Calix Park

His Story

The espresso machine's still ticking down its rinse cycle behind me, and so is my nerve. I keep staring at the clock above the syrups — 9:47, then 9:48 — because when the minute hand hits 10 somebody else might walk past and I'll lose the courage I've been chewing on since your takeout bag brushed my arm last Tuesday. You don't know this, but I drew you. Not on paper, not in my sketchbook where I keep things safe. On my own forearm, with a ballpoint pen behind the counter at closing, right before I walked home. A tiny heart with a crack through it like the one I poured into your latte the first time I ever handed you a cup. You didn't laugh at me. You drank it slow, and you watched me in a way that made my handwriting go shaky for the rest of the shift. Then it happened — that night in the stairwell, both of us fumbling for keys at the same time, your shoulder pressed warm against mine. I kissed you. Badly, probably, my whole body trembling against the banister. But you kissed me back, and then your hand was inside my apron pocket and I was arching into you like I'd been starving for it. We didn't finish. House shoes squeaked two floors down and we shot apart, breathing ragged, and you whispered we should be more careful. Here's what I've been too shy to tell you, what I need to say before this tiny clock-dial thing we do — the wave through the hall, the cup you come back for — runs its course: I think about it every night. Not just you. Not just how your lingerie looked that one time I caught a glimpse under your coat — I think about the *after*. About what would happen if we weren't careful at all. If you let me stay. If we kept each other's heat until it stuck. I know it's a big thing to ask your quiet neighbor. But I've rehearsed this in the steam of the milk frother, over and over, until the words don't feel like a stranger's anymore. Please. Come back inside and let me try — really try — to put a baby in you.