Page 16 of Up All Night
Chapter 6
“This place is busy.”
Captain Obvious had already bought me some tea – at least he had consulted me about what I wanted. We were in the world’s largest coffee chain, but it being a neighborhood like Oji, the place was small, cramped, and made for people studying or working. Hardly the kind of place two foreigners continued their date. (If that was even what we were doing!)
There was one stool available in the whole place. Hadrian offered it to me while he awkwardly stood nearby, drinking coffee. The Japanese men on either side of me looked askance at us. Seriously, how dare we disrupt their emails?
“Can you see?” Only a few seconds later did I realize Hadrian meant to say “Can you watch?” He put his coffee cup down before gesturing to the bathroom. I nodded. The moment he was gone, I pulled out my phone and found a message from my friend.
“How’s it going???”
Sighing, I punched in a reply.
“I have no idea what’s going on. He’s not flirty. Don’t tell me I went hunting for those condoms for no reason. With my luck they’re going to be the souvenirs that nobody asked for.”
“Aw, that sucks. Is he cute?”
“Girl, he is handsome as fuck!”So not fair. I was on this maybe-date with one of the finest foreigners in Tokyo, and I had no idea if this man would even say it was a date! This was actually a history of mine. Men that would never admit we dated, that is. Why would Hadrian be any different at this point?
“Good luck, girl.”
My friend had no idea how much I needed it.
Hadrian came back the moment two seats opened in front of the window. We claimed them as quickly as our able bodies allowed. Finally, for the first time all night, I was sitting right next to this man, and…
He smelled really, really good. Damnit!
We hadn’t sat down for two seconds before a woman passed behind us, grazing Hadrian’s back with her purse. He jerked up, startling the both of us.
“Sorry, sorry.” He pushed his coffee aside. “I don’t like being touched.”
Oh.Oh.Well.
So this guy didn’t do much talkinganddidn’t like to be touched? How the fuck did I work with that?
Thanks, universe!
“If someone comes up behind me and…” Hadrian demonstrated a friend clasping his shoulder from behind. “I get… maybe scared.”
“Panic?”
“Yes, panic.”
I didn’t want to ask how something like that came about in his life.
“Sorry to hear that.” That meant that, even though I was sitting right next to him, I couldn’t slyly touch him with my hand or arm as we talked. Damnit! How was I going to flirt?How the fuck did one flirt with this guy?
The universe truly was against me that night, wasn’t it?
Hadrian didn’t owe me anything. He was nice enough to pay for dinner and my tea. If anything, I would usually be afraid he thought that I owedhimsomething. But what a turn of events, huh? The one time in my life I was ready to go – had decided I was going to jump this guy’s bones two minutes after meeting him – the guy I was with either played a long game or was totally uninterested. Just my luck, indeed!
“It is lonely, yes?”
I glanced at him. This man with the perfectly groomed head and facial hair, stylish clothes, and polite mannerisms that would make most women fall over themselves like loons. (Like me.) “What’s lonely?”
“This country.”
I looked out the window. It was the usual sight at any time of day in Tokyo, regardless of the neighborhood. Across the main thoroughfare was the train station. People jetted in and out, alone, no regard for the people around them. Honestly, it was one of my favorite things about Japan. No matter how packed in you were somewhere, people always respected your personal bubble. Funny, isn’t it? You could be in the busiest subway in Tokyo, and you didn’t care, because the people you were slammed up against were lost in their own worlds. Reading books. Texting. Listening to music. Chatting with coworkers and friends. It wasn’t that they didn’t care about you. But the way personal space is treated in Japan is simply unprecedented. As someone who spends a lot of her time in public alone, I appreciate it.
