Page 3 of The Embrace of Evergreen

The coffee in my mug is neither of our favorite drinks. Instead, it’s murky, nearly coffee-flavored water poured from the probably not-even-real glass carafe that came with the big box store’s $19.99 automatic coffee maker, whose specialty is imbuing the beverage with the slight taste of mildly burnt plastic. Gabriel and I have lived together for six years; surely we’re to the point in our relationship where sharing joint custody of a $100 coffee maker wouldn’t be a hardship.

I sigh once more when the plastic-flavored beverage coats my tongue as I turn to face Gabriel and lean my ass against the edge of the counter. It’s too cold to be wandering around in only my briefs, but it would have taken more energy than I could muster to pull on pants before coffee time.

“Come on then, what grade?” One of his eyebrows is raised in anticipation, and his smile is far too wide and bright for this early in the morning.

“B plus.”

“Oh my god, a B plus? You’ve only given out like three B pluses…ever! How did he earn this B plus? I need every little detail.” Gabriel sets his mug on the counter and braces his chin on the back of the knuckles of one hand, batting his eyelashes furiously.

“You know you’re not getting every little detail.”

He sticks his lower lip out in a pout that never works on me. I’ve seen it work on hundreds of other people though; Gabriel can talk almost anyone into nearly anything. He’s one of the most charming and persuasive people I’ve ever encountered. If I didn’t love him, I’d be disgusted that he’s both gorgeous and charming. Few people are both, and if I were the jealous type, it would be hard to like him. I strongly believe the fact that his constant flirtations don’t work on me is the reason we’re such a good pair. He needs someone to rein in his insanity on occasion, like the time I had to stop him from adding a high-wire to his show without any training because he was sure he simply has naturally good enough balance. When I convinced him to try the damn thing six inches off the ground before moving it six feet into the air, and he couldn’t take more than three steps without falling, I’d forced him to not only admit that I’m always right about everything but to do my laundry for a month. I now own seven previously not-pink pink shirts.

“Come on. Pleeeeease,” he begs. His begging usually works on other people as well.

I groan and down the rest of my coffee as quickly as possible in an attempt to avoid the taste.

“One detail.”

He furrows his forehead in thought.

“Position.”

I snort out a laugh. While I absolutely enjoy playing the field, I’m not really one to kiss and tell. He knows he only gets one detail, and that’s usually the one he wants. I have no idea why.

“He let me do what I wanted with him, so there were too many to count.” I wiggle my eyebrows suggestively. “It was a good night.”

His laugh bursts out, filling the small kitchen for a moment before his gaze becomes too serious for my liking. I know what is going to come out of his mouth before he speaks.

“Why don’t you keep him then? What could it hurt?”

I shake my head with a sigh. “Gabriel…”

“Come on.” He cuts me off. “I know you’re jaded, and I know better than anyone why you’re like this. I know what you’ve been through, but you deserve to be happy, Blue.”

Love and romance aren't for me. When I was young and naive, I'd dreamed of them, just like everyone else, I suppose. Then I fell in love and got screwed, not in the fun way. Then I fell in love again and got screwed again. Half a dozen relationships with cheaters and narcissists and abusive pricks through my twenties, and I eventually learned my lesson. In the end, it doesn’t matter if I’m the problem or everyone else is; romance isjust a game. An illusion. A facade. Love, romantic love at least, isn't usually real, and when it is, it never lasts.

My experiences at my day job only serve to reinforce my personal philosophy on love.

Just like Gabriel has his job at the coffee shop, my passion for glassblowing doesn’t pay my bills, and I spend most of my evenings waiting tables at the Sky Lounge, the high-end restaurant and bar located at the top of the Space Needle in downtown Seattle. The clientele is the same every night - tourists and couples in love. The couples are always as monotonous and cliché as possible. Adorable young creatures with stars in their eyes spending more money than they should on a special evening out. Slightly smarmy folks with overly bleached teeth trying to impress their dates in order to “seal the deal” and get them into the sack. Proposals. So fucking many proposals, and every single person doing the proposing tries to bribe their way into extra champagne, the best table in the house, a rose across the bread plates, their names written in icing on a dessert. When did frosting suddenly become the modern medium of choice when you want to indicate something of importance and endurance? Move over stone - butter and sugar are here.

Every one of the tourists is dressed in wrinkled khakis, trendy ripped jeans, floral-print dresses, bold-colored polos, and neutral button-up shirts, all dragged out of suitcases and steamed in hotel showers that only managed to release about half of the deeply ingrainedwrinkles. Those on dates are dressed in suits or formal dresses that show enough skin the poor folks wearing them are freezing by the end of the night. Every single person wears more perfume or cologne than should be allowed by law. How they can taste their food with the cloying clouds of sandalwood and roses that envelop them is beyond me.

A couple of times a year, someone with more money than sense rents the whole place out…always for the same reasons as everyone else. A proposal, an anniversary, an attempt to impress someone enough to get them into bed. Those evenings cost them more than I spend on rent in a year, which really does seem like too much money for a night filled with clichés, even for people with more money than they know what to do with. In the four years I’ve been employed there, only one of the “rent the whole place” couples has ever really stood out.

Last summer, when a man called in asking if such a thing were possible and, if so, if he could select a date only three weeks out, I had heard the manager, Marie, laugh out loud as I’d laid out silverware and cloth napkins before we opened. When she’d told the man it was a year’s wait to rent the place out, he hadn’t argued that he’d pay more or tried to convince her that he was more important than everyone else the way most people trying to book the entire place do. Instead, he’d thanked her sadly, saying he’d been hoping for the best even though he’d assumed it was a long shot because his date had such severe social phobia that he'd never been to anice restaurant. The couple had never even been on a traditional date in public because of it, and Marie had taken pity on them, shuffling far more reservations than she should have to let him book a Wednesday night.

On any normal, jam-packed evening, they’d have stuck out from the crowd, completely out of place in their simple clothing. Neither was trying to impress the other. There seemed to be no need. The striking, pale, black-haired man had been wearing a simple, soft sweater, and his taller, almost lumberjack-looking partner had been wearing plaid. Both were in jeans. When I’d arrived at their table and cleared my throat to offer them drinks, pulling their attention away from the other’s eyes, it had felt more invasive than if I'd walked in on them fucking. They were so adorable together that I didn’t even care when they lingered to stare out the windows at the city lights shimmering in the dark for twenty minutes past our normal closing time. They were probably the closest anyone has come to convincing me love and romance just might be real. That for a lucky handful, happily ever after just might exist.

Me though?

Love isn't for me.

Every time I’ve fallen, it’s been fast and hard, and every time, I’ve ended up having to patch the broken, tattered pieces of my body and soul back together on my own. Love and I just aren’t compatible.

On rare occasions, I'll go on first dates and enjoy the company of attractive strangers, though I don’t often bother as I can enjoy a meal with less awkward conversation with my friends. On far more frequent occasions, I’ll pick someone up and spend an enjoyable few hours engaging in carnal activities before we exchange smiles and cheek kisses and head off in our own directions without expectations. Temporary and fun, that’s how I like my sexual encounters. A few moments of pleasure without pretending that it might magically turn into something more. Why spoil a perfectly good thing with longing or hope or lies?

I refill my mug with more of the saddest excuse for coffee known to man and make my way back toward my room to get dressed. I want to spend some time at the hot shop before I have to clean up for work.

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