Page 56 of Monarch
“Ivan is already in with a four-hour appointment.” I glance again at the tablet. “And Thijs opened up and just finished with a client so he went to get a matcha, though I suspect he’s stuck there now.”
“Ha! Stuck in a café with hot pastries and even hotter baristas? He’ll survive.”
We laugh together, and then I check the time again. My customer is nearly fifteen minutes late. It’s definitely time I called.
“Ugh,” I groan as I pick up my phone.
“What’s wrong now?” Clarissa asks.
“Gotta tell a no-show that they owe me money.”
“You didn’t get a deposit?”
“Nope, it was a walk-in. Mirza booked it and forgot to ask for the down payment.”
Clarissa rolls her eyes. “Rookie mistake. I’ll tell him off,” she adds, bouncing her eyebrows.
I wave my flat palm at her. “I do not want to know.”
Mirza has to be at least ten years her junior, is the studio’s apprentice, and is as innocent as I suspect Clarissa isn’t. So much so, I’ve thought about mentioning QISS to her once or twice. Thanks to Joel, I’m a regular visitor, and it’s fast become one of my favourite places in this city I now call home. I’m trying not to also attach too much importance to the fact that it’s the only place where Roos and I have been together – and yes, we’ve beentogetherthere – since we agreed not to date. But it’s hard to ignore that QISS is the place where Roos and I still get to be something. It’s hard to not think fondly of aplace that has allowed me to see her beauty, feel her pleasure, and absorb her energy. Even if it’s only been three times in three months. Even if they were organised with awkward texts and even more awkward conversations before and after we got lost in each other’s bodies. Even if I haven’t replied to her last text asking if we could play again this weekend.
It's not that I don’t want to. It’s that I’mdesperateto. And it’s getting harder and harder to hold back the flood of feelings I have for her, to quell my thirst for more than these random nights at QISS, to not blurt out at the height of a scene how much I miss her, how much I want her, how much I think I’m falling for her regardless of the distance.
But that wouldn’t be fair. I don’t know where Roos is at with her feelings, her situation, her…relationship with Lex.
Because if there’s one thing the distance from Roos has confirmed, it’s that I’m a much happier person when Lex isn’t in my life in any shape or form. Well, maybe not happier. More calm. Content. At peace.
Joel says xe hasn’t returned to the club since that night. I haven’t had the nerve to ask him or Roos if xe has been in touch with Roos. I’m too scared of the answer, although I spend a shameful amount of time imagining what it is.
It takes me longer than is socially acceptable to realise this whole time I’ve been lost in my thoughts, Clarissa has been talking to me.
“And I generally don’t like to, what is it you say in English, shit in my own back garden. But there’s just something about Mirza, don’t you think? He’s all innocent and wide-eyed and clueless. Really…corruptible, and I don’t know what it says about me that I’m sort of attracted to that.”
“I don’t know,” I say, finally tuned in again. “It sounds like it could be messy.”
Clarissa wrinkles her nose and grins widely over her coffee mug. “But messy can be so fun sometimes!”
Her words land somewhere inside me and stay there, repeating themselves over and over again.
“Okay, I've got to call this L Willhelm,” I tell Clarissa, eyes back on my phone.
“No, you don’t,” a voice calls out from the studio door. A voice I recognise. I look up and see a figure shaking off a leather coat that is coated in snowflakes. A wool bobble hat is pulled off to reveal a shaved head, a phoenix tattoo peering at me through the stubble.
Oh. Fuck.
“I’m here,” Lex says. Xe turns and immediately catches my gaze. Xe looks just as horrified as I feel.
“Oh, it’s you,” xe says. And then xe has the nerve to smirk at me.
“You’re L Willhelm?” I ask as xe approaches the counter.
“Willhelm, hey? I thought he wrote my name down wrong,” Lex goes to the coat rack in the corner of the room. Hangs up xir coat and hat like xe does this every damn day.
“Hey, Lex,” Clarissa says, looking up briefly from her phone. “Long time, no see.”
I bristle at the idea that Clarissa –myfriend andmycolleague Clarissa – knows Lex well enough to be on first-name terms, to know that xe hasn’t been here recently. I feel nauseous at the idea that Lex is known at Pink Elephant, a place that I want to be mine and only mine.
“This isn’t happening,” I say firmly, and I know I’ve shocked Clarissa with my tone. I can feel her eyes on me, but I am looking only at Lex, waiting for xem to put xir coat back on and leave.
