cinnamon girl

(abortion; tw) (pregnancy; tw)

A certain warmth entered Ziggy’s eyes as he watched her, though it wasn’t clear whether it was amusement or fondness or something else entirely, always prone to leaving people guessing over the years. He did have a habit of finding most things funny, though. They dropped to a collarbone, sliding down without shame or remorse before flicking back to find her face. He seemed to know what she was doing just as much as she did. “Nah,” he began with a casual shrug, wetting his lips as his eyes darted off around the room, hovering on various faces with the patience of a wasp at a picnic. “Tried that kinda shit, man, wasn’t fuckin’, like, roarin’ my jets ‘n’ everythin’ – was a’ight, but, y’know – think I’m more of a giver.” By no means had she asked. It wasn’t clear whether Ziggy had accidentally taken her statement the wrong way due to insufficient braincells or if he was simply shooting the shit. Regardless, his eyebrows subtly perked, already moving on with the same seamless confidence. “Yo, y’mean it? Damn. Fuckin’, like – touched ‘n’ shit. Dead nice. Can coach me now, if y’want. Got an hour free.” Never-mind the fact he was starting his trial shift at Cutie-Pie’s afterwards, put through training by his ex-girlfriend. Ziggy never seemed to consider rational logic when making decisions that impacted work – or his life in general, come to think about it. His eyes had started roaming again, though they came to rest on her lips with the last part, knee consistent in a restless bounce beneath the table. “Could prolly coach you in some shit, too.”

A whole jumble of responses flooded her mind--some snarky (”A giver? You look like you’ve never gone down on a woman in your life”) and most with intent to entice him into trying again (with her, of course), but after a pause too long dwelling on “roaring my jets” and the mental image that came with the context she just opted for an amused nod. It fit her ‘you haven’t tried it until you tried it with me’ angle perfectly, someone agreeing for the ease of it but with the private satisfaction of the truth on their side. Her smile was one of someone in on a secret that you couldn’t help but be curious about, too knowing and too smug on the lips of the wrong person. Her head, still resting on top of her hand while pale manicured nails drummed against her jaw, cocked to one side as she appraised him. “You underestimate me, Ziggy”--she wished she had another nickname to call him, but she couldn’t remember his full name to come up with something different--“Don’t you remember the rumors when I moved here? D’love to know what you think I could use coaching in.” 

a shard of the vessel formerly known as a mason jar landed mere millimeters away from the toe of daehyun’s combat boot, startling him out of his half-asleep daze. he blinks down at it and then up at its murderer owner, preparing feigned sympathies and maybe even a selfless offer to buy her another. however the words die on his lips as she throws her tantrum and lead to even more perplexed blinking on dae’s end. he knew jenny, vaguely; they’d crossed paths enough times in college when dae was still the bright eyed fresh transfer student. time has passed since then and dae isn’t any surer what to make of the blonde bombshell before him. they were on opposite ends of some kind of spectrum, of that he was certain. “literally the worst? can’t think of a single thing that tops a broken jar and some spilt coffee?” he raises a brow with a tilt of his head. “i’d consider your life blessed, then.”

Jenny recognizes Dae, albeit vaguely--a transfer student to her college, though she’d be hard pressed to tell you more. Did they have classes together? Did he live in the same building? In his defense, most of college was a blur to the fast-living blonde; those four years were filled with way too much Jungle Juice. And Smirnoff Ices. And Fireball. God, Fireball. She can’t go near the stuff without war flashbacks of filthy fraternity bathrooms and tacky peplum tops and texts that should’ve never been sent and beds she should’ve never woken up in. “Oh, very blessed,” she agrees cheekily, a too-wide smile on her lips as she reaches down to pick up the larger pieces of glass, but an employee quickly rushes over and shoos her hand away despite her meager protest. “Fine by me,” she mumbles to Dae, plucking a few napkins from the dispenser to wipe the stray droplets off her leg. “Are you good? Did you get stuck in the splashzone?” 

the weekend had dawned harshly, the sun too bright, the air erring just on the side of too humid, and yet emmett found himself drifting away from his air conditioned home in the direction of more sophisticated caffeine than he was capable of producing from scratch. he could cook well enough but there was something superior about kahlo’s coffee. unless he was just imagining the difference – it was also entirely possible that emmett only liked it better because he didn’t have to go through the drudgery of making it. he sat with a mug of it in kahlo’s now, at peace, going over a digital stack of paperwork with a fine-toothed comb, oblivious to his surroundings – until a mason jar landed by his feet with a crash, speckling one of his black leather shoes with coffee droplets. “christ.” he assessed the damage – nothing to worry about – before he noticed the cause of it. “jen?”

She couldn’t have planned it better if she tried, though it wasn’t a ploy to snag his attention. Truthfully she hadn’t even seen him come in and she’d been desperate for a distraction, but would he believe that? Pushing a full glass off a table like a restless house cat rang a little too true--anyone who’d met her, even just once, could attest. “Emmett,” she greets warmly, his name unmistakably comfortable in her mouth. Seeing him out of context is disarming, though she looks and sounds as relaxed as if she were expecting him, entirely at ease in a way that could only be contrived. Any surprise is easily covered with the playfully sultry mask she wears so well. "So you do go out in the daylight. I was starting to think you were a vampire or something.” 

kahlo’s.  an  interesting  place  to  say  the  least  —–  colette’s  been  many  places  in  their  lifetime,  but  places  in  irving  seem  to  top  every  list  they’ve  mentally  made.  they  don’t  drink  coffee,  but  they  have  other  stuff,  and  they  happen  to  like  actually  being  with  other  people  (  usually  in  silence,  preferably.  people  watching  doesn’t  need  a  soundtrack  of  greatest  hits  )  .  the  sound  of  the  mason  jar  hitting  the  floor  has  their  attention  now,  eyebrows  furrowing  slightly,  trying  to  find  the  culprit.  “for  real?”  words  are  light  -  not  tense,  not  judgmental  like  usual.  they’re  in  an  exceptionally  good  mood  for  one  reason  or  another.  “can’t  be  that  bad.  it’s’a  jar.”

Her eyes snap up at the same moment her laptop snaps closed, a knee-jerk, if not slightly delayed, reaction to the nearby spill--if nothing else, protect the expensive work computer! “I obviously don’t care about a dollar store mason jar,” she replies coolly, digging napkins out of the dispenser and letting them flutter to the ground, just barely making a dent in soaking up the spill but someone was already on their way over, mop in tow. She scoots her chair aside and offers an impish apology to the employee. “If anything, it was the coffee.” She’s addressing Colette now, tucking her knees to her chest to get her feet out of the way. “But more than that it was the principle. It’s a shit day, everything keeps going wrong. This was the icing on the cake.”

“literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to you so far.” time has left harlan void of context; he’s got a coffee in his hands as well, just made though not iced, and sips it smugly, revelling in the fact that it is not on the ground. he resists the urge to point out that it was good that her coffee had spilled off of the table, really, and not all over her laptop, which might have gone over a great deal worse.

“Oh, planning to make my life worse then?” she snaps back, but there’s no bite in her bark. It’s posed more as a challenge, daring him to stay around long enough to try. “I’m warning you now, it’ll be hard to top... this.” Her eyes fall to the floor where some poor employee has started sweeping the mess, glass and coffee and all, into a dust pan with very little success. It was a mop job, especially since the jar cleaved into three pieces tops. She doesn’t tear her gaze away, especially when another barista abandons the counter to come assist, but her hand starts creeping toward his drink. She walks her fingers along the table playfully and slowly enough for him to intervene, a smile tugging at her lips. 

All of the different pastels in his hair had faded since the festival, a little like a photograph of the rainbow left to sit and bake on a window ledge, and somehow this only brought out the bruises on his face more. Ziggy sauntered like he was blissfully unaware, skateboard snatched up and tucked beneath his arm. The bell that chimed with his entrance would’ve been more fitting as the honk of a clown’s nose. He arrived just in time to witness the crash, ducking right over rather than approaching the counter – much, he ignored, to the dismay of a cashier he was fucking intermittently. “Yo, you tryna slingshot that shit an’ K.O. me? Fucked up, man. Am a sexy lil innocent. Jus’ tryna live ma life.” Shoving his board against the wall, he took the seat opposite Jenny’s empty one rather than studying the mess, far too used to broken glass to think it warranted a fuss. Not properly, though. He scraped the chair around, first, sitting backwards with his arms crossed lazily on top. Even had the audacity to reach out and pluck at her iced coffee, pulling it closer to drink a few sips. Ziggy let out a refreshed sigh once he set it down. “Huh, how ‘bout that? Taste you on the straw.” A lopsided smirk ticked before he breezed on. “You writin’ a think piece ‘bout my ass in ‘ere? Damn. Least you coulda done was ask permission. Ain’t shit like that askin’ for a lawsuit?”

“’Sexy lil innocent,’” Jenny echoed, narrowed eyes tracking Ziggy as he made himself at home, taking up way too much space in the tiny shop. Not physically. He was a scrawny thing, just the way she liked ‘em. Long and lean and looking entirely too much like someone who’d smoked weed once at age fourteen and made a personality of it. But his energy extended beyond him--or was it just his volume--turning heads of small-minded small towners and pulling the blonde imperceptibly closer. Her every motion was intentional, the slight angling forward of her body, the pointed pressing of her arms against the sides of her chest, the tilt of her head. She smiled, “Only if your ass is having an open doors launch party, public welcome.” Her eyebrow quirked and her lips curled. “Really, with just a few adjustments this press release can be all about your ass. Just give me the word. I can even coach you through it.” 

just another day running errands after riding a tractor all day — what a perfect day. well, it was to scout. finishing the day up with grabbing a muffin from kahlo’s was ideal to him. they had the best banana nut muffins, so it was a necessity in his life at this point. his feet pattered across the store until he heard the spill. why did it stop him right in his tracks? honestly, the male wasn’t even sure. scout quickly turned to see the other before noticing the spill. quickly going down to a knee, he took his napkins and began wiping up the mess the best he could. mama said to never let a lady clean an accident in public. it was an accident after all. “i imagine it’s not the worst thing.” a soft smile lit up his face as he looked at the female. “it’s just a coffee, sweetheart.” he never thought twice about calling a female a pet name. it was something his mother always did as a kind gesture. “i’ll get you another one.”

“No,” she whined, dragging out the word until it fried out in a low creaky breath. “It’s the worst.” It wasn’t. But getting a handle on the dramatics seemed more trouble than it was worth. All her restless energy needed an outlet and a little outburst always left her feeling better--a release on the pressure valve of her constant churning chaos. And while she had managed not to throw herself on the floor á la the tantrums of her childhood, she couldn’t quite bring herself to start picking up the pieces either. There was no urgency now that someone was doing it for her, though a barista quickly put a stop to that, rushing over with a broom and some paper towels, babbling about liability issues and broken glass and blah blah blah. With a muttered apology, she reached a hand down, offering it to her night in shining armor to help pull him to his feet. “You didn’t have to do that. And you don’t have to get me another. Really. I didn’t even need that one. I’m like, so wired. You didn’t cut yourself on my behalf did you?” Her eyes shifted first to the guy’s hands, then over to the employee, still blotting up her mess with meticulous precision, not an ice cube left behind. “That guy was really considered about your fragile patron hands.” 

As Yaz entered the bar, she smirked at the sight of her friend in her hoodie and sunglasses, attempting to hide away from the world. “Is this nepotism? Just handing out jobs to friends now?” she joked as she joined her friend, leaning against the bar and plucking one of the fries for herself and plopping it in her mouth. After chewing thoughtfully, she spoke again, “I knew those years bartending would come in handy, you just sit there and look pretty.” Her dark eyes fell on the beginning of the Bloody Mary, before flicking up to Amy’s sunglass-covered eyes, “rough night?” It wasn’t like Yaz was in any place to judge.

“If nepotism is wrong, I don’t want to be right,” she groaned, her voice nearly stuttering out but returning after a cough or two, hoarser than ever. “You know, I can’t even remember the last time I was hungover, can you?” She gave a half-assed rack of her memory before letting the thought fizzle, focusing instead on the icy cup of water numbing her fingers. It distracted her from the nausea. Sort of. “Fine night. Rough morning.” Worse than the hangover was perhaps the post-drunken shame that sometimes felt worse than a comedown. She didn’t do anything that cringey--at least nothing really sprang to mind--but she found herself second guessing everything. Had she been too shrill? Too abrasive? Too competitive? Was the sex even good or had that been a pity orgasm? “Is there pickle juice back there somewhere? I think there’s some in one of the fridges.”