Beverage Guy

Hi everyone, I'm Merigold. 

This is the first of my writings I'm posting here. It's actually an excerpt from the middle of The One Who Got Away, a multi-chapter story I will be posting as well. But this one here can also be read as a standalone – or as a teaser.

xoxo

Beverage Guy

Kay had specifically planned on not being nervous. 

Well, here she was: a nervous mess. Introducing a new boyfriend to family was nerve-wracking in itself, but adding a disability into the mix took it to a whole new level.

"Is that her?" Seth pointed his chin towards the other end of the plaza. Kay followed his gaze and nodded. Her older sister was approaching the café in her usual brisk stride, high heels clacking. She was in business woman mode.

The knot in Kay's stomach tightened, and she wrapped her hands around Seth's slim upper arm, momentarily burying her face in his shoulder with a groan.

A kiss brushed the top of her head. "It's gonna be fine."

She looked up, meeting those dark deep eyes that always managed to calm her down. Those eyes that never failed. And just like that, her nervousness dissipated, transforming into something else: A sense of We. This was her man. Whoever had a problem with her relationship could go fuck themselves. Stella included. She craned her neck and placed a kiss on Seth's lips. "I love you", she whispered, then turned around to see her sister now just a few strides away from their table and seeking her gaze. 

Kay stood up. "Hey you." Please don't fuck this up Sis. Please please please. 

Kay could only hope that her sister would keep in mind what they had talked about on the phone.

"Is there anything I should know about… you know, dealing with him?" Stella had asked, and Kay had told her the one and only thing there was to know: "He's a regular person, Stel. Please don't treat him any differently."

"Hi Sis," Stella now offered a quick hug, then her eyes darted from Kay to Seth. They didn't linger any longer on him than a second. "Hi", she nervously gripped the strap of her handbag. "I'm Stella." 

"Hey Stella. I'm Seth." As always with people who were being weird around him, he didn't bat an eye at her apparent discomfort. Instead, he gave her a genuine smile.

Stella stiffly shifted on her feet, and it was clear that she was feeling awkward about the impossibility of a handshake.  

"We haven't ordered yet", Kay said to fill the silence, shoving the menu card across the table.

"Never been here before", Stella gladly went along with the small talk as she sat down. "Cute place." She picked up the menu card, studying it with just a little too much interest, apparently relieved to have something to focus on. "Oh, they have a nice tea selection", she murmured approvingly. 

"The Genmaicha is really good", Seth remarked. "If you're into green tea."

Stella looked up distractedly. Or more like startled. As if the fact that he was taking part in the conversation surprised her. "I love that one", she responded with an uneasy smile, and Kay could see she was doing that thing many people did when talking to Seth: Keeping her gaze unnaturally fixated on his face, as if the rest of him was forbidden to look at.

Kay rolled her eyes to herself. This was something she herself had never done when she had first seen him post-injury. Quite the opposite actually, she hadn’t been able to stop staring. Granted, she and Seth hadn’t been strangers at that point. Far from that.

TOWGA – Table of Contents

The One Who Got Away

Chapter 1: Deja Vu

Chapter 2: Six Years Earlier  /  The Moment

Chapter 3: Six Years Earlier  /  The P Word  /  Waving Hand Emoji 

Chapter 4: Disability Etiquette   /   Six Years Earlier

Chapter 5: Cold Grip  /  Hot Potato  /  Five Years Earlier

Chapter 6: Exuses  /  Balancing

Chapter 7: The Body You Desire  /   Blocked   /   Four Years Earlier

Chapter 8: Any Random Idiot  /   Not A Pool Party 

Chapter 9: Yeti Bastard 

Chapter 10:  Something In Between  /  Not Today

Chapter 11:  Quad Architect  /  Forever 

Chapter 12:  No Such Manual  /  Girlfriend

Chapter 13:  Spurred

Chapter 14:  No Clue

Chapter 15:  Here  /  Cuddling Logistics

Chapter 16 PT 1: Radical Concepts  

Chapter 16 PT 2+3:  Not A Footnote  /  The Elephant 

Chapter 17:  Beverage Guy

Chapter 18:  The Look  /  Serious Tilt

Chapter 19:   The Angle

The One Who Got Away

Chapter 1:   Déjà Vu 

Twenty minutes too early. Of course. Not that Kay did it intentionally. It was simply that she always ended up early wherever she went. Others took it for a commendable quality; they assumed she was this reliable, highly disciplined person who would never make anyone wait.

In truth, it was just poor time management. For some people, that meant being notoriously late. With her, it was the opposite – being notoriously early. If you combined a poor sense of time with an ever looming panic to be late, that's what you got. 

Kay steered the car into Mulberry Lane. She knew this neighborhood, because she sometimes drove through here on the way to the firm when traffic was bad. Slowing down, she scanned the houses and soon spotted the property in question. The driveway was already blocked by two cars, one of them a huge black van, and she ended up parking a few paces further down against the sidewalk. 

She looked at her watch. Fifteen minutes. Kay sank deeper into her car seat and took out her iPad to check her email. She pulled up the one with the assignment details. Though one couldn't actually call that two-sentence message ‘detailed’.

"Assessment for remodeling after botched previous remodeling job", her boss had written. The clunky wording was typical for him; he was good at designing things, not at describing them.

This type of assignment was abundantly familiar to Kay. During the few months she had been working for Stettler & Ilk, half of her clients had been people who were unhappy with previous works done by other firms. It wasn’t exactly the kind of work that most architects associated with the highest prestige, but Kay liked it. She was fascinated with problem solving – the more complex the problem and the more intricate the solution, the better. It was one of the aspects that had initially drawn her to architecture and later to specializing in Design-build. As a general species, architects tended to be very theoretical in the way they approached projects. That wasn't Kay. She liked the practical, tangible side of her craft. 

Ten minutes. She adjusted the rearview mirror to check her hair and make-up, tucking a couple of dark blond strands back into her ponytail and re-applying some sheer pink lipstick. 

Five minutes. Kay looked at the two-story house in front of her again. Whatever kind of remodeling had been done here before had to be on the inside. There didn't seem to be any kind of annex, and the facade didn't look like it had been renovated recently. The only thing that looked newer than the rest of the house was the long teak ramp bypassing the three front steps. Maybe the remodeling had to do with accommodations for a physically disabled person.

The energetic woman greeting her at the door sure didn't appear to be disabled. She was maybe in her early sixties and looked perfectly healthy. Her handshake was firm.

"I'm Kay Martens from Stettler & Ilk.", Kay said, and the woman gave her a warm smile. "Cora Bell. Come on in."

"That's a beautiful home you have here", Kay remarked, stepping inside. "1920s?"

"That's exactly right", the other woman beamed approvingly, and Kay's gaze lingered on her face for a second, finding something oddly familiar about it. Even though she was positive she had never met the woman in her life. There was something about those features… Déjà vu, maybe? She cleared her throat. "Mr. Stettler mentioned you've had some work done to the house and now are not happy with the outcome?"

Cora Bell weighed her head. "Well, not exactly. The remodeling downstairs has turned out fine. The problem is the second floor.” She gestured towards the staircase. "Why don't I just show you."

Kay followed her up the stairs, while Mrs. Bell kept talking: "We had to move our study – or library, whatever you want to call it, up here, plus the contents of a whole hallway closet. And the space is just not… adequate."

She led Kay through one of the doors, and they stepped into, well, whatever it was supposed to be. Kay nodded. "I can see what you mean", she murmured, looking at the relatively small space filled up with bookshelves, an antique writing desk, an armchair and a huge cupboard – among other things.

"This used to be our elder son's room", Mrs. Bell explained, clasping her hands. "After he moved out, we kept it as a guest room for him." Her voice was sort of melancholy now. Had the son died? Or cut ties with his parents? In any case, this was apparently no longer a guest room.