#desperate dex

Dex couldn't find the words to describe how perfect you were. You embodied everything he had ever wished he could be as a ‘normal’ human being. Kind, gentle, caring, and unbearably innocent, even in a world that seemed determined to take and take from people.

Dex spent a good major of his life seeing the ugly in others— the selfishness they dressed up as generosity, the jealousy they passed off as concern, the manipulation buried so deep they'd stopped noticing it themselves.

And then there was you.

No angle— just good. Genuinely, quietly, inconveniently good, in a way he couldn’t explain.

He'd first seen you on a Tuesday.You'd been crouched down on the sidewalk — actually crouched, bag sliding off your shoulder, completely unbothered by the foot traffic splitting around you like a current — talking to a man settled against the building wall with the particular stillness of someone who'd stopped expecting much from people.

You'd had food with you. A drink. And you'd been writing something on the back of a receipt, pressing it flat against your knee, explaining the location of a soup kitchen two blocks east

You’re so kind that it hurts.

After that, he started seeing you everywhere. He told himself it was coincidence for about four days before he stopped bothering with the lie. The park became a regular rotation — he kept his distance, three to four paces back minimum, far enough that you wouldn't register him as a presence, close enough that he could hear you if you were on the phone.

He'd learned quickly that you startled easy, that sudden movement in your peripheral made you pull your bag closer, so he was careful. He was always careful with you.

The first time you smiled at him, he forgot how to function properly.

It wasn't something he could fully account for — a blinding, unguarded thing aimed directly at him, and his chest had done something embarrassing and involuntary in response. To be seen by you— acknowledged.

It had left him standing there, utterly speechless. You smiled at him, and instead of smiling back like any normal person would have, he froze. Completely. By the time his brain remembered how to function, the moment had already passed. You'd moved on, bag shifting back up your shoulder, earbuds in, gone — and he'd stood there on the sidewalk

Now he thinks about it constantly.

Every day, every night, his mind replays those few seconds on an endless loop. He should have smiled back. He should have said hello. He should have said something. He should have done anything other than stand there with his face blank and his hands at his sides like a man who'd never once in his life encountered another person.

And the worst part is what you must think of him now—awkward. It gnaws at him relentlessly, your probably think of him poorly now. That he was strange. Off. Someone who can’t even make a proper conversation.

You'd smiled at him and he'd given you nothing back.

He needs to fix it— needs to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The problem, of course, was that everyone felt something when you smiled at them.

You collected people without trying — coworkers, friends, strangers who'd exchanged thirty seconds with you and somehow left looking lighter. You moved through the world leaving small warmths behind you and you didn't even notice, which meant you were never alone, which meant there was always someone.

Like Shane.

He'd clocked the name two weeks ago. Shane. He was sitting across from you now at the window table of the restaurant, and Dex was parked in the alley across the street with the engine off and the telescope balanced against the steering wheel.

He was just keeping an eye on you. That was all.

New York was full of dangerous men, the streets were unpredictable, and you walked through them carelessly.

And Shane —

Dex adjusted the telescope, bringing him into sharper focus, and felt something cold settle in his chest.

Shane was sleazy in a way that was almost impressive. That smile he kept giving you — slow, drawled out at the corners, the smile of a man who'd decided that you were the lucky one to go out with someone like him.

His finger tapped once against the telescope casing.

The only reason Shane was still sitting across from you — the only reason Dex hadn't found a reason, a quiet, efficient, untraceable reason, for this to have ended before it began — was the jaw. The build. The specific physical arrangement of features that Dex had caught early on.

You had a type.

And it looked, inconveniently, remarkably, like him.

He watched Shane reach across the table and check his phone — just picked it up, mid-conversation, screen-up, didn't even angle it away from you — and felt the familiar simmer move through him.

‘ I wouldn't do that’ he thought, ‘ I would put my phone face-down before I sat across from you and I wouldn't look at it once. Aren't I better?’

Your ex Daniel wasn’t better either. Daniel had been a mistake— surely. Sure he was attentive on the surface in the broad strokes, completely blind in the specifics, which in Dex's assessment was actually worse because it meant Daniel had been trying and had still managed to miss everything that mattered.

He'd shown up to your Saturday brunch at the place on Mercer with lilies twice. Twice. Dex had watched you move them to the edge of the table both times, that small careful gesture of someone who didn't want another person to feel the weight of their own mistake, and you'd smiled through it, and Daniel had looked pleased with himself.

‘ you don’t like lilies’ He'd known that by week three. You slowed down at the flower stall on the corner when they had ranunculus, garden roses, things that looked like they'd come from somewhere real.

He'd watched you often enough to know your habits by heart. He knew which arrangements would inevitably draw your attention, which blooms would tempt your hand to reach out, and which flowers would make you lean in close, eyes softening as you breathed in their fragrance.

Daniel had also never gotten your coffee order right.

Four times. Four separate, documented occasions where Daniel had shown up with the wrong thing and you'd accepted it with both hands and that gracious smile that you gave people who failed you gently, and Dex had watched every single one of them from varying distances and felt something cold and flat move through him that he recognized as contempt.

‘What about him? What about dex? Don’t you care about him at all?’ He wouldn’t have gotten you lilies, he wouldn’t have gotten your coffee order wrong, he wouldn’t have failed you. And yet Daniel, for all his stupidity you still gave him the time of your day.

It’s not like your coffee order was complicated and yet Daniel could never get it right.

Large caramel frappe, extra caramel, from the bakery across from your apartment — not the chain, never the chain, the specific one eight minutes out of the way because you'd decided years ago it was worth the detour and you had never once wavered on that decision. The one that knew your name.

The one that had your order ready before you reached the counter on weekday mornings, when you came in at seven;fourteen — not seven;fifteen you were precise about your mornings.

He'd known your order by the end of the second week.

Daniel didn't know. Shane doesn't know.

Aren't I better?

He adjusted the telescope.

He gave it three weeks—

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

He hadn’t planned to see you again at the coffee shop, that part was genuinely true and he turned it over in his mind with something close to satisfaction — that even without planing it, even on an ordinary morning, things had arranged themselves correctly. Because it’s meant to be.

The line moved slowly and he used the time the way he used all available time — observing. He watched you at the counter, watched Shane lean past you to speak to the barista with the easy presumption of a man who assumed competence was automatic,

Shane ordered you a dark coffee with milk.

The small wrinkle appeared between your brows — there and gone in under a second, smoothed away before Shane had even finished thanking the barista — and you said something gracious that Dex couldn't hear from here, and Shane looked pleased with himself, and Dex felt the contempt arrive the same way it always did.

You’re so kind— it frustrates him.

It’s been the third time and he still doesn’t know your correct order. That you took other people's carelessness and converted it into grace so automatically, so completely, that they never even felt the weight of their own failure. Shane would walk away from this date thinking he'd done well.

Thinking you'd had a good time. Thinking a dark coffee with milk had been fine.

It wasn’t fine

It was the third time. Three dates, three opportunities, and Shane still hadn't learned the single most consistent thing about your mornings— not like dex does.

Dex had known that by the end of the second week.

Daniel didn't know— Shane doesn't know either.

‘Aren't I better?’

He stepped up to the counter when his turn came and arranged his face into something he hoped read as pleasant.

He watched you do it enough times to understand the specific mechanics of it, the precise sequence. The way your eyes went first, a particular softening at the corners, like whatever you were looking at had done something to deserve the warmth.

Then the mouth, your lips parting just enough before the smile widened fully, teeth settling into place with an ease that looked effortless because for you it was effortless — it came from somewhere real. Unlike him— who tried so hard to be good for you.

He tried to replicate it. Eyes first — he consciously softened them, or attempted to, directed the muscles around them into the approximate configuration. Then the mouth. Corners up, lips parting, the full shape of it assembled piece by careful piece from memory.

The barista looked at him.

And then continued looking at him for half-a-second too long— a flicker of something, not quite discomfort, not quite confusion, but weariness — before she recovered professionally and asked for his order.

His smile didn't land correctly

"Large caramel frappe," he said, letting the smile drop back to neutral, “Extra caramel”

Your exact order— Shane had needed three attempts and still hadn't gotten there.

‘Aren't I better?’

“ Dex! “

He turned like he was surprised and you were already moving toward him, bright and unguarded, the sweetest smile flashing at him. Like he was something lovely to you. He could be, all you had to do was let him in.

"It's so good to see you," you said, and you meant it, he could tell you meant it, and Shane was materializing at your shoulder with that slow easy smile that Dex had catalogued and categorized and dismissed, and introductions were made, and Dex shook Shane's hand with the pleasant face and the approximate smile and then let his gaze drop to the cup in your hand.

" What did you order?"

The wrinkle. One second—then gone, “ I got a dark coffee with milk” A small pause, the gracious kind, “ It's a required taste “

His frappe arrived at the counter.

He picked it up and he looked at you — at the coffee in your hands, at the wrinkle you'd already smoothed away, at the patience you extended so automatically to people who hadn't earned it — and he held it out.

"Here," he said, “Try this, it’s my favorite “

It landed simply, easily, he watched something move across your face — surprise first, then that warmth, that specific warmth you produced when something landed unexpectedly right — and you looked at the cup and looked at him and said — “Are you sure?"

"Go ahead," he said easily, “Tell me what you think."

You took the cup from him and drew the straw to your mouth and he watched — kept his expression pleasant and neutral and completely appropriate

“Oh —" you pulled back, looked down at the cup like it had done something to you, and then looked back up at him with that expression, the genuine one, the one that came without the delay — "this is good”

"Wait —" you took another sip, shorter this time, confirming something. Then you beamed up at him, like he hung the stars themselves and every good thing in your life began and ended with him.

And god— does he wish it does.

“Is this a caramel frappe? With extra caramel?"

"It is," he said

Your face did that thing again. That beautiful, impossible thing where your eyes brightened and your smile followed a heartbeat later, as though joy couldn't stay contained inside you. It was his favorite expression of yours—the one he could never look away from, "That's my order. That's exactly my order — I get this every morning, from the bakery on my street!—"

"Really” He let the surprise land on his face in careful, measured degrees. Eyebrows lifting just slightly. Head tilting just enough. The performance of coincidence, "That's my usual too”

"No—“

"Same order," he said, "Every time”

You laughed, as though you couldn't quite believe it— and shook your head like the universe had done something charming, and said "that's wild, I never meet anyone who orders it with extra —"

‘I know’, he thought, ‘I know you don't. I know your order and I know the bakery and I know that you've been going there for two years and I know the name of the barista who serves you on Tuesdays and I know you tip more when you've had a hard week and I know every single thing about you and none of it is a coincidence’

"Small world," he said pleasantly

You handed the cup back to him, still smiling, and your fingers brushed against his in the exchange. The contact lasted less than a second, fleeting and insignificant by any reasonable measure, but he swore he felt a jolt race through his hand. It lingered in his fingertips long after you'd pulled away, leaving him staring at the cup like it might explain what had just happened.

He looked at the straw.

The small, precise smudge of your lipstick remaining on it — a faint transfer, the exact shape of where your lips had pressed, your color against the plastic in a way that was so specific, so undeniably yours— and he was being very composed about this, because you were still right there and Shane was still right there and he had a finely calibrated sense of what registered as normal in public spaces.

He discreetly slid his lips along the straw to where yours had just been.

An indirect kiss—! Your spit in his mouth and—

He lowered the cup

He kept his expression carefully neutral, like euphoria wasn't rattling around inside his head. Like his first kiss with you hadn't permanently altered the trajectory of his thoughts. The sweetness lingered with infuriating clarity. Sugar on your lips. Sugar on his. You kissing him. Him kissing you.

His first kiss with you and you’re standing right there and you’re acting as if you didn’t kiss him and Shane is ruining it by existing

Shane has been on three dates with you and he's holding a dark coffee with milk.

Dex has never been on a single date with you and he’s already kissed you.

‘Aren’t I better?’

Dex already knew the answer to that

‘You just don't know it yet’