Prompted Fiction

# 5 - Sinister Meet Cute (Week 2 No. 1)

The man bumped into me when I was placing my order for a small cup of hot chocolate. I was at the coffee shop on Brook Street, the one with the butcherblock counters and the classical music. Of course, two weeks before Christmas, it wasn't their usual Brahms-and-Beethoven mix; it was Mendelssohn and Handel and five hundred years' worth of works by that most prolific of composers, Anonymous. In fact, some macaronic carol from the 1600s was playing at the exact moment when, having set my gloves and scarf on the counter and smiled at the barista, I got bowled over.

The feeling was something like being hit by a human freight train, admittedly a handsome one. In fact, the man who offered me a gloved hand up was almost tailor-made to be my 'type'. He was a little taller than me - but not too tall - with unruly dark hair and very big, very blue eyes sparkling behind heavily-rimmed glasses. He was wearing jeans, Sorel boots, and a dark gray, wool pea jacket. Add a smile and a tassled, red and blue scarf, and just looking at him practically made me swoon. The only sour note was the very faint, slightly unpleasant smell that seemed to hang around him, a weird scent, something like eggs and gunpowder. Still, he was smiling at me, and helping me up, and that sort of thing never happens to me.

See, here's the thing; guys just aren't attracted to me. I mean, don't get me wrong, guys like me (I have some great male friends) but not in the way I want to be liked. I guess I'm not pretty enough, or not welcoming enough, or just too weird for them. Whatever the cause, I'm a total romantic failure, and I know it. So to have a guy, a handsome guy, actually paying attention to me?! That's like a miracle, even if the poor man kept wincing at the children's choir singing in the background.

He seemed happier as the music changed to something purely instrumental, Prokofiev, I think, and as I made it back on my feet. There was a wet spot on my rear end from when I hit the slushy floor, and he tsked over it, making me blush.

Then he turned to the barista and said, "Get this lady the largest possible mug of your richest, darkest, sweetest hot chocolate, and top it up with double whipped cream." He looked me up and down, and corrected, "double coconut whipped cream." He turned to me and said, "Trust me, you'll love it, Chelsea."

"How do you know my name?" I asked, a tremor in my voice.

"Oh, I've been watching you for a while, Chelsea Delmonico," he smiled.

Normally, oh, normally I'd have thought 'creepy stalker' at this point and made tracks, but there was something compelling about him. Plus, it was almost like a 'meet-cute' in a movie. Maybe this stuff did happen in real life!

He ordered an extra large dark roast, black. Then we made our way to a little table for two pushed up against the window, hanging our heavy coats on the backs of our chairs. I could feel the chill on my left arm though the glass, but I always prefer to sit near the window. From here I could see the shoppers on Brook Street, Christmas shopping held high to keep it out of the slush on the sidewalk and the piles of snow in the gutter.

"So, um, thanks for the drink," I said, holding up the hot chocolate.

"Hey, I'm the one who knocked you over, it's only fair, Chelsea."

"About that," I frowned, "You know my name, but I don't know yours."

The man smiled broadly, revealing pointed canines.

"Nick," he said, "Nick DeVille."

You see? The boy even had a romantic-sounding name!

"Pleased to meet you," I said, and, to my own surprised, giggled.

"That's good, because, I can assure you that I'm very pleased to meet you, Chelsea." He set down his coffee and steepled his fingers. "Very, very pleased. I have a business proposition for you."