Coffee with Fred

[killingsoftly]

He wasn't accustomed to having coffee later with people he'd so thoroughly seduced, but then, she'd been nice to him before that and after that and didn't seem to be running away, ans she'd offered to let him talk and he'd already apparently told her about Warren, so that made her slightly safer to talk to than the redhead who he barely knew.

He called her and invited her for coffee. He arrived at Starbucks a little early, parking the bike, then fidgeting outside on the step while he waited for her. He lit up one of his clove cigarettes, moving away from the door to the ashtray a bit further down. People might have given him disapproving looks on his own account, but at least no one coughed pointedly at him.

He was still fidgety, but at least the nicotine helped a bit. And there would be coffee. Which might make him fidget more. But it would be good and she was a calming sort and he might not end up talking about Warren at all, really, even as VERY confusing as things were now.

He leaned against the wall and tried to make himself stop fidgeting, which got him looks from the Barbie clones who walked by, flashing him an inviting smile. Bike. Leather jacket. Sunglasses. Cigarette. Too pretty for words. It was what he used to get such creatures in his bed to give him what he needed, but he was too fixated on Warren to do more than just smile back at them with a nod.

Some things were instinctual.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

Fred parked her car around the corner from the Starbucks, lucking out with a long running meter. She paid for the full three hours, using all the quarters from her dash, and stepped out fully into the sticky sun. The heat in Texas was different. As how as it got, some of it still seemed to seep back into the earth. Everything was all so, around here, and in LA too. So now, so bright, ...so much cement. And all that cement bounced the sun right back up to calves, and arms, and napes and necks. Cloying, sticky heat.

It's been interesting to see Devin again. Fred kept using that word in her head, interesting. Because if it was interesting it couldn't be other things. Nervous. Guilty. Anxious. Anxious was a really, really good one.

But not allowed. Interesting it was, then. The last time she'd seen him, he'd been well past half out of it, to the point of not remembering. And the first time was the --first time. Fred had a pretty good feeling whatever happened over coffee today would estabnlish the rest of their relationship. If they could be something like friends, or if they would...well, she would just start avoiding him.

Fred was sort of hoping for friends.

Fred caught sight of Devin outside, and smiled. Fidgeting so, he looking just as anxious as...

"Hi," she announced herself, scooting forward.

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

He still jumped, just a little, the stood with a smile.

"Hi."

What, exactly, was he supposed to do now? He crushed out the cigarette in the ashtray.

"So, coffee?"

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

She nodded, watching the cigarette extinguish before looking back at him and smiling again.

"Coffe sounds great." Which, of course it did. That's why they had decided on it. "Iced coffee."

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

"Oh, most definitely iced coffee," he said with a smile.

He moved to the door and opened it for her with a little bow.

"After you, my lady."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

She accepted with a smile, pleased with how things were starting at least, and eased up to the counter. There was only a smallish line really, just long enough to decide.

"Your new hotel is near here?"

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

"Yeah." He made a bit of a face. "Just around the corner."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"You don't like it?"

She tilted her head just long enough to order some sort of banana coconut iced frapachino concoction, out just for the summer, then looked back to Devin.

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

Devin ordered a frozen caramel macchiato with an extra shot and handed the woman his card to pay for both.

"It's not horrid? I mean, I've stayed in worse. But it's not nearly as nice. No Xbox. No balcony. Luckily I have that Cingular wireless internet on my computer, so I still can get online."

He fidgeted just a bit. "Warren said I could stay at his place..."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

Fred blinked a few times when he paid for her, before slipping her wallet back into her purse. The notion of two seperate transactions at the register sounded better in her head.

But friends treated friends all the time, and if that is what they were trying, then she would just find some way to even things later.

"Those things don't sound fun to let go of," she agreed, trying to envision any of then men in her life from the fast five years without their X Box, or Playstation, or whatever the 'it' of the moment was.

"That was very nice of him. Of...Warren." She tested his name outloud, expecting to say it more. "You don't want to?"

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

"It's not fun." He agreed with her. Wholeheartedly. He wanted his Xbox back. Or the hotel's. Someone's. "And the movie channels bite."

He picked up their drinks, leading her to a corner couple of chairs with an end table between them.

Only after he'd sat and she'd sat did he nod a bit. "It is nice of him. And it's not that I don't...I mean, yeah. I want...I mean, I've never actually...but sure. It could be fun. Or he could get sick of me really fast." Which was likely to happen on tour if it was going to happen at all. "And his friends would all...He just broke up with his girlfriend. Or, well. They're 'on a break.'" He did the little air quotes. She seemed like a girl who'd seen Friends if only in reruns.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

She nodded, taking maybe just a bit to big a sip of the coffe, and the cold hit behind her nose and eyes hard. Fred blinked a few times.

"Do you think he's ever someone who would offer that if he didn't mean it?" Though.... "I mean, I do get wanting to be safe, wanting to keep your own space, and then get to be responsible for keeping yourself too. Because it's never just inviting a person in, there's a hundred, hundred other ups and downs that go with it. It's why I was so insistent about getting my own place when I showed up."

The last part settled over Fred, and she took another sip, thinking.

"...and you don't want to add more cracks to that break?"

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

"And his mom's there. And it was for the spare room, and so...it could just be a 'hey, you don't have to pay for a hotel. you gave me a job. come crash at my place' thing. But then he...he talks like he wants to try to be with me. And he..touches and I just..." He scowled at his coffee. "I don't know."

He sighed. "He loves her. But he says that they've drifted too far apart and neither of them wants to make the effort to fix things and that there were other things to look forward to, like maybe me, I don't know. And he wants to go back to New York. And New York was good except when it was bad and there's the implication that..."

He shook his head, surprised at all the words spilling out.

"I don't know how to do this."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"Folks do add to things," she agreed, because that was what folks did. Fred studied his face, sipping a bit more coffe while she did.

"Is that what's making his offer hard? That you do...like it when he touches you. That he says he wants to try, and you want more, and then...the spare room. Like the two feeling like they're not fitting together?"

Fred sighed.

"Sometimes people drift apart. The hard part to face is that the drifting never occurs at the same pace. Someone always pulls away first, walks slower or faster, and there's that moment you have to face them and see right there, in their eyes, that it happened. Maybe they've already done that, I don't know. That's the worst part to get through, that moment." She fidgeted with her straw a bit. "And you might not like this part? But there isn't any knowing. Know one really knows how to do this, for all the books that people write. There's no absolute knowing."

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

"It's not what makes it hard. I just...if he wants to see. If we can be together, then I'm..." He was very, very pale. "I'm willing to try. But he just broke up with her and she has to know it has something to do with me, if only because of the music and taking him away. And if suddenly I'm staying with him and his mom..."

He drank his coffee a little too fast.

"And if we're...I mean...ok. When we're on tour we'll be together a lot, but that's at least two months, and I just..."

He looked at her, eyes wide and innocent for all the years and experience behind them. "How do people drift, if they love each other? Why isn't it enough?"

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"You're worried for her," Fred caught on a bit. "Have you even met her? And you're worried for her." Fred's heart ached for him a bit, for another view of why Devin was and just how true she knew those words were, personally. It also ached because there wasn't any easy fix.

"It's hard," she finally said. "When at least...part of you wants to start a relationship, something that speaks to you, all the while at the expense of another one."

She chewed at the tip of her strap a bit, sipping and thinking, thinking and sipping.

"Why did the world drift apart, when once upon a time it seemed so solid. But still, once upon another time, two someones looked up and there was an ocean betwen them -- a real one." She pulled a face. "I'm sorry. You're looking for a real answer, and I'm just...maybe I don't know the answer because there isn't an exact one." And Fred didn't like not having answers. Add that to the part where she was building a relationship with two men who had the potential to live forever? The drifting part hit a little too close to home.

"Sometimes I think it's the way the relationship was built. People aren't always as real as the should be, always on best behaivor, sometimes only a half, or a quarter of who they really are. They want him...her to like them, but they aren't even letting them know who they should like. The love can only go as far as what people have seen, and so when all the little additions and realities creep in, people distance themselves from the stranger. Sometimes it's as hard as finding someone you love more. Love isn't the strongman game at the fair, you don't get to swing and measure just how in love you are. Maybe it's just another level they didn't even know existed, much less want to experience before. And sometimes, there is nothing but love, and too much of everything else. Life and death, and it chips away at your handholds."

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

Devin frowned, fiddling with his coffee cup. "I've never...done this. Not since..." But it was there. On his journal. If she'd read.

"And yes, I've met her. I've seen them together. I've seen ... how much he loves her. And it's hard to think that now he...He still says he's straight. But when we kissed, he wanted me. But what if it's just...curiosity? What if in the end he decides this was fun, but he wants to be with a woman? I just...I don't know how to deal with that. I want him to be happy. I ... I tried to let him go. I didn't mean to kiss him, but he kissed me and then I just...wanted."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

Fred lifted one hand over the table, dropping it onto Devin's own hand, that was jumping around so. There was a flash of comprehension in her eyes.

"...I know."

She kept her hand there, waiting for his to still.

"You're not a curiosity Devin," Fred managed first, just watching him. "But being curious with you, it isn't a bad thing really. It means he wants to know more, about you, about himself. It makes you inspiring, it means he keeps wanting to learn. Remember what I said about one person not seeing the whole other person. Curiousty can keep that from happening. You're worried about things failing. But what's worse? Failing, or not trying at all?"

Fred would rather try, every single time.

"You tried to let him go, but if he doesn't leave, then that says something too." She shrugged. "I haven't met him, obviously, but it seems to me like you...know things Devin. You know people. Can you tell if it's just curiosty in that one way, all physical and...or is it deeper than that?"

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

"I know he cares," Devin said, watching her hand. "I do know that's real. But the sexual side of it...that I don't know. He tells me it's more than that, but sometimes I worry it's just...me. What I do."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

Fred decided it might, just might be time to be blunt, and to call up her personal experience.

"I'm guessing you two haven't fallen into bed together yet?"

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

Devin shook his head, adamantly. "No. Just kissed."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

Fred nodded, listening, then she settled her eyes on Devin's.

"...then doesn't that make everyting between you the exact opposite of what you do?"

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

Devin blinked. "But he wants to...Just because I said no doesn't change the fact that he might want to because of just...what I give off."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

Fred just shook her head, remembering a bit more of what he didn't, their conversationwhen he had be crashed on the couch.

"He wants to now maybe. Well, I'd guess definitely, after getting to know you, and you're sending it but...did he want to right away? From the minute you two spent any time together?"

[killingsoftly.livejournal.com]

He frowned slightly, shaking his head. "No..."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"Trust me then," she said with a good bit of personal conviction. "This is different."