The Café Vanellas

3: on crushes

// Toriv

I've been talking a lot about myself over the course of this writing project, which I guess makes sense since the idea was to write about my life. I've already admitted to being vain, so you must already have some idea of what you're in for.

I think everyone at the café is surprised that I've kept this up for as long as I have. I've got, like, actual chapters worth of words in this thing. And I used to have trouble meeting the word count in high school essays. Which just goes to show, when you're enjoying what you're doing, then it just gets that much easier.

Not that it's been easy the whole way. I'm not really someone who reads or writes, to be completely honest with you. And even just sitting and writing like this, it takes practice. The other day I was trying to write over lunch and just couldn't. It's like I had completely forgotten how to make sentences. I guess that's what they call writer's block.

I can't really think of myself as a writer, though. I'm really just a guy with a tablet and a Bluetooth keyboard who likes to hear himself talk. Or read himself talk, as the case may be.

Anyway, I was trying to write today when Loriev came up while he was sweeping the floors.

"So," he said.

"So," I said.

"You gave that professor a free drink?"

So it begins. "Uh, yeah? I know I'm not supposed to, but whatever. My shop, my rules, etcetera, etcetera."

Loriev frowned in one corner of his mouth as he swept. He hates it when I say "etcetera" out loud, which is half the reason why I do it. Nerd.

I thought Loriev was going to lay into me about the freebie -- he helps out with the finances because I both hate and am terrible at math, so he knows how the accounts are going -- but instead he just went on quietly sweeping. Which is how I knew he actually wanted to say something really badly, but wasn't saying it because his morals work in strange and mysterious ways.

Fortunately, "inhibition" isn't a word I consider a part of my vocabulary. "What's up, Lor? Are you mad at me?"

He shook his head as he crouched to sweep under the table I was sitting at. I lifted my feet to help him out, then nudged him in the shoulder as he stood. "Then what?"

"Nothing," Loriev said, as if I'd believe that.

"As if I'd believe that. Tell me your thoughts."

"Never mind."

"Lor. Come on."

He just kept on sweeping for a little while, pausing to push the fruits of his labours out the door into the street, then he turned and sighed. Victory.

"I was just wondering," he said in finally. "Why you did it."

"It? Oh, you mean the drink. Because I like to make the customers happy. He seemed happy, right?"

"He did," Loriev agreed, but in a way that made the two words sound capitalized.

We stared at each other for a second or two, then I said, "You think I was hitting on him?"

All he did was raise his eyebrows at me, but I felt it like he'd said the words aloud. I have to say, I was a little bit shocked. Just a bit, though. What can I say, I know myself pretty well, and so does Lor.

Still, I said, "Bro. He's so not my type. And he's, like, forty."

Loriev said, "You're not that far off from forty either."