Unexpected Loot

Epilogue

Vancouver can in no way be considered a large metropolis, but it's not a small town either. The population barely breaches half a million unless the surrounding suburban cities are included, as they often are when anyone travels. It's far easier to say one is from Vancouver as opposed to Langley where Sean had spent the better part of his life living on the fringes of suburbia on a small hobby farm.

His parents home couldn't quite be considered rural living because he could still walk twenty minutes to the nearest McDonald's with his brother and sister, but it was still a quiet pocket of boring for any teenager to grow up in. It's probably why Sean moved to the 'big city' the moment he could, even if he had shared a small 2 bedroom apartment on the West End with three other guys. Most nights he'd slept on the pullout in the living room until he moved to his cramped dorm room on campus at the beginning of the semester.

Sitting at a corner table nestled next to the large window overlooking a busy downtown street, Sean idly swirled his tea bag in the white ceramic mug in front of him. The tea leaves were overstepped and burnt from the obscene temperature the coffee shop served their water, but what did he care when he couldn't tear his attention away from the door. Every time the little bell jingled merrily, he slunk lower in his seat. The trip out from campus hadn't been all that difficult. Most students were heading back to school after the weekend, not leaving.

If Sean had any doubts on whether Noodles would show, they dissipated the moment a six-foot-something giant in the promised neon orange tank top walked through the door of the coffee shop and glanced around in search of someone in particular. His hair was swept up but buzzed on the sides, and for someone so tall, he wasn't notably bulky. Still, he had more musculature in his left arm than Sean did his entire body. Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but the last time Sean had stepped inside a gym had been when he still lived with Jay and Edi. Jay had liked the company, and Edi was never awake to go with him, which meant Jay had dragged Sean down and put him through his paces three times a week before his morning classes. It had been torture.

When the stranger's attention lingered on Sean's brown leather motorcycle jacket, Sean dropped the string of the tea bag and sat up, leather squeaking against the back of the uncomfortable wooden chair.

The jacket had been a present from his brother when he graduated high school four years ago. The leather was soft and worn from use and a little abuse. It'd come in handy the one time he got into a fight his second year of university and landed on broken glass after a sucker punch to the face when he'd tried to help Edi pull an overly intoxicated Jay away from a frat dudebro that hadn't liked that Edi and Jason were holding hands on campus. As liberal as Vancouver was, there were still assholes that couldn't see past their own carefully marked boundaries of social acceptability, and most often, in Sean's experience, it was the 'Chad's' of the world.

The man Sean could only assume was Noodles quickly approached, clumsily dodging tables and other customers. He walked like he wanted to appear smaller and less intimidating, but there was no getting around it. Noodles was all limbs, and his mouth hung open. Just a little, but it was enough that Sean's cheeks warmed slightly at the attention and wished he'd suggested meeting up on Davie rather than in the middle of the populous shopping district.

Noodles swallowed. "Kal?"

"It's Sean, actually," Sean said. "Sean Montes."

Noodles continued to stare, mouth still somewhat agape. Sean glanced down at his outfit and tugged his motorcycle jacket a little tighter around his torso. When most people heard straight-A student, Sean wasn't usually what came to mind. Whatever Noodles had expected, it probably wasn't a 5'5'' Japanese-Brazilian undergrad with a Batman industrial piercing.

The silence was palpable. Sean cleared his throat and stood up in greeting, but immediately regretted it because Noodles towered over him. "Can I assume your given name is not actually Noodles," he finally said.