I let out a breath of relief when I walked into the coffee shop and saw that it was completely empty. My life turned into a movie overnight, from newfound love interests to the possibility of going to actual prison--I miss when my biggest issue was what color bow I wanted to put in my hair. I hadn't caught a break since I was like, 9. The series of unfortunate events in my life shouldn't even surprise me at this point.
I was grateful to Orien for immediately catching my vibe. He simply made my drink and slid it over to me on the counter without a word. I pulled out a $5 from the loose cash in my tote bag and put it in his tip jar.
Only three people out of the 8 total were here already, not including Nas. It was still before 2:30, but usually more people are here by now. I found my usual spot and plopped down, doing my normal routine of hanging my bag off of the back of the chair and setting my latte on the ground by my feet.
I looked down at my twiddling thumbs as the remaining stragglers rolled in, including Nas who came in from a different door from everyone.
He gave me a wink as he walked in and sat down in the empty chair next to me. I fought the smile that crept on my face which he found amusing, showing me his white teeth. So much said with no words.
"Good afternoon, beautiful people," Quin begain, "The topic of today is trust. You all have made good progress in finding yourselves after your traumas, but it won't be worth a thing unless you trust yourself to stay disciplined, right? We have to understand that grief and those bad memories can hit us at random times. But trusting ourselves not to stay in that sadness is what is going to propel us forward. But for some of you, it may not be about trusting yourself, it's about trusting other people. Some of you sitting here right now have gone through things that make you never want to trust anyone ever again. But the world is not full of the people that hurt you, okay? There is someone out there that can treat you as gently as you deserve to be treated. But you won't ever get there if you don't take that leap of faith. If you don't let your guard down the slightest bit."
"One thing people overlook is that trust can be built very simply. As humans, we naturally have a level of trust toward one another, and I want to build on that today. Our exercise today is gonna be this: I want you to get with your partners and discuss 1 thing that you've never told anyone. It doesn't have to be deep or dark, just something interesting about yourself that might be cool or interesting. If you're comfortable enough at the end, I'll have you share with the rest of the group. Go ahead and start."
I turned my chair to face Nas, who was already facing me. I sat back down, crossed my legs, and fixed my skirt, making sure all my parts were covered. When I looked back up at him, his eyes weren't on mine.
"Why do you always do that?"
"Do what?" he asked, finally looking at my face.
"Every time you see me, you look up and down my body like you tryna find something."
"You always look good, that's all," he threw his hands up.
"Oh, we feeling bold today?" I teased him.
"I always been bold, I just don't know what you comfortable with yet. I don't want to overstep."
"Anything you wanna know about me, you can ask. Don't mean imma tell you, but you can always ask," I cheesed.
"I planned to talk about that over our date but you ain't said yes or no yet."
"Well, did you talk to Santana?"
His silence told me that he didn't. No matter what Charlie or anybody else said, I wasn't going on date with a man in a relationship. I wouldn't want someone doing it to me so I wouldn't do it to someone else.
