Come Find Me

[Rustic]

Come Find Me

"Tyler?" called out the barista with my caffe latte. I grabbed it, and sat down in the crowded cafe, choosing a spot near the windows. Armed with my trusted macbook, I joined thousands upon millions of cliché writers trying to write the next big novel. Where else to do it, other than at a cafe? If you didn't write it here, could it even be called a novel? I'm sure philosophers would be debating that one for decades. I'm deep like that.

After about thirty minutes of procrastinating, mostly 'research' which involved reading an article about why people love cat videos, checking what my ex-girlfriend was up to on facebook, and doing a quiz to know what game of thrones character you're mostly like (I got Bronn)—a woman sat a few tables down from me. She had the most captivating eyes, lushious lips, beautiful dirty blonde hair, and wore a comfy grey sweater perfect for the weather. She had tea with a single lemon wedge. I couldn't help but look. I knew it was rude stare, and so I diverted my eyes back to my novel.

That's when, out of the corner of my eye I felt someone staring at me. I looked up over my screen and it was her. She quickly snapped her head and looked out the window as if nothing was wrong. I looked back down to my computer, trying to ignore it.

After five more minutes, I couldn't stand it anymore, and looked back to her, just for a brief second. She was too beautiful to ignore. As I looked up, our eyes locked, she was already looking my way. As we both awkwardly tried to stare elsewhere, she broke out in a smile—as did I.

She finished her tea, and left the cafe, leaving me too lovestruck to even focus on what was in front of me as I scrolled endlessly through Facebook articles. I hadn't even started working on my novel, but I may have found my muse. But—did I just miss my chance with her?

Luckily, the next day, she entered again. This time she looked right at me with a smile she was trying to hold back. I looked back to her and smiled too. We played this dance for the next thirty minutes, each of us catching glimpses, locking eyes, breaking out in smiles. She blushed a few times, I'm sure I did too.

It went on like this for a few days, both of us entering at the same time, getting the same coffee and tea, smiling at each other. One day she was just ahead of me in line. As she waited for her tea, I joined her. She was holding her arm, playing with the fabric of her sleeve.

"Black tea?" I said, stupidly trying to strike up conversation.

She smiled at me, almost dumbfounded. She laughed. "Yeah, Latte?" she said in sweet British accent.

I nodded, also smiling, but trying my best to hold it back to seem cool and collected. Where do you go with a conversation after naming drinks? Name random items? Oh hey a salt shaker! A chair! Couldn't have started with the weather? Idiot.

"What is it you're writing?" she asked, finally breaking the tension.

"Oh, just a novel."

"Oh you're a writer! I love that. What's the novel about?"

"It- it's- a political thriller set in a post-apocalyptic neo-noir fantasy world about internet trolls and the state of decay of our infrastructure."

"Ooooh, that sounds cool. Maybe I could read it sometime?" She asked with a smile, as she grabbed her tea.

As she walked away, I stared at her, unable to come up with something witty, or even to just ask her for her number. Instead I mumbled, "yeah—that—that would be great." Stupid.

Then we played that dance again, but this time instead of looking away, she would smile and look my way, and I the same. Those eyes, it warmed me every time she looked at me. I kept trying to get the courage to ask for her number, but my nerves kept me in my seat. She finished her drink, then wrote something on her napkin. She passed right by my table, leaving it next to my laptop. Did she just give me her number?

I looked back to her, but she was already part way out of the door. I grabbed the napkin and looked at it with a racing heart. It had no numbers, just three words:

Come Find Me

That was the last I saw of her...