The Recluse

She felt very small and out of place in the crowded coffee shop he’d led her into. Unlike the typical Starbucks or Tim Hortons she was used to, this cafe was locally owned. Locally owned by the nutty, apparently. Adeline had never seen such an unusual place to get a daily caffeine fix. The decorations were macabre, heavy grunge music mixing in with the clinking of spoon against tea mugs. It was a rather comforting mix of horror and home, with a cast iron wood stove pumping out waves of heat to both warm the soul and make people feel like they might be in the medieval times.

… Addy didn’t think that this would be a very good place to relax, all things considered, but she wasn’t one to judge and kept her trap shut. At least the coffee was good.

They’d taken a seat in the far back corner of the shop, a very dainty little table between them. Andy’s knees were practically on top of hers, the table was so small. She really couldn’t compete with the legs of a giraffe when she herself was the size of a peanut, standing at a pitiful 5”1. All things considered, Adeline figured he was doing it on purpose. Every couple of minutes he would shift his legs, the holes in his jeans letting his bare knees brush against her own. She pursed her lips calculatingly, wishing she hadn’t worn a skirt that day.

“How are you today?” Andy asked, stirring his drink idly, making a point to keep eye contact the whole time.

Addy shriveled under his gaze, making it a point herself to not look up from the table. “I’m pretty good. A little… Tired. You?” She quipped back at him, glancing his direction for just a second.

He nodded absently in return, his movements laced with a certain secrecy that warranted suspicion. His head was somewhere else. “Eh… Can’t complain. Been pretty busy lately,” Andy replied nonchalantly, leaning his elbows onto the glass surface between them.

She was starting to get a little ticked at him. How could somebody go from being oh-so-joyful to spacey and creepy in such a short period of time. Adeline’s head boiled over with anxious thoughts, little red flags popping up every second she spent on this date. “... Okay, I really don’t mean to be short with you, but… Why am I here?” She questioned seriously, no longer being able to take the mind-numbing small talk that they’d been carrying for the past several minutes.

A self-assured smirk graced Andy’s pale features, making even more warning signals begin to blare in his date’s head. “I’m so glad you asked… Wondered when you were going to,” He began cryptically, as if he wasn’t the one to ask her to an obscure cafe, “When I was trying to find out where to drop off your notebook - and don’t be mad at me for this - but I read some of your lyrics…”

Addy’s eyes narrowed greatly, an eyebrow piqued at her male counterpart in disbelief. “... Go on…”

“I was pretty surprised to note that you are an incredibly lyricist,” Andy complimented back-handedly before taking a large drag from his coffee.

“... Thank you,” Adeline said briskly, trying her best to keep the snark from seeping into her vocal chords. He was taking his good-old time in getting to the point, and she was getting increasingly tired of this conversation. She didn’t know what he thought he was doing, but it was pissing her off. “Look, if you’re not gonna be straight with me, I’ll take my ass back to work,” The feisty woman snapped, reaching for her purse and jacket threateningly. Andy’s hand firmly blocked her from gathering her things, however, and so she crossed her arms peevishly and leaned back into her chair, aiming to scoot her legs away from his.

He ignored her obvious discomfort, taking the small woman’s actions as a cue to move forward even more. His knees were now not just touching hers, but he’d managed to get one halfway up between her legs. Andy took a moment to watch her cheeks burn red with recent flush, grinning lopsidedly as he did so. “I can tell you are really into the music business, no?” He asked flippantly, not pausing to let her answer, “I have connections, Adeline. If you stick around me, you’ll get where you want to be faster than if you did it alone.”

Adeline was now past her breaking point. The dam was cracking, the gates were bending, and she was going to blow if she didn’t get out of this situation as soon as humanly possible. She tried to ignore the fact that she may or may not be entirely turned on by some wretched piece of human garbage like himself, but she couldn’t feasibly ignore the fact that she was more than intrigued by his offer. “... If I can get there myself, why should I bother accepting your help?”

“Oh, hun, you won’t just get there faster. You’ll go farther,” Andy cooed mockingly, reaching under the table to run a dull thumbnail against the top of her left calf. His hand was smacked away almost immediately, bringing an even bigger grin to his face than there was beforehand.

“What’s the catch?”

The pale, lanky man massaged emptily at his lip ring, giving her a thousand yard stare that would make Dwayne Johnson weep for weeks on end. “Nothing much, sweetpea. I just want to be in your company some more,” He answered smoothly, satisfyingly, in a way that made most women want to throw themselves at him.

Addy was both too paranoid and too dignified to let him have her again. He’d already managed to get in her pants, so if it wasn’t just sex that he wanted, then there was a hidden motive that she just wasn’t quite getting. “... Can I think about this?” She asked nervously.

“Not a lot of time to think, Addy. Don’t act like you’re special or anything. There are plenty of other female artists in LA that I could pick from,” Andy said airily, his almost otherworldly eyes boring holes in her skin.

She bit her lip in conflict. This was a fucking terrible idea. It was practically the worst idea anyone had ever had in centuries. No guy just gives out these kinds of deals to starving artists. No guy was that kind-hearted. Hell, she didn’t even know if he actually had any of the connections that he was speaking of. Addy was probably waltzing into a brightly-labeled trap, and she knew it.

“I’m not gonna wait forever.”

The moisture left her mouth almost instantly at his words, her eyes flickering back and forth with indecision. She’d never been very good at quick decisions. She’d never been very good at lifedecisions, really.

“Time is ticking.”

“I’ll do it.”

Notes