Page 46 of Isn't It Obvious?
“I’ll take one as well, thank you,” he says.
Their server disappears without a word.
Yael takes a few gulps of water, and Ravi isn’t totally sure where to look. The booth is small enough that he’s sure one wrong move would put their knees in contact. It’s not particularly well lit in here, but suddenly, the prospect of sitting this close to her for an entire meal, when he’s already noticing that the roots at her hair part are more of a dark auburn than a brown, seems like a bad idea. “You like pancakes, right?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says.
“Good.”
The server returns with two steaming mugs, the Stepping Stone logo printed on them above the phraseYOU EAT HERE BECAUSE WE LET YOU. Ravi laughs; Yael purses her lips, but a smile breaks through; and their server does not react at all.
Yael orders something called a “Short Stack” to share, and Ravi marvels that the waiter has managed to say all of four words to them the entire time.
While they wait for the food, they sip their coffee, both reclining in their seats in feigned casualness. At least for Ravi.I am comfortable here with you, his posture says.I’m not worried about our knees brushing, says the lazy space he’s allowed his legs to take up.
“Damn, it’s warm in here,” Yael says, slipping out of the jacket Ravi gave her. She folds it as best she can, and when she’s done setting it down next to her, she stretches her neck to each side, sighing.
“Long day?” Ravi guesses.
“Day, week, year—always,” she answers. And then she does a little wiggle of her shoulders before rolling them back.
If he had to guess—and by that he means he is one hundred percent certain—she doesn’t have a bra on under that dress. He clenches his jaw and lifts his coffee to his lips, trying not to think about it. Makes eye contact with her over the mug, again trying to project all the ease he doesn’t feel.
“So,” he says. “What’s with the bunny shoes?”
She leans back a little to look under the table at them, likeWhat, these?“Ah, I kind of ran out of the house when Leo called. That’s how I ended up outside in slippers and no… jacket.”
Ravi doesn’t think he imagines the brief pause between her last two words, especially with how she blinks in triple time for a moment. He doesn’t fight his smile.
“They’re not bunnies, though,” she continues.
“They’re the size of them.”
She sucks her teeth. “They’re warm! And very chic, some might say.”
“Who, exactly?” he says.
“Me. They’re my favorites, and I will be crushed if I can’t wash the soles off well enough when I get home,” she says.
“Ah,” he says. “And the pants?” He gestures at his lap.
Yael’s eyes narrow. “You’re being very choosy for someone who’d otherwise be covered in puke,” she says.
He pauses halfway through his sip, lifting his free hand in surrender. “I’m very grateful, just curious. You wear color, but not usually…”
She puts down her coffee and props up her chin on the palm of her hand. “My stepdad bought them for me, and he smoked a lot of weed in his twenties, so now they’re my Emergency Car Pants.”
“Emergency Car Pants.”
“Yes, for when my quietest pupils choose to vomit upon my sworn enemies before an arduous journey,” she says.
Ravi laughs, and it’s like Yael’s eyes don’t know what to do with that. They’re everywhere—on his mouth, his left cheek, his shoulders, his throat. Back on his eyes, and that’s when he sees that the irises he’d previously thought were almost black have a ring of brown near the pupil when the light hits them just right.
He finds Yael beautiful. Impossibly sexy, too, which he can admit to himself, sitting in the kitschiest, Portlandiest diner in the world at one in the morning, wearing ill-fitting stoner-stepfather pants. There are no rules right now.
And she definitely finds him… something. At the moment, that’s enough for him.
The ease in his body is real now, every muscle relaxing at once. He leans forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the table.
