delicate. / timothée chalamet au

three.

i walk down the steps after the meeting. i look over to my left and spot tim leaning against the wall of the building smoking a cigarette. he acknowledges me with a simple lift of his eyebrows.
i cautiously walk towards him.
"smoke?" he asks reaching into his pocket for his pack.
"yeah. thanks tim." i make sure to emphasize his correct name.
"oh my god don't stress." he says handing me a cigarette.
he reaches into his other pocket for his lighter.
"so... that damien huh?" he saying flicking open the lighter and lighting up my cig.
"he always such a hardass?" he says only half joking.
"hah yeah. that's just who he is. he means well obviously." i say inhaling, the smoke filling up my lungs.
"yeah, well my last sponsor was the exact opposite, so that's why i'm trying this place out instead." he says exhaling a puff of smoke.
"yeah, i was gonna say, i've never seen you here before?"
"convenient timing for my first meeting don't you think?"
he's l squinting down at me, the sunlight going directly in his eyes making them noticeably more of a vibrant green with specks of hazel in them.
"really? what do you mean?" i say sarcastically while tapping the burnt paper off my cig.
tim grins down at me.
i then notice how much taller he is than me. he must be more than 6ft.
hmm... everyone did say i was a sucker for skinny tall green eyed boys.

uh-oh.

"so what brings you here?" tim asks.

"probation." i say rolling my eyes.

he lifts his head up, finally looking me in the eyes and at something that isn't the floor. he looks taken aback. "did you say probation?" he asks coughing a bit on his last inhale.
"um, yeah. and i guess also my family. they're um... they've gotten pretty tight with damien so."
"uh. okay and might i ask what you're on probation for?" tim asks completely dismissing what i said about my family.
"robbing a bank." i say nonchalantly taking a drag of my cigarette and pushing the strands of hair away from my face. "or i should say trying to rob a bank."
tim stares at me for a while and goes silent, a confused look on his face. he then suddenly starts to laugh. "what's so funny?" tim starts laughing harder, clutching his stomach. when he finally stops, he looks down at me and says, "i just actually believed you for a few seconds."
i look up at him and smile.

"what you don't believe a girl like me could rob a bank?"
"no offense but, no i don't."
"well, i've always loved proving people wrong so..." i dig into my jean pocket for my phone and show him an article of my robbery story. "yeah this was on the front page of my hometown local paper. my mom loved that."
he reads it and looks down at me in disbelief.  "ok- wow. um i apologize? didn't realize i was in the presence of such a badass."
"oh my god don't stress." i decide to mimic him. he laughs down at me. "funny one you are. nice mugshot by the way."
"aw why thank you tim." i say bowing my head.

after a few moments of silence, and when both of our previous smiles had died down, i conjured up the courage to straight up ask him, "so how exactly did we meet last night?"
"at a bar like 15-20 minutes from here." he replies totally casual.
i start to try and think of bars close to here. i lift my head up in realization, "oh my god, joe's."
"hm?" he looks down at me confused.  "we were at the bar names 'joe's'... and i accidently spilt my drink on you... and then we started joking about how life couldn't get any worse for both of us." everything slowly starts coming back to me.
"oh right... and something about your lucky bra?" tim recalls.

oh shit.

wait... i don't even have a bra on right now.
"i think i lef-"
just then damien walks by us.
he does a double take and then stops right in his tracks and quickly approaches us. "well hello there rose." he says fake enthusiastically.  "damien, so long no see." i reply with the same tone.
"look, sorry to have grilled you two in there but i am glad that you met." he reaches out and touches tims arm. "tim, since you're new here it's always nice to have a friendly face in the room that isn't mine."  tim looks down at where damiens hand is on his arm. i quickly get the sense that he doesn't like to be touched, as does damien who quickly removes his hand from his arm.
after a brief moment of silence, "i have got a brilliant idea!" damien exclaims. i think tim and i simultaneously roll our eyes together. "you two should exchange numbers! this way you'll both have someone to come to meetings with."

oh damien, honey that's not how it works in the real world.

tim and i glance at one another. tim shrugs his shoulders at me and reaches into his jean pocket and pulls out his phone, then hands it to me. "what the heck, why not?" he says smirking at me. i take his phone from his hand, our fingers lightly brushing each other's. we both share a quick look before i stare down into his phone and put my number into it. i send myself a quick message so i also have his.
"there you go." i say placing his phone back into the palm of his hand. our fingers brush against each other again, and this time his smirk at me might mean something different than it did before.

damien looks back and forth from both of us smiling so wide i imagine it hurt him. "you know, i tend to be right about these things... so i'm going to get going and let you two kids get back to whatever it is you do. bye bye now!" and with that damien quickly scurries off leaving an awkward tension behind him.
"is he usually right about these things?" tim asks seemingly intrigued. "you see that i don't know, as he's never mentioned it before until now." i say chuckling a bit. "ah, so this must be doomed then." he says pointing back from me to him.  "hm, i guess so." stepping on my cigarette i just threw on the floor. after a few moments of silence tim looks over to me and says,
"i better get going, those video games aren't going to play themselves." he starts pushing himself off the wall he's been leaning on.
"i feel, those three bags of doritos i just bought aren't going to eat themselves." i say in total seriousness.
as we both turn to head back to our apartments tim simply says to me, "i guess i'll be seeing you, rose."
"i guess, looks like i don't have a choice now, tim."
he quietly laughs and rolls his eyes at me and says a simple, "bye." i smile back and say a simple, "bye." as well.
we both turn away from each other and start on our way back to our apartments. as i was walking home, i then realized i never asked for my lucky bra back.
~~
hi yes, i am clearly not a writer but please just bear with me.