cozy cup

III

(chapter 3)

A Few Days Later

"Okay," Dee finally huffed out, hands on her hips. They had just finished their morning rush, and her curls were in a form of disarray that Vinny had rarely seen them in, her cheeks flushed with exertion. "What's up? You've been frowning since you got here, and you've dropped way more things than usual. Talk to me, Vin."

Vinny sighed, hands running through his hair. "It's nothing, Dee. The same things as always." He turned his back to her, not wanting her to see his face. He knew he wouldn't be able to keep his expression neutral, knew she would see the guilt and sadness written in the furrow of his brows and the shine of his eyes. Dee was always extra clingy, extra overwhelmingly optimistic when he was upset. It was suffocating, but she never failed to make him feel better.

"Well, I don't care," she huffed. He heard the shuffling of fabric as she moved around to stand between him and the counter, her hands cupping his cheeks to make him look up at her. "Talk to me. Tell me all about it, all over again. It always helps you feel better, no?"

His eyes welled up with tears again, and he blinked to clear them away. "I'm just sick of talking about it and never doing anything about it." He sighed, letting his head fall to her shoulder, glad that they were nearly the same height so that he didn't have to bend down for any affection from his best friend like would have to for his mom and especially for Miss Fletcher, who despite having children who neared 6 feet tall, was only 5'3.

Dee didn't say anything, simply hummed and brought a hand up to brush through the back of his hair.

"I woke up early this morning to register for classes and spent my whole shower afterwards just thinking about different ways to tell Mom. It's not like I can just blurt out, "Oh, hey, guess what, Mom. I'm not straight!" I don't even have a proper label to give her yet!" He sighed, standing up straight and moving away from her. He needed to move, so he picked up a wash cloth and started wiping down the counter as he talked.

"I took time off school to figure all this shit out, and my break is almost up. I have two months. Fuck, not even two months! I promised myself that I would finally come out before going back to school, but I keep chickening out. Every damn morning before work, I stand in my room, hyping myself up to finally tell her. And every fucking time I don't do anything. It's exhausting keeping this secret from her and just wanting to tell her and never doing it."

He blew out a breath, shaking his hands out when he felt them beginning to tremble. He occupied himself with straightening out the goodies in the display case as the bell over the door jingled. "On top of that, I still need to find an apartment. I'm almost 23, and I still live with my mom. I either don't have the time to search, I don't have the money for the application fee, or they're asking for way more than I can afford."

Whoever had just walked in cleared their throat, and Vinny finally looked up from where he was crouched behind the counter. There stood the guy from a few days ago, gorgeous eyes glowing amber in the late-morning sun. His cheeks went red as he stood, ignoring the dizziness from the sudden move. "Morning," he chirped, sending Dee a look over his shoulder as he moved over to the register. "What can I get for you?"

"An iced Americano and," he paused, taking a step back to read over the labels Roe had written out just that morning. "A caramel apple turnover." He finished his order with a grin as he reached into his back pocket to produce his debit card.

Vinny nodded, putting the order in. "Sure thing," he said. "Is that all?"

"Yeah," he said, smile still in place as he paid for his order and stepped over to the pick-up window.