Page 5 of Drawn Together
Maybe I should have asked Lennon what to wear, because when she finally steps out of her room to meet me at the front door where I wait anxiously, she changed into a simple pair of black leggings and a sweatshirt so large it droops to her knees, even on her tall frame. She doesn’t say I’m overdressed, but she doesn’t have to. I feel it in the flicker of confusion in her brows and the slow blink of her midnight blue eyes.
I point to my sweater. “I got this at the secondhand shop down on 63rd. They have a lot of vintage wear.” I feel like I’m lying somehow, so I tack on, “Well, this isn’t vintage. I mean, depending on what you imagine being vintage. But, they have a lot of vintage hats and purses. Not ones that I’ve bought, though.”
She did not ask for any of that information, but here we are.
Distressed brick walls surround the bar we slip into. It looks like one of those places that would have a secret password that changes every weekend, and you can only enter if you have at least ten-thousand followers on social media. To my surprise, no one asks to see such verification as Lennon waves a hand to the hostess, who winks at me in passing, her pink bob bouncing as she tilts her head to the side.
“The rest are already here at the usual table.”
Lennon nods, and I follow her long strides. Turns out ‘the rest’ are four twenty-something-year-olds sitting at a round corner booth who all stare back and forth between the two of us.
Lennon approaches a blonde man with bushy eyebrows and a slanted smile sitting on one side of the booth. He immediately stands up when he sees her, grabs her hand, and plants a tiny kiss on the inside of her wrist like she’s royalty—I am smitten. This is Stephan?
He’s shorter than I expected, and a bit smile-ier than I expected, too.
For the first time since I moved in, I watch as Lennon’s shoulders fully relax into a crouched position under her boyfriend's arm, tucking herself in like a child.
Beside him is a very cute girl with big blue-green eyes and wild blonde curls almost as big as mine. And beside her is—let me say this with the utmost clarity—the most attractive man I have made eye contact with in at least ten years. Let’s say fifteen to be safe.
Under a navy NYFD hat is a handsome face with all these smooth lines and a soft, kind smile just below a very firefighter-looking mustache without a hint of stubble surrounding it. If I were ever to be stuck in an elevator and there was only one man that could lift me through the tiny slot and carry me down ten flights of stairs, it would be this man.
Stephan quickly introduces himself with a firm handshake reminiscent of a linebacker before pointing to the two people beside him. “This is Margot, and that’s Noah.” They both wave, but it’s just Noah's that I am stuck on. He has very veiny forearms blocking the view of literally anything else around me.
“And that,” Stephan says, his finger pointing to the opposite side of the table toward a man I hadn’t noticed before—solely due to Mr. Firefighter—“is Fletcher.”
Let me run you through the next thirty seconds as I experience it:
Déjà vu, as I meet eyes held in an angular face with a strong, Roman nose, and scruffy facial hair, which contrasts the other two men at the table. Shock, that I could recognize one other person in this heavily populated city. Anger, that the man I am looking at across the table is the same one who stole my muffin this morning. And rage, that he clearly doesn’t recognize me.
Who in their right mind steals someone's breakfast, only eats half of it, and when they run back into said someone doesn’t even remember their face?
I understand I am not the most outstanding person in a population of eight million, but come on.
There is a flicker of hesitation on his face that says he knows I recognize him, but he can’t piece together where he would know me from. Which riles me up further.
Lennon says something over my shoulder, the sexy fireman lifts his glass and his forearm flexes, a bell dings by the bar, and a crowd sings happy birthday to an older woman—but it’s all just white noise.
By the time the birthday song is over and the uncomfortable silence registers, I realize I have not said a word. I am also the only one standing.
My whole mission could be split into two large categories: Make friends that are my own—friends that someone cannot swipe out from underneath me—and land a successful career in illustrating. To accomplish the first one, I would think first impressions are probably important. But, I just can’t do it. He stole my muffin, and I can’t not say something, right?
There are a handful of things I could offer in this scenario. But the two words that fly out of my, mind you, very extensive vocabulary, are “Muffin Man?” said with the utmost fury.
“Excuse me?”
“Muffin man.”
“Muffin man?” Stephan asks.
“Who lives on Drury Lane?” Margot smiles.
“Can you…be more specific?”
“You,” I point, “stole my muffin this morning."
“That was you?”
“How often are you stealing someone's breakfast that you don’t recognize me?”
