Your Color

The lounge was the kind of place people came to find each other. Or celebrate having already found each other. Low light, soft music, the kind of corners that felt private without being hidden. Every table occupied by people radiating in sync — reds paired with reds, deep blues sitting across from deep blues, the occasional warm amber duo laughing at something only they understood. The matched glow of two people meant for each other had a particular quality to it. Comfortable. Inevitable. Like furniture that had always been in the room.

I’d stopped noticing it the way you stop noticing traffic when you grow up near a highway.

He was already there when I arrived. Of course he was. He had no idea this was a date spot. Or he did and simply didn’t care because we weren’t on a date. Dark joggers, the shirt with the left sleeve gone, dragon tattoo catching the dim light and throwing it back silver and gold the way it always did. Shoes doing the same at the floor. I stood in the entrance for exactly three seconds longer than necessary before I made myself move.

The server appeared before I’d fully settled into my seat. Young, bright eyed, the particular energy of someone who was good at this job and knew it.

“Hi, welcome in. Can I start you both off with something to drink?”

“I’ll have a—” I looked at the menu. I’d been here before. I knew the menu. The menu had not changed. “The, um. Sorry.” I looked up. The server was waiting with practiced patience. Gervante was watching me with something between amusement and affection. “The emerald mule. Please. With the—the ginger. Extra. If that’s—yeah.”

“Of course.” She turned to Gervante.

“Hennessy neat.” He didn’t look at the menu. “And whatever she just said, make it two. She’s been ordering that since they put it on the menu and she still can’t get it out in one try.”

The server smiled and disappeared.

I glared at him across the table. My face was warm.

“Every time.” He said it quiet. Almost fond.

“I knew what I wanted.”

“You always know what you want.” His eyes held something briefly that I didn’t have a name for. Then he looked away and reached for the drink menu he didn’t need. “That’s never been your problem.”

I smoothed the front of my dress and looked somewhere else.

At the bar, two people sat close enough that their auras overlapped — his a deep burgundy, hers the same, the glow where they touched a shade richer than either alone. The bartender caught it and smiled the small smile people smiled at matched pairs. Like witnessing something ordained.

From the table to our left I felt it before I saw it. That particular quality of attention. The glance that started curious and landed somewhere between confused and disapproving. Two people. Wrong colors. Date spot. The mental math happening behind polite eyes.

I didn’t look over.

When did it become my favorite color? A brilliant silver trimmed in gold.

I looked down at my hand where it rested on the table, faint traces of emerald green radiating softly around my fingers. The low light caught it the way it always did, made it look almost pretty. Almost enough. I sighed.

Why was I so dissatisfied with my own hue?

I loved the color. It was ninety percent of my wardrobe, present and accounted for tonight in a little dress that had taken me forty minutes to decide on. For him. Like always.

He shifted in his seat across from me and a small cascade of silver sparks scattered from his aura and my heart did the thing it always did when I wasn’t prepared for it.

Jolted. Like it forgot and then remembered.

I took a sip of my drink and looked somewhere else.

“You know, it’s not the end of the world. There will be others.”

“It’s not even about Mars really. It’s just frustrating. The match is really just too OP.”

“Well so far anyway. But I’m sure it’s really not all that great. Someone somewhere has gotta be unhappy. Zero percent divorce has to be fabricated.”

“That guy sleeping with my girlfriend in my bed in my apartment sure as shit wasn’t fabricated.”

I grimaced. Didn’t know that part. I’d known Mars was seeing someone in her color from time to time. I had my reasons for not talking her out of it. Reasons I kept to myself the way I kept most things that mattered.

“Well, yeah. But considering Mars kinda just throws it at anyone you got lucky.”

He raised a brow. “You tryna say she wasn’t mine it was just my turn?”

“She for the jungle.”

He chuckled, low and easy, the way he did when something landed right. “Maybe. Sure was a good ass ride though.” His eyes glossed over, drifting somewhere I couldn’t follow, and something hot and unreasonable moved through my chest.

“Hey.” I leaned forward. “You really out here daydreaming about some other girl when I’m right here.”

His face shifted to a scowl. “This again. It’s not gonna happen Halle.”

“Why not? Mars wasn’t your color either and you still gave her a chance.”

“Facts. Mars was my type.”

The heat that flashed across my face had nothing to do with the drink. I stood up and twirled slow, let the dress do what it was designed to do. The emerald caught the low light. So did everything else. “I’m exactly your type.” I settled my eyes on him. “What’s missing?”

His jaw tightened the way it did when he was trying not to look. “It’s that mouth.”

I tilted my head. “You haven’t even witnessed everything this mouth can do.”

“Too small. I wouldn’t even fit.”

“Wanna bet?”

“You bet your—wait a minute.” He wagged his finger at me, something close to a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “You almost had me.”

I clicked my tongue and dropped back into my seat. The dress settled. So did I. “Accept my love already.”

“Come on Halle.” The almost-smile was gone. His voice dropped into that register he used when he wanted me to hear him. Really hear him. “You gotta come off this shit. We not gone work.”

“We might.”

He groaned. Leaned back. Looked at the ceiling the way men do when they’re asking it for patience. “I think I might have to leave.” He said it the way he always did when the conversation got too close to something real. Brushed past it like it was a bead curtain. I let him.

“Leave for what?”

The low light of the lounge caught the silver at his shoe when he shifted. Gold threaded through it like it always did. Like his whole body was trying to tell me something his mouth refused to say.

I looked down at my own hands. Emerald green. Soft and steady and entirely the wrong color.

I flagged the server down for another round.

“I’ve been in this city my whole life. I’ve never seen anyone with my color. She’s not here.”

“Or he.” I teased.

“Shit at this point I think I might be okay with that.”

I swallowed hard. “Really?”

“No Halle, you fucking moron.” The corner of his mouth pulled up for half a second. “But for real I’ve been thinking it’s time I go looking. There’s someone out there that completes the set.”

I turned my glass slowly on the table. Watched the condensation drag a slow circle on the wood. “I don’t know, Gervante. It’s not exactly safe to go wandering outside.”

“Nothing worth having is ever safe.”

That landed somewhere soft. I kept my face still. I’d be a safe choice. The safest he’d ever have. And somewhere underneath that easy delivery he knew it too. His little jabs didn’t do much damage individually. But they did add up.

“Why do you have to do that?”

“Do what?”

“Minimize how I feel.”

Something moved across his face. Not guilt exactly. Something adjacent to it. “If you just stop feeling the way you feel it wouldn’t have to be that way.”

I clicked my tongue. “Or you could just get with the fucking program.”

The silence that followed was the kind that had weight to it. Settled over the table between our drinks and our dim little corner of the lounge like a third person neither of us had invited. I knew he wasn’t going to speak first. He never did after one of these. I exhaled slow and let it go the way I always let it go.

“Would you even know where to start this search? Have you done any research?”

He straightened slightly. Like the subject change was a door he’d been waiting for. “Yeah. Years worth. No one has seen anyone with my color. No one with my color is searching for a match. My dating profile got no hits.”

I gave him a look.

“No hits that were a genuine match.”

That sounded more believable. I reached for my drink. “Then what’s the point. If even the world’s finest internet detectives can’t find your match maybe you are alone. Maybe you’re special. Maybe your color can go with any color.” I set the glass down. Met his eyes. “Specially an emerald green. My emerald green.”

He ran a hand across his face slowly. The dragon on his arm shifted with the movement, silver and gold flickering at the edges. “It’s starting to seem like begging.”

“Want me to get on my knees?”

“Maybe later, people are watching.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Why’re you blushing? You were just talking about what that mouth do, now you’re shy?”

“Propositioning and being propositioned are different.” I pressed my fingers to my sternum with as much dignity as I could locate. “You make my heart go pitter patter.”

“Stop.”

“It’s true.”

He shook his head. Looked away. But he didn’t quite manage to kill the smile in time and I caught it before it left and filed it somewhere I kept things like that. Small victories. Stolen warmth. The evidence I pulled out on the nights I needed reminding that I wasn’t completely invisible to him.

He got up from his seat. “I’m gonna head out.”

I sat up straighter. “Wait. Are you really leaving?”

“Yeah I think so.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow? A week? I don’t know.” He pushed his chair in, easy, unbothered, like we’d just been talking about the weather. “I’m just tired of feeling like this. I want my person.”

I bit down on the inside of my cheek. He’s such a fucking asshole. He wasn’t even going to say goodbye. I’d been with him forever and he was going to walk out of this lounge and out of this city and treat it like leaving a tab open.

“So that’s it? Just ‘fuck you Halle’, nice.”

“What? I told you I was leaving right?”

“And that’s all. You can’t give me a proper hug and say the actual words? Were you ever even going to come back? Did you even consider that? Did you think of my broken heart at all?”

“Course I didn’t.” He said it gentle which was almost worse. “You’ll find your match Halle. Then you’ll forget about me. Just like Mars. And Chartrice and Monica and—”

“I’m not them.” I felt the heat rise in my voice before I could stop it. “The ideal match thing is so outdated.”

“What? You used to go on and on about this color stuff.”

“Until it got it wrong!”

His face went deadpan. “I couldn’t disagree more. We aren’t a match. We’re buddies, pals, amigos—”

I glared at him and the words died on his tongue. The lounge hummed softly around us. Someone laughed at the bar. Neither of us moved. “Find you somebody to play with, Vante. We’re not friends. I’m not friend zoned. You’re a stubborn ass and you’re not leaving.”

“I’m definitely stubborn and I’m definitely leaving.”

“Vante!”

“Done talking about this.” He started walking. Easy stride, hands loose at his sides, dragon glowing soft gold at his knuckles as he moved through the dim of the room toward the door. Like whatever I had left to say didn’t matter enough to slow him down.

Maybe it didn’t.

I stood up. Took one step after him. Then stopped.

The dress settled around me. The emerald light from my hands caught the edge of the table and held there, quiet and steady, and I stood in the middle of it and watched him not look back.

What was the use.

I sat back down. Flagged the server. Ordered something stronger.

— — —

I sat in front of the only checkpoint leading out of town for ten hours, like an idiot. A desperate, lovesick idiot. The guard got tired of teasing me after the third hour and just stared at me with concern or pity for the remaining seven. Like I was a dog someone left on the side of the road.

Around hour six a couple came through. Matching auras — a warm coral that sat so perfectly in sync it almost looked like one person casting light instead of two. They didn’t slow down at the checkpoint. Didn’t fumble for papers or exchange nervous glances. The guard waved them through with the particular ease reserved for people the world had already approved of. The woman laughed at something her person said and the sound carried all the way to where I was sitting on the ground with my bag in my lap.

I watched them go.

Then I looked down at my hands. Emerald green. Steady as always.

I stayed.

It probably didn’t look much better that I lit up like the fourth of July sky when he finally showed up. Nothing but a backpack slung over his right shoulder. He took one look at me and kept walking by. I fell in step with him. He still didn’t say anything.

“Surprised?”

“Not even a little.” He said glancing down at me.

I didn’t bother hiding the smile. “So you expected me to come? And you’re not shooing me off? Just say you love me.”

“Might be a long trip. You can cook right?”

“I’m a wizard with a microwave.”

“Actually don’t follow me.”

“Mm, I’m actually just walking this way so…”

He shook his head. “You know this isn’t like some romcom, right? We don’t discover we’ve loved each other all along, along the way. I’m tryna find my person. You’re coming along to witness that. That what you want?”

The word witness sat somewhere it wasn’t supposed to. I let it. Filed it next to all the other things I kept without his permission.

“Well, I have loved you all along and yes, I know. I have no expectations.” I knew he knew I was lying. I didn’t care. “Maybe this is what I need to finally let go.”

“A’ight. I won’t mention it again.”

I nodded slow.

We left the city in complete silence after that.