#yellowcandy

Note: Newfoundland is pronounced ‘newfnlan’.  Trust me, this is an important clarification.

  There was a man who came in every day.  He was very tall, and very thin, and very, very unpleasant.  In fact, he was so much so that people would conveniently not notice when he walked up to the register.  He had perfected his glower to the point where the other cashiers would disappear to the back to retrieve sleeves of cups that didn’t need retrieving the second he opened the front door.  He had never made a complaint about the quality of his order – which was the same every single day, without variation – nor about the employees; in fact, he only ever spoke to place his order.  He had just perfected this aura of bitter disapproval that deflected everyone who got near him.  Edward was the exact opposite of this man.     

Edward adored him.

Every morning at nine the man would come in for his large black coffee in a mug, and he would sit in the same table in the corner that he would cover with books and papers, and he would sit there until about two in the afternoon and then he would leave.  Edward knew, from quite a lot of convenient trips over there to clean tables and wipe the windowsill and sweep the corner very thoroughly, that he was a psychology professor at one of the universities.  He never paid Edward any attention at these times, nor really at any other time either.  He was so tantalisingly steadfast in his manner.  Edward was going to crack him, one way or another.

So it was that the time came and that man walked into the store, and Edward’s partner on coffees conveniently had to go on break, not that Edward minded this at all.  It would be easier to do this with the man’s undivided attention, obviously.

“Good morning,” Edward said, as cheerfully as possible.  “What can I get for you today?”

“The usual,” the man said, already pouring a handful of change out of his wallet onto the counter in front of him.

“Have you ever gotten anything else?”  He poured the coffee as he said this, without looking and while he was preparing another basket of grinds for future use.  The man ignored him and continued to push dimes into a pile. 

“Honestly, I don’t know how you can drink this every day.  I never drink coffee.  And from here…”  He shook his head, placing the cup on the shelf above the machines for the man to retrieve.  “Well, let’s just say quality varies.”

The man merely handed him the pile of dimes, picked up his coffee, and walked off.  Edward’s partner mysteriously reappeared to snatch up the last cherry cheese Danish.

“Why do you even bother?” she asked, having to cover the thing in at least three waxies.  Edward draped his arm overtop of the POS.

“Why bother doing anything?  For the sake of doing, of course.”

That, and no one was to resist him.  No one.  In any way.  Ever.

  The man actually had a toonie to pay for his coffee with the next morning – the change being the source of his habitual stack of dimes – which was a little disappointing, because it was a lot harder to drag out their interaction when he didn’t have to drop eighteen coins into the register one by one.  He pretended he was waiting for a pot to complete the brewing cycle, at which time he said conversationally, “You look tired.  Moreso than usual, I mean.  Those kids giving you a hard time?”

The man actually looked at him, but said nothing.

“Have a nice day,” Edward said, passing him his drink, and the man accepted it and walked over to his corner.

“He has kids?” his supervisor asked, as he made his way over to the Boston creams for a customer in the drive thru.

“Not like that,” Edward told him.  “He’s a teacher.  At one of the universities.”

“I can’t believe they let that guy become a teacher.”

Edward shrugged.  “You don’t know that he doesn’t know his stuff.”

“Are you talking about that guy who always sits in the corner?” asked the baker, returning from the kitchen with a basket of banana nut muffins.  Edward watched his progress to the showcase as he said,

“Yeah, why?”

“He’s my sister’s psychology professor.”  The baker stood back up, empty basket in hand.  “She complains about him all the time.  Says his assignments are too hard.”

He did look like the kind of man who was tough on education, Edward thought to himself.  Casually, he asked, “Your sister tell you anything else?”

The baker shrugged.   “She said he was from… St John’s, I think.  And everyone calls him Springheel, though not to his face.”

Hm.  He was certainly a ways from home.  Edward made a mental note.

 “So,” Edward said, pleased he had something to actually talk about other than the same old black coffee, “what brought you here?”

The man looked up from counting his dimes, head tilted the slightest bit quizzically, but he said nothing.

“Not here here.  This city, I mean.  You’re from Newfoundland, right?”

The man frowned and pressed his change into Edward’s offered hand.  “And how would you know that.”

He’d mostly been ambivalent towards Edward before, but now… now Edward felt a bit cowed by him, a little threatened.  Scared, even.  He looked into the cash drawer with perhaps a bit too much attention.

“Uh… someone knows one of your students.  They mentioned it yesterday.”

“With a significant amount of prying from you, no doubt.”  Edward could feel the severity of his glare even with his head down and the man’s glasses something of a figurative shield.

“No!” Edward protested, for some reason looking up in earnest.  “They brought it up.  Not me.”

“I see.” 

When he had walked away, Edward turned around and pressed his face into one hand, his other wrapped around the counter behind him.  He had no idea what was going on, but he felt as though he’d made a terrible mistake. 

“I don’t know why you try,” said the order-taker in the drive thru, between cars he supposed.  “He doesn’t like you.  He doesn’t like anybody.  I wish he’d stop coming here.  Gives the place bad vibes.”  She turned back to her POS and touched her headset, and Edward looked into the direction of the man.  He had already spread his things out over the table and was frowning over a sheaf of paper, head braced with his hand.  Edward bit his lip.

He normally wasn’t the type to care about other people’s business farther than he could gossip about it, but he was getting a very, very sad picture of this man.  Solitary, disliked by everyone, called by a derogatory nickname… he couldn’t say the guy didn’t deserve it – he wasn’t rude, exactly, but he wasn’t pleasant either – and yet… he wasn’t sure.  Maybe it was just the fact Edward saw him every day and nothing ever changed.  He had never failed to develop a rapport with a regular before now. 

He sighed and walked to the back for a new creamer.

  The machine was broken again.

He frowned at it, examining the pins that slotted into the containers that held the drink mixes.  One of them had broken clean off, causing the machine to generate cups of vaguely chocolate-flavoured hot water.  He decided he may as well clean out the powder that had gathered in the bottom of the cavity when he heard the very emphatic tap of a coin against the counter behind him.  He turned to find the man standing there, looking at him almost expectantly.

“Ah,” Edward said, moving over to the register and picking up a blue towel with which to whisk some of the powder off his shirt.  “Sorry.  I was trying to get that fixed before my break.  Gotta have my hot chocolate fix, you know.  The usual?”

The man reached over and put the toonie on Edward’s side of the counter, and Edward nodded and poured the drink without further pause.  He didn’t know how long the man had been waiting, and so speed was the best choice for now.  It was only after he’d left and Edward had turned back to the machine that he noticed one of his coworkers at the other register, straightening a stack of napkins.  He eyed the man’s corner thoughtfully.

That said a lot.  It really did.

  Edward was rearranging the chairs in the storefront, mostly because he was bored and that made it look like he was doing something, when he decided to see if the man would be a bit prescient towards him, considering he’d been giving him his coffee five mornings a week for several months now.  He invited himself into one of the chairs nearest and looked at the closest paper on the table.  It was upside down, but he was able to read that it was a partially-marked essay on the big five personality traits.  It didn’t appear the person writing it had had any idea of what they were talking about.

“That must be exasperating,” Edward said.

The man frowned at him, his red pen clenched between wiry fingers. 

“This,” Edward clarified, gesturing at the paper in front of him.  “It must be exasperating, to have to read this drivel.  Seriously.  Any decent psych textbook outlines these.”

The man put his pen down and folded his hands together.  “I’m curious.  Have you ever been reprimanded for harassment?”

“Uh… no.”  He rubbed the side of his nose.  “For talking too much, a few times.  Why?”

“I was just wondering if you do this to anybody else, or if it’s just me.”

Edward felt himself becoming smaller, somehow, as though the man were able to shrink him with a disapproving word.  Why was he so damned hard to get to!  He stood up, trying to regain control of the situation.

“I didn’t realise trying to talk to someone qualified as harassment.  Especially when said someone never expressed a clear lack of interest.  I hope you don’t expect me to be apologetic for trying to offer some sympathy.”

“What?”  He had actually stopped frowning, looking up at Edward with a mildly bewildered expression.  Edward crossed his arms, pushing his chair back towards the proper table with the back of his shoe.

“You sit here every day with your cold coffee and your papers for five hours.  That’s the behaviour of someone with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one to talk to.  Being devoted to your work is one thing.  But sitting in a low-quality coffee shop all morning is what old men do because their one joy in life is gossiping with their other old man friends over cheap coffee and stale bagels.  Only you’re worse, because you don’t have any friends.  So you’d think maybe a bit of politeness would go a long way with you.  But I guess there’s a reason you spend all your time in a corner by yourself, eh?”

The man’s waiting for him the other day, as opposed to just moving to his coworker’s register, hadn’t meant anything after all.  He just couldn’t be bothered to disrupt his precious routine.  Edward felt oddly hurt by this realisation.  He didn’t know why; this grumpy older man meant nothing to him.  Just another customer who saw him every day but didn’t see him at all.

He walked back behind the counter, told his supervisor he was going outside for a minute, and headed out the back door.  Once there he sat on one of the concrete markers in the parking lot and took his glasses off so he could rub his eyes.

He didn’t know why he was so shook up over this, nor why he was so disappointed.  That man didn’t owe him anything.  And he’d had a point.  Edward had… sort of been harassing him.  Though he’d never really stopped it, had he?  He’d never told Edward not to talk to him, or bother him, or requested someone else take his order.  Was that still harassment?  And why did this matter so much?  He felt sort of… attached to the man, as if they’d been a strange breed of friends.  He didn’t want to stop serving him in the mornings – it was, odd as it sounded, a highlight of his day – but it seemed like Edward had gone too far in attempting to get him to engage.  And if he was honest, it wasn’t the first time.

All right.  He’d leave him alone, starting tomorrow.  He’d find someone else’s entrance to look forward to.  Find another order he could feel satisfied knowing.  There were plenty of customers to choose from, and plenty a great deal more pleasant than that man was.

He still got the impression he was missing out.

  Fresh out of a meeting with his manager, Edward took to the POS once more.  He was a little preoccupied, both with the talk he’d had and with clearing the line, so he almost didn’t register the person bringing up the end of it.  When he did, he made the drink without preamble and handed it over, tapping the order into the screen.

“No chatter today?” the man said, handing Edward his toonie.

“My manager doesn’t even want me serving you,” Edward said with what could have been a dose of bitterness, dropping the coin into the tray.  “I just got reprimanded for harassing you.  So thanks for that.”

He reached over to hand the man his change, but he didn’t even try to take it.  He instead looked at Edward with mild bafflement.

“I didn’t tell your manager you were harassing me.”

“I guess the magic coffee fairies that keep people coming back for this stuff told her then,” Edward said sarcastically, pressing the dimes into the countertop.  He was getting tired of holding out his arm.  The man looked down at the coins as though he hadn’t noticed them before now.

“If I were of the mind you were doing so, I would hardly frequent this register at this establishment every single day, would I.  Would I not find someplace else to be a lonely and pathetic old man?”

Edward held up a finger.  “… I didn’t say that.”

“Don’t split hairs over logistics,” the man said, picking up his coffee.  “You did say that.  And it was quite refreshing, I might add.”

So… he wasn’t mad.  He liked Edward.  And he liked what Edward had to say.  He drummed his fingers against the countertop.

It seemed he’d just have to keep doing that, then.

  The man still was not really one for conversation – most of it was one-sided on Edward’s part – but he would engage in just a little bit of small-talk during the daily exchange of money for cheap coffee.  His manager still kept a suspicious eye on him when the man came into the store, but the man showed no signs of being bothered at all and so she had nothing on him for it. 

“So what’s Newfoundland like?” Edward asked, waiting for the man to finish lining up his dimes.  He paused at the sixth one.

“Cold.  Wet.”  He slowly counted out another six dimes, though because he was being deliberate as usual or because he was dragging out the transaction Edward couldn’t tell.  “It’s a sad place to be if you don’t fit.”  He pressed the money into Edward’s hand, and he was suddenly, tangibly solemn.  “I… would rather not talk about it.”

“Sure,” Edward said, counting the dimes into the drawer one by one.  “I’ve just heard it’s quite a comparison to here, that’s all.  Most people find Toronto a bit too much, coming from those places.”

The man looked very tired for a moment.

“Every place gets to be too much.”

“When you take them on alone,” Edward said without thinking.  The other looked at him directly for the first time, and maybe he almost smiled.  Maybe.

 //

 There was a span of two weeks where the man did not come in at all, and after over half a year of uninterrupted daily visits this was cause for concern.  For Edward, that was.  The other employees were cheerful about his absence for the first couple of days, and then they forgot about him entirely.  As the days went by, Edward wished he knew how to find him.  But he didn’t know which university he taught at, or where he lived, or even what his name was.  He felt a bit silly to worry so much over a customer who had probably just decided not to frequent this establishment anymore, and maybe he should just get over it. 

But he’d thought, perhaps, he’d been getting through to that man.  And not just as an overly ambitious employee to a stubborn regular, either.  As… friends, maybe.

No.  That was Edward projecting again, because as snide as he’d been that day, the reality was just as true on the other side of the fence.  Edward was behaving in parallel with him, and he pretended his way was better just because he did it surrounded by people.  But that was his public self, the one he had this job to refine in the first place.  There was no better place to learn how to treat even the most unpleasant people with courtesy and charisma and also get paid for doing it.  Perhaps the old man was the more honourable, for not hiding himself as Edward did.

Ah, but that was done with now.  Or at least, it was time to allow completion.

  He kept that in mind the next several days, and he thought he was doing a pretty good job at it until he looked up from where he was crouched in front of the showcase, cleaning the glass.  The man was there, looking down at him, and there was some inexplicable joy in Edward’s chest all of a sudden that brought him back to standing, the smile crossing his face more genuine than any in weeks.  He took a breath in an attempt to settle himself and said, “Welcome back.  Give me one second.”  He picked up the spray bottle and paper towels he had been using and moved back around the counter, pushing his coworker away from the register when he got there.  He grunted in annoyance but turned to the sink, shaking a good layer of cleaning powder over the stained metal.

“You seem pleased,” the man said, and he sounded tired as he looked.  He was paler than before, somehow. 

“Well,” Edward said, inspecting the pots to see which was timed last for expiry, “you kind of just vanished.  People wonder.”

“I was taken ill.”  He removed his wallet from his pocket, and Edward noticed that his hands were unsteady.

“Perhaps you should have… stayed at home another day or two.”

“I have work that cannot wait any longer, and my bed was too inviting.”  His voice wasn’t any stronger than the rest of him.

“The usual?”

The man nodded and gave Edward the requisite toonie.  When Edward gave him his cup he took it in both hands as though it were a comfort he’d lacked.

“Have a wonderful day,” Edward told him, softly and perhaps more genuinely than he ever had, and the man held his eyes for a long moment before nodding once and walking to the corner.  Edward for once did not make an excuse to go over there, though he did keep what might have been too close an eye on him.  He neither saw him drink the coffee nor do anything other than stare at the one book he’d taken out, fingers pressed into his hairline. 

The man left early that afternoon, and Edward hoped it was because his bed was too inviting even from this distance away.

  He was late the next morning, and he didn’t look any better than before.  Edward was a little concerned about himself for caring so much.  He was being stupid over a customer.  But when he came up to the counter with a trembling handful of dimes, Edward shook his head and gave him his coffee without accepting them.

The man’s brow knit.  “What are you – “

“I’ll take care of this one,” Edward interrupted.  He wasn’t actually going to pay for it – in his opinion it wasn’t even really worth paying for – but it was the gesture that mattered, right?  “I’d give you a muffin too but I don’t think you’d eat it.”

The man’s curled hand slowly put the change into his pants pocket, and he stared at the drink in near bewilderment as he tucked his wallet away as well.

“’Thank you’ is a nice thing to say in these situations,” Edward told him, leaning up on the POS with folded arms.  “I know that’s a new saying for you, but I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it if you try.”

But he didn’t say anything.  He just picked up the coffee and sat down in the corner.

That left Edward a little disgruntled, but he couldn’t force the man to be grateful.

His supervisor sent him to clean tables a couple of hours later, and he left that corner for last.  When he got there, the man was in much the same position as he was the day before.  He looked up from beneath his brow when Edward placed one hand on the table.

“It’s none of my business,” Edward said, “but you need to go home.”

The man straightened, placing himself back in the chair.  Edward had of course never forgotten his height, but he had never realised that he wouldn’t be able to fit his legs neatly under the table.  Edward’s foot was almost touching one of his worn brown loafers.

“It’s too noisy there,” the man told him. 

“Noisier than here?”

“I live near the campus.  In one of those rooming houses.”  He took his glasses off and pressed his fingers into his eyes.  “Even the basement is not far enough away.”

“People generally live there because it’s cheap,” Edward ventured.  “Surely a professor at the university makes more than a student on loans.”

The man wrapped his hands around his drink.  “I have… expenditures.”

Edward shrugged.  “Fair enough.  But you’re not getting anything done here.  There maybe you’d be able to fall asleep during a lull in the cacophony.”

This was met with a shake of the man’s unkempt, rust-coloured hair.  “What stake have you in asking?”

“None,” Edward said.  “I have no stake in asking.  I only…”

He didn’t mean to meet the other’s eyes, but somehow he did.  They were intelligent, inquisitive.  They were…

Oh, no.

He picked up his towel and his sanitizer bottle and absconded to the back of the store.  Where he was going to help put the order away, and not think about how he had been about to think that the man had some of the clearest, brightest, most intelligent eyes he’d ever –

He squeezed his own eyes closed very hard, held his breath for a long minute, and continued to the stock room.  He was in need of a terrible, terrible distraction.

  The man was gone the next two days, which Edward honestly did not mind.  He found himself in an odd space where he both desperately wanted the man to appear and deeply hoped that he would not.  And he hated, simply hated that there was some relief in his chest the third day, when he did appear.  Edward did not even have to fake his smile of greeting.

“You look better,” he said, and it was true.  The man’s pallor had lessened somewhat, and his hands were steady.  He nodded as he set them on the counter.

“I acquired some earplugs.  They were very helpful.”

“The usual?”

“Yes,” the man said, though with an odd hesitant edge.  Edward paused in his removal of the mug from the holding rack.

“What.”

“I never told you my name, did I.”

Edward removed the coffee pot from the warmer.  “Well, most people don’t.”

“It’s Jonathan.”

Edward, spying the line forming, placed the mug atop the retrieval stand and leaned over the cash register, hand extended.  “Pleased to meet you, Jonathan,” he said, and he didn’t understand it but there was some warm satisfaction when that long, pale hand firmly folded around his.  It was cold, and Edward was forming a thought about changing that which was enough for him to let go.  He swallowed and pressed the toonie he had been given into the drawer.  He didn’t look up until the next customer impatiently cleared their throat.

  All right.  He didn’t know what was going on here, not quite, but he was going to be professional about it.  He wasn’t going to think of how to catch those eyes without the glasses, or of holding that hand until it became warm, or of how to get him to smile, dammit…

When Jonathan came up to his station he cleared his throat and handed the coffee over, without a word.  Which was difficult.  But he did it.

“The usual,” Edward said.

“Not today,” Jonathan told him.  Edward looked up by mistake.

“Okay.”  He reached over to take the cup back, but Jonathan shook his head once.

“That’s part of it.  I also need a second of the same and a hot chocolate.  But I don’t want them now.”

“Alright,” Edward said, having heard this sort of thing before and not being fazed by it.  “Can I get an idea of when you’re coming back for them?  In case I’m not here?”

“Actually,” Jonathan said, “I thought you could bring them when you’ve finished your shift.”

Edward stopped breathing for a good thirty seconds.

Jonathan had remembered the conversation about the hot chocolate machine.

“Is that so,” he managed, once he managed to get his tongue operating again.  “I guess I could do that.”

Jonathan deliberately counted out the requisite change, as usual, and when he pressed it into Edward’s hand he took perhaps a few seconds too long.  The customers behind him may have cared, but Edward definitely didn’t.  It seemed that, perhaps, that hand was his if he wanted it.  Maybe he was reading into this the wrong way, and Jonathan was just a very touchy friend.  He found himself not quite liking that idea, but he’d roll with it if that’s what it came to.

“I’ll see you later,” Jonathan said, and Edward nodded.

‘Later’ hardly came quickly enough, and Edward was beginning to feel a little like a college cliché as he watched the minutes drag by towards his after-shift meeting with a psychology professor.  He vanished to the back five minutes early under the guise of using the washroom, but what he really needed to do was comb his hair properly, make sure his clothes were flawless, and try to get rid of the sticky coffee smell that clung to one’s skin at this job.  Once he believed he’d done what he could he retrieved the drinks and sat down in the corner with Jonathan, for the first time because he’d been invited.

Jonathan didn’t take immediate notice of him; he seemed quite involved in a yellowing legal pad in front of him on which he was inscribing some notes in a sloppy cursive hand.  He looked up by mistake when pressing some of the hair out of his eyes, and he actually smiled.  It was almost unnoticeable, but it was definitely there.  Edward returned it, albeit more enthusiastically, and pushed the coffee towards him.

“I thought you might disappear,” Jonathan said, taking up the coffee.  “Your intentions seemed clear, but one is pressured to do everything in customer service these days and there are certainly better options in the world than I.”

Edward draped his arm over the back of the chair.  “True.  But not everyone is my favourite customer.”

“You are quite the charmer, aren’t you.”  He took a drink of his coffee.

Edward, however, was not quite certain what to say now that he was here, and he looked behind him to the rest of the store, eyes passing over the other people going about their lives.  After a minute or so of silence, Jonathan said,

“You don’t have to stay.”

He turned around again.  “That’s not it.  It’s… I work here, I don’t want to hang around here.  Can we go walk around at least?”

Jonathan nodded, mostly to himself.  “I feel like I should have thought of that.”

After Jonathan had put away his things and Edward had traded the mugs for paper cups, they went outside and made their way down the street a while.  Jonathan seemed to intentionally be walking slowly, though Edward couldn’t tell if he was trying to make it easier for Edward to keep pace or because he was trying to draw this out.  After a few minutes Jonathan said, “This is more awkward than I imagined it would be, but… fair warning, it has been a long time.”

“Since what,” Edward asked.  Jonathan glanced at him and stopped walking. 

“Since… any of this, honestly.”  He pressed on his glasses.  “I don’t usually talk to people for fun.”

Edward laughed and put an arm around Jonathan’s waist.  He stiffened and looked down at Edward confusedly, but he didn’t really signal that he wanted Edward to let go.  “Not people, then.  Just me.”

“Maybe later,” Jonathan said.  “I have class soon.  I need to go.”  And to do that he would have had to turn around and go back the way they’d come, but he didn’t.  He just stood there.

“So you should… probably go.”

Jonathan looked down the street in the direction of the parking lot, as though he knew it was there but wasn’t quite sure where to find it, and Edward realised Jonathan had planned for all of this to go badly.  For Edward to not show up, or to say he had to leave.  Jonathan’s having to work had been his escape strategy. 

And he had realised he didn’t want to use it.

Edward chewed on his tongue a moment.  If it were him, he would have just skipped his shift and dealt with the fallout later, but then again he didn’t exactly have a career on the line.  Aha!  He’d just gotten an idea. 

“You have a phone?” he asked, and Jonathan looked at him sideways but said,

“Yes.  Why?”

“I’ll give you my number.” 

Jonathan had to kneel down and dig it out of the bottom of his briefcase, where it was nestled under a volume of papers, but when he did Edward flipped it open – because god, it was an ancient old flip phone ­­– and said as he typed, “Just call me when you have a free evening.”

“Why wouldn’t I just tell you that?” Jonathan said, accepting it back and literally throwing it into the case.  Edward reassessed the usefulness of a phone that old in this circumstance.  “I see you every day.”

“That was my clever way of giving you my number, that’s why,” Edward said, and arm behind Jonathan’s back again as they headed down the street.  “You’re not supposed to call me out on it.  You’re just supposed to call it.”

“Aha,” was all Jonathan had in answer to that.

When they returned to the parking lot Jonathan led him to an old rusting pickup truck, still tagged with Newfoundland plates, and for some reason Edward smiled to see this.  Jonathan put his case in the passenger seat and turned around.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he said, but while carefully closing and inspecting the seal of the door.

“Of course,” Edward told him.  “Wouldn’t miss it.” 

  But Jonathan did.

Jonathan didn’t appear the next morning, or the next; in fact, he was gone for over a week.  He didn’t call, either, and Edward thought several times of looking into the university directories to find him – there could only be so many psychology professors named Jonathan – but ultimately he thought better of it.  The more he turned it over in his mind, the more he thought that perhaps he’d pushed too hard.  Literally minutes after Jonathan had told him about how he not so much as talked to people, Edward had decided a good idea was to take his cellphone and give the man his number.  In retrospect, that was much too forward.  He almost regretted that, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now.

He was thinking all of this over for it seemed the millionth time while sitting on behind the store, on a smoke break he hadn’t given his supervisor a chance to say no to.  He saw out of the corner of his eye that someone had come up to him and, thinking it his supervisor out to chase him, said in annoyance, “I’ll only be another minute.”

“Your shift isn’t over for three more hours,” the other person said, and Edward looked up to see Jonathan.  He was so surprised he dropped his cigarette.

“And where have you been?” he said in an attempt at recovery.  Jonathan’s thumbs found their way into the belt loops of his jeans.

“Home, mostly.  I had to think.”

“Mmhm.”  He crushed the cigarette with the toe of his shoe. 

“You don’t know me, and you gave me your phone number.”

“That’s generally how you get to know a guy.  You talk to him.”  He was maybe being a bit more bitter than he deserved to be.

“You are a puzzle,” Jonathan said.  “I don’t know why I haven’t turned you away by now.”  Edward looked up at him, unimpressed.

“Do you have a point with all of this?  Because you need to get to it faster.  I’m at work.”

Jonathan was looking down at him solemnly.  “I don’t have any free evenings.”

Of course not.  This was the longest rejection speech Edward had ever gotten.  He stood up and opened his mouth, but was interrupted when Jonathan continued,

“It’s exams.  I have to live in my office for roughly the next month.  So I won’t be back for a while.”  He reached into his back pocket and removed a slip of paper.  “But if you have a free evening… it would be nice if you dropped by.”

He handed Edward the paper, and he looked down to see that it was a business card.  It held the number to Jonathan’s office at the larger of the universities, but it was a start.  The name on the card read Jonathan Crane, MD-PhD, and this inspired some sort of thrill in Edward’s stomach.  Jonathan had just become much, much more intriguing. 

Those papers he brought in all the time must have been, aside from schoolwork, some very high-tier research.  Only the very best were admitted and graduates of that program.  Jonathan must have realised Edward worked here for personal reasons; there was no other reason for a man that intelligent and highly educated to even go near him.  He thumbed the card thoughtfully.  Oh, he definitely wanted to get to know Jonathan now.

He pulled open the back door and stepped back into the establishment, putting the card into his bag and continuing into the storefront.  It seemed his months of persistence were about to pay off, because life was about to get a lot more interesting…

  Author’s note

In case it wasn’t explained well enough here, Jonathan is from the province of Newfoundland and has an MD-PhD from the University of Toronto.  This program is very exclusive, the best in the country, and very hard to get into.  In this AU, they call him Springheel instead of Scarecrow because in Newfoundland there is a legend of a very tall man who could jump really long distances and basically just freaked people out. I’m not from Newfoundland, I just googled this to see if there was yet another Canadian thing I could put in this fic.  I hope you’re used to it by now.

Edward works at Tim Hortons, and if the details are a little too specific it’s because I used to work there.  A toonie is a two-dollar coin and it probably isn’t anymore but a large coffee was a dollar eighty when I worked there.

A side note for @thatdysfunctionalkingdom: this fic is fourteen pages and I did twelve yesterday and two today.  So this one is almost an example of me banging a fic out.  It would have been if I hadn’t dawdled yesterday.