“Oh, it’s going great. They paired me with a twenty-year-old in Cambridge. He’s a good kid. Thanks again for helping me with that.”

Allison stood awkwardly, leaning her arm on the counter, almost as if it were helping her balance, then she looked up at the ceiling, then down at her nails…anywhere but at me. I thought I noticed her hand tremble.

What happened to her?

“Great to hear it,” I said.

I stood frozen, perplexed at the stan-doffish vibe I was getting. For the first time, I realized that maybe my advances were un-welcome. Maybe I had misread her all along.

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“Can I get you anything?” she asked as if I were just any other customer.

The fact that she looked more beautiful than ever was like a dagger in my heart right now. Her long dark hair was half up, half down and there was a tiny white flower in the corner of her ear. She smelled like green apples again and I wished I could taste her and see if she also tasted like green apples.

Get a grip.

“Yes. I would love a piece of that coconut cream pie,” I said, wondering how I was going to stomach the pie feeling like I was about to throw up.

“Sure. I’ll be right back. Sit wherever you like.”

Allison suddenly went into the kitchen and came out with a piece of pie, placing it on the table of the booth that I sat myself in.

The goddamn pie didn’t even have whipped 180/727

cream or a cherry on top. I took this as a cryptic ‘fuck off.’

“Thanks, Allison,” I said as I desperately searched her eyes for any sign of hope or recognition of our past connection. Instead, they looked pained but distant and I realized there was so much I didn’t know about her. So much I still wanted to know even in this troubling state.

“You’re welcome, Cedric.” It blew me away that she said nothing else, turned around and walked into the kitchen.

We’ve Only Just Begun by the Car-penters was playing over the speaker and depressing the crap out of me, making an already shitty situation so much worse.

I took a couple of bites of pie and stared at the kitchen door. Fifteen minutes passed before Allison came back out, proceeding to clean off tables at the other end of the diner.

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I was shattered. Speechless. She was either ignoring me intentionally or genuinely had no interest at all. Feeling like a complete asshole, I took a ten-dollar-bill out of my wallet and placed it on the table.

I walked over to where she was standing. She was calculating something on a pad of paper.

I swallowed my pride and offered one last attempt to talk to her. “Allison, I better get going. Thanks for the pie. I left money on the table. I hope things continue to go well with the new job. I’d still like to hear more about it sometime?”

And then it came…

“Bye, Cedric.” She might as well have taken her pen out her pocket and stabbed me in the fucking heart.

CHAPTER 11

ALLISON

Ouch, Gemini, this is not one of your better days. It's best to steer clear of negative energy. The Moon is not happy with Mercury, your ruler. So, just for today, avoid confrontation.

When I heard the chimes sound, signaling his exit, I turned around to look at the door that had slammed behind Cedric. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it for about five minutes.

The pounding of my heart and the swaying of the room finally seemed to slow down with each passing minute.

When I knew he was gone, I let the tear being held captive in my left eye fall 183/727

freely and finally walked over to the table where his piece of pie still sat in the dish, only one bite taken out of it. I realized I was so flustered, I forgot to add the whipped cream and cherry before serving it. The pie looked as pathetic as I felt and I picked it up along with the ten-dollar bill.

As I put the money in the register, I felt another teardrop stream down my cheek.

Get it together, Allison.

I didn’t expect seeing him to be so hard. If this had been a week ago, his coming to the diner would have been the highlight of my life. He had clearly come in to see me today. The fact that he barely touched the pie proved that…but why? Why did he come here? Does he feel sorry for me?

After I found out that all of my romantic delusions about him were false, I had to conclude that he must just see me as a charity case. Didn’t the tip the first time around confirm that? Even though I had 184/727

resigned myself to this fact, it still hurt more than I thought it would to see him again, knowing that I can’t have him.

If it was possible, he looked better than ever. His hair looked a bit longer on the sides, curling around his ears and it was parted slightly differently framing his beautiful face.

And I had never seen him dressed down before. He wore dark blue jeans and a hooded maroon sweatshirt that hugged his muscular frame. He looked younger and so goddamn sexy when he stood before me with his hands in his pockets, seeming almost…

nervous.

But why?

When he first came in and started to approach me, I froze, feeling faint and had to hold on to the side of the counter just to grab my bearings. I could barely get the words out when he asked me a question, staring into me again with those penetrating crystal blue 185/727

eyes. The heat of him standing so close to me, that damn intoxicating scent of his again and knowing now that he was off limits, was too painful to take.

And to think if I hadn’t opened the paper that day, I would still be wasting my time thinking that he could want someone like me.

*** It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. My friend Danny and I planned to meet at Starbucks in Copley Square for coffee after my diner shift, since I didn’t work with Lucas on that day. It was so nice to catch up with Danny who wanted to fill me in on his new boyfriend Paolo.

“Danny!” I shouted and I saw him waiting in line, rushing to join him amongst the crowd of people waiting for their drinks to be called out.

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He knew me so well. “I already ordered you your caramel macchiato,” he shouted through the sounds of foaming milk as he stood in the barista receiving area.

We took our drinks over to the velvet purple couch in the corner. We were lucky to get that coveted seat. Everyone knows the Starbucks couch is always inevitably taken by one person unnecessarily taking up all of the space with multiple newspapers, when two people are forced to take the small table with the hard uncomfortable seats.

“So, tell me about Paolo!” I crossed my legs and took a sip of the foamy drink as I anticipated his story. It tasted so good.

“He is awesome. Did I tell you he is a performer?” Danny was beaming.

“No…what kind of performer?” I laughed and slapped Danny playfully on the shoulder.

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Danny gave me an impish grin. “Well, let’s just say, by day he goes by Paolo…by night he is Paula.”

“He is a cross-dresser?”

“No, no, no…a drag queen. Big difference. He chooses to dress as a man in real-life, but performs as a woman…for other men. Believe me, he is all man,” Danny said winking.

I laughed. “Oh boy, I bet. That is too cool, though. Can we go see him…um… her on stage?

“Sure. We can take your billionaire blue-eyed boyfriend. You can finally test his sexuality once and for all,” he said jokingly.

“Very funny.” I pushed Danny’s shoulder in jest again.

I had filled him in on my Cedric crush last week over the phone, getting his thoughts on whether I should send Cedric another email under the vise of updating him on the new job.

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After fifteen minutes of gushing on the couch about our respective men, Danny had to run to get back his hairdressing job.