“They’re beautiful,” I say, watching him closely—for what, I’m not sure. There’s a hint of something I can’t pin.
He tries for a smile but it just looks tired. And he doesn’t even look at the drawings. “Thanks.” There’s a pause, and then, “Did you want to order something?”
“Yeah, I—wait.” His thanks echoes inside my head. “Are they yours?” I ask. “Did you draw those?”
“Yeah.” His eyebrows crash together for a second like he’s surprised at his own answer. “Long time ago.” We’re quiet a moment, and then he recovers, focusing on me. “So can I get you something to drink? You look like you have some work to do.” He nods at Julianna’s journal, which I realize is clutched tight to my chest.
“This? No, it’s not work, it’s—” I stop myself and take a deep breath, but a host of questions and suspicions are whirling in my head, fighting to come out of mouth. “Yeah, I’ll take a . . .um . . .”
“You want a chai, like normal?”
“Yes. Please.” I force my mouth shut and try to look at the ground, collect myself. But as soon as he turns to grab a mug, my eyes creep back up to the girl on the wall.
“Who is she?” I blurt out. A lot less tactfully than I’d like to.
He turns with the pitcher of tea in his hand and looks at me like he either doesn’t know what I mean or doesn’t want to answer.
“The girl in the drawing,” I stammer. “Did you know her?”
“I did.” He says it in a way that makes it clear he isn’t going to elaborate. And then he glances at the sketch, just barely, before going back to making my drink, and I see it. A flicker of something. “Such a tiny thing, a glance,” Julianna wrote. And his glance says something.
Before I can form a response, the door opens, letting in a whoosh of cool air, and Trevor Collins steps in, shaking the rain from his hair. A smile breaks across his face when he sees me. “Hey, Frost. I thought that was your car outside.”
“Hi,” I manage. My mind is spinning a million miles a second with what I think I just saw. With what really has been right here in front of me this whole time. I’m so close to something, I know it. The last thing I need is to complicate it with Trevor Collins, cute as he looks with his hair all damp, and his eyes a vibrant blue against the gray outside. What I need is to keep talking to Josh. Ask him some more questions to be sure.
Trevor looks around at the empty café. “You alone? Where’s your partner in crime?”
“I don’t know,” I say curtly. “Either sick or ditching. She wasn’t at school today.” I turn my back to him and dig out a few dollars to pay, hoping he’s not planning on staying.
“Oh,” he says from behind me. “I was gonna head up to the mountain for a few runs, but it’s all gonna be slush now.” There’s a pause. “You want some company?”
The question zings straight to my stomach, makes my cheeks flame up. There’s no joking or pretense to it. I can hear the smile in his voice when he asks, picture it without turning around, and any other day—well, lately at least, I might’ve actually said okay. But it feels like I’m right on the edge of discovering something that would change everything, and I need to get back there.
I turn around. “Not today.” His smile takes a tumble, and the zing I felt turns into a stab of regret. I soften my tone a little. “I’m sorry—I just have a lot of work to do—my speech. Maybe another time?”
“Here you go,” Josh says before Trevor can answer.
I turn back to the counter and hand him my three dollars, trying to figure out how I can pick our sort-of conversation back up after Trevor leaves. But when Josh reaches out to take my money, all the thoughts in my head grind to a screeching halt. I only catch a glimpse of it when I put the money in his palm, but it’s enough to recognize it. On his forearm, buried in a maze of other tattoos, is a tiny triple spiral.
I gasp. Audibly.
“You okay?” he asks. Josh, Orion, I don’t know what to call him right now.
I nod wordlessly and he slides my cup across the counter to me. When I grab it and turn around, I almost run into Trevor. “Some other time then,” he mumbles. He looks through me, at Josh. “I’ll take a hot chocolate. To go.”
I wish I could explain that I’m not blowing him off, because I can see on his face that’s what he thinks is going on, and I feel awful about it, especially since this time he seemed sincere. Sincerely interested, even. But at the moment, the only thing my brain can do is try to reconcile the fact that Josh is Orion. Or Orion is Josh.
“See you tomorrow?” I ask, a cheery octave higher than normal.
“Sure,” Trevor says, measurably aloof now. I don’t blame him, but I don’t try to stop him either. He turns without saying anything else, and I do too, and we go our separate ways. With my hands shaking I head to the table in the far corner, where I can pretend to bury myself in work while sorting out the fact that the Orion Julianna wrote about is standing right here in this café, with a different name, and seems to be a whole different person than when she knew him.
I open up her journal to where I left off and get a pen out of my purse like I’m going to write something down. Trevor pays for his hot chocolate and glances over at me one more time just before he pushes out the door. I smile briefly and drop my eyes to the page in front of me, but I don’t read the words. I hardly even breathe. Trevor walks out the door and Josh busies himself with unloading the box of coffee bags, and I take a good long look at him from the safety of my corner.