes or no." I crossed my arms, leaning against the espresso machine, which was still warming up and ticking quietly as if it agreed with me.

"Relax. Your secret's safe. I genuinely do not care. But you keep staring at Theo Choi like he's the last bottle of water in a desert, and eventually somebody with worse manners than me is gonna notice. My face can't survive another round."

"I don't look at him like that." He pulled his apron over his head, not meeting my eyes.

"Theo. Flower. You. Bee." I deadpanned. "It's not subtle. It's honestly kind of a safety issue thing."

He opened his mouth. I could tell there was a real comeback loading, but the bell over the door cut him off, and a wave of noise rolled in ahead of it. Theo and half the track team, fresh off a run, loud and sweaty and thrilled with themselves.

Julian went rigid like someone had hit pause on him mid-thought.

He stumbled backward into a crate of oat milk cartons, and I grabbed his elbow before everything came down with him. Theo was already at the counter, grinning, saying something to one of his teammates that made the whole group laugh.

"Fine," Julian muttered, eyes flicking from my hand on his arm to the approaching group and back again, like he couldn't decide which was the bigger emergency. "Fine. I just...I don't want to look like an idiot."

"A little late for that," I said, letting go of his arm and nudging the register screen awake with one finger. "Go make his drink."

He stared at me for one full second like I'd handed him something heavier than a Sharpie. Then he grabbed a cup off the stack, uncapped the marker, and started writing Theo's name on the side in that careful, looping handwriting he probably didn't know he did, the h curling back on itself like it was nervous too.

I thought, not for the first time this week, that I probably should have just stayed bored. And it was also, still, none of my business.

I watched him make the drink anyway.