Love Beyond Words (City Lights: San Francisco Book 1) (4 page)

She got home to her tiny apartment that night, determined to get some sleep, to finalize any last course requirements for the summer program the next day, and read
Coronation
when she had the time, like any other person might when they picked up a book. She set it on the coffee table and went to the bathroom to wipe off her makeup.

When she came out, she crossed the kitchen, intending to veer left toward her bedroom alcove. Instead, she found herself sitting on the couch, contemplating
Coronation
. Her hand, of its own accord, flipped it open and trailed over the opening page. She was certain there was no more tantalizing phrase in the English language than Chapter One.
Just the opening sentences
, she thought. No sense in depriving herself.

In Aguilar, the village has one rule: he who withstands the sting of the viper wasp is king. Dead men ringed the nest in final reposes; slaves bowing before their master instead of monarchs bent to receive their crowns. Liliana, her hand swollen and bursting with poison, rose on shaking feet. A weaver. A woman. A queen.

The sun was a rosy copper in the east when Natalie turned the final page. She wiped the tears from her eyes, flipped it open to the beginning, and started again.

The summer slipped away and classes began again in September. Natalie
fell into the routine of school and work; reading and pouring coffee, calculating overhead and performing audits for businesses that didn’t exist.
Business at Niko’s picked up in the evening hours. Customers came to warm their faces in fragrant steam and curl their fingers around hot mugs, while the first chill winds of autumn blew leaves in miniature cyclones around the front door of the café.

One night, they blew in Julian Kovač.

It was early evening on a Monday; the café hadn’t yet seen its first rush, and Natalie had
almost
forgotten about him, had almost forgotten how stunning he was. This night he wore jeans and a form-fitting black hoodie over a black shirt. The curls of his black hair hung over his forehead and his thin scrap of a beard cut angular lines on his face. His eyes stood out like brilliant blue stars in a night sky, and Natalie stared until he spoke, jarring her from her stupor.

“Hello, Natalie. It’s good to see you again.”

Natalie’s heart fluttered in her chest
.
His smile warmed her better than the space heater churning under the cash register.

“Likewise.” A wave of anxiety grabbed hold of her and squeezed.
Don’t screw it up this time.
“How have, uh…how have you been?”

“Quite well, thank you. And you?”

“Fine.” Natalie realized this was an exchange one had with an acquaintance, not with a customer. Did he realize that? She couldn’t tell; he watched her intently and it seemed as though entire conversations were occurring behind his electric blue eyes. Her own mind had seized up; Natalie could think of nothing to say but for her usual barista spiel: “What can I get for you?”

Julian ordered a regular coffee and a Danish, and the silence continued as Natalie filled his order. She peeked at him from behind the coffee maker and then through the glass of the pastry shelf. He smiled again when she set his order on the counter.

“Keep the change,” he said in his quiet voice, and took his coffee and pastry to the table at the oriel window at the front of the café.

She watched him slip a black leather messenger bag off his shoulder and then unzip the hoodie—no ordinary sweatshirt, but the stylish, pricey kind that Marshall cooed over in the fashion magazines. He tossed it carelessly over the back of the opposite chair. The black dress shirt he wore beneath had three-quarter sleeves and Natalie noticed a wide-banded, expensive watch on his wrist, in black and silver. From the leather bag he pulled pen and a black and white mottled composition book, the kind they sold at the university bookstore by the bulk. He sat, opened the notebook to the first page and, after a brief pause, began to write.

Natalie watched all this occur with a mix of shame and relief. Once again, she had failed to dazzle and charm him with her wit or—feeling she was decidedly lacking in both—she had failed to propel the conversation from small talk into something bigger. But he didn’t walk out the door again. He stayed and, by all appearances, he had the intention of remaining there for some time. Julian hunched over his composition book, coffee and pastry untouched, and scribbled away. After indulging in watching him—drinking him in—for a solid five minutes, Natalie returned to her book, but with eye on her customer should he need her.

Hours passed. The café saw a swell of business around seven o’clock, and then it grew quiet again. Close to ten, it was empty but for Julian and Natalie, the former writing almost nonstop, and the latter watching, her own hand aching out of solidarity.

At ten to eleven, Julian set down his pen and rubbed his hand, glancing about as though he were a train passenger who’d fallen asleep only to wake in a strange country. His eyes found Natalie on her perch behind the counter.

“‘The sleeper has awakened’,” she said with a short laugh.

“Come again?”

“Uh, it’s from
Dune.
The book? Sorry, bad joke.”

“Not bad,” Julian said with a smile. “But I haven’t read it.”

“It’s a good one.” She started over to him as he began to clear his plate and mug. “Here, let me…”

“It’s no trouble…”

“No, please, it’s my job.”

She took the dishes from him, but before she could retreat to the counter, he asked, “Do you close soon?”

“In about ten minutes.”

“And…you work alone? Every night?”

“Yes. I go to school during the day. At State.” She didn’t know what prompted her to disclose that. A desire to show she wasn’t merely a barista perhaps, though she’d never felt there was anything wrong with that before.

Julian appeared not to have heard anyway. He surveyed the café, his brow furrowed. “Is it safe?”

“The neighborhood is safe. And I live right upstairs, so…”

“Maybe better not to tell anyone that.”

Natalie’s cheeks burned. “I don’t. I mean, not usually.”

“I’m sorry.” Julian said. “I’m sure I sound like a lowlife myself, asking you those questions. It’s none of my business.” He hastily pulled on his hoodie and gathered his things.

Natalie bit her lip. She wanted to tell him there was absolutely nothing about him that was creepy. His presence flustered her, that was true, but his strange shyness, so incongruous with his looks, was oddly comforting. But there was no chance she could—or would—articulate any of that, so she stood in the middle of café, still holding his mug and plate and feeling like a fool.

“You’ve been working hard. What is it you’re writing?” she blurted and her cheeks went scarlet again. “Never mind, sorry. That’s none of
my
business.”

“It’s nothing.” He tossed the notebook into his bag and zipped it swiftly. “Not yet. Maybe something. We’ll see.” He seemed just as at a loss for something more to say and asked, “Do you write?”

“Oh, no, not at all. I study accounting. I read but I don’t have the poetry in me to write.

“I doubt that.” Julian smiled that wistful smile again. “I doubt that very much.” He shouldered his bag. “Good night, Natalie.”

“Oh. Good night,” she returned, and he was gone leaving behind the clean, expensive scent of his cologne and that compliment she knew would follow her well into the night.

#

Natalie had thought she let Julian slip away yet again, and her heart sang when he came back the next night. Their initial conversation was almost identical to the one previous: a small exchange of “hellos” and “I’m fines.” He ordered another coffee—black—and another pastry that would remain half-eaten. His smile for her was warm but brief. He retreated to the same table he had occupied the night before. The pen and black and white notebook were produced and he immediately set to writing.

By eight o’clock, the café was humming with bits of conversation and the clinking of mugs on saucers. Whenever Natalie had a spare moment, she found Julian either scribbling away in an unbroken stream, or giving his pen a break and tapping it thoughtfully against his chin as he watched the people around him.

Near closing time, it grew quiet again. Natalie tidied up after the rush, wiped down tables and cleaned mugs and plates, and then picked up her book. She kept her eyes steadfastly on its pages even though the lines of text were rendered incomprehensible gibberish by Julian’s distracting presence. At ten minutes before eleven, he stretched and gathered his belongings. Outside, the wind howled to get in.

“Good night, Natalie,” he said.

“Good night,” she replied, disappointment biting deep. She couldn’t even bring herself to say his name.

He walked out for what she thought must be the last time. He’d decided Niko’s was too busy to be productive. He wouldn’t come back, she was sure of it.

But he returned that next night, and the night after that. Sunday she was off, but Monday he was there. And so Natalie found another routine: hers and Julian’s. Every night he came in, every night he ordered a pastry and coffee, and every night he scribbled in his book, neither of them saying much more than cursory hellos and goodbyes. Natalie didn’t trust herself to initiate anything
,
and for whatever his reasons, Julian said nothing, reserving, it seemed, all his copious words for his composition book. Natalie resigned herself to the fact he obviously wasn’t there because of her. He was there to work, plain and simple.

The strange ache in her heart wasn’t as easy to explain.

Toward the middle of October, the black sky was frosty with the promise of winter. The stars glittered coldly and the wind tore at the awning above the door. Inside the café, Julian and Natalie were at their customary places, like actors in a movie. Extras with no lines, just set pieces; the café empty but for the two of them. Julian’s hand flew back and forth as his coffee grew cold beside him.

Shortly before ten o’clock the door banged open. Natalie jumped in her seat as two men stomped inside, the odor of stale alcohol billowing around them. They jostled and nudged one another as they caught sight of Natalie behind the counter, and snickered in a way that made her skin shiver. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Julian had set down his pen and was watching them intently.

“What can I get you?” Natalie asked.

The two men ogled the pastry display, then her.

“What’s good?” one asked.

“I’ll tell you what’s good,” muttered the other. They both leered at Natalie, and then chuckled together as if they were being coy and clever and not crude and obvious.

“I’ll take a beer,” said the first. He had hair the color and texture of straw, and wore a Warriors sweatshirt, stretched taut over his immense bulk. Muscles on top of muscles, and a neck as thick as a tree trunk. The other man had dark hair, and eyes that were bloodshot and hooded. He peered blearily at the menu that was written in lively colored chalk on the wall behind Natalie. His blue windbreaker was stained and rustled when he moved.

Natalie realized with an ugly knot of fear that she was taking inventory of the men in case she was forced to identify them later in some official capacity. There was danger in their loose laughter, an edge to their voices. Her eyes flickered to Julian. The image of a hunting cat came to mind; though still seated, he looked ready to fly off his chair.

“Where the fuck you see beer?” asked the guy in the windbreaker.

“We don’t sell beer,” Natalie said. “Only coffee.”

“See? No beer. Dumbass.”

“What else you got?” the blond demanded. His eyes grazed Natalie, up and down, as one would a menu. “Cute,” he said, “but small tits.”

The windbreaker burst out laughing. “Damn, Garrett.”

Natalie’s face burned. “I think you had better leave.”

“Come on, he’s just teasing,” said the windbreaker. “Besides, you gotta be friendly to us. Customers are always right.” His gaze went to her chest. “And he’s right.”

He laughed at his joke but his friend, Garrett, only smiled an ugly little smile as he leaned over the counter. “Yeah, be friendly. Be
real
friendly…”

Julian appeared beside the men. He was as tall as they, strong and lean, but they each outweighed him by a good fifty pounds. “I need a refill,” he told Natalie, holding up his empty coffee mug. “Can I…?” He inclined his head at the coffee machine. His face revealed nothing but she felt better. The way he looked at her, knowing and calm, reassured her.