Raine had started working at ‘Papi’s coffee’ long before the 5/9 hack. And she continued to work there afterward. The owner had been a lifelong friend of her family, an older man whom she affectionately referred to as Papi because he was like a grandfather to her. After her parents had died, she had no one else to turn to and Papi took her in. The least she could do was run his business as he aged out of being able to. She lived in a small apartment above the shop. And small was an understatement. It had been an office with a small bathroom. She hired people to put in a clawfoot tub and shower when she moved in. Other than that, it had enough room for her dresser and mattress. Behind her mattress was a storage space that she cleaned out and made into a sort of a loft with giant curtains covering the entire wall. In this small space, she did her painting and had created a sort of reading nook for herself. Life had been pretty boring until the hack. And even after for her, she didn’t have debt or savings, and Papi only kept cash his whole life, and the hack erased his mortgage debt, so they were both in the minority of people who got by pretty well. Then one day she received lots of money in e-coin for no apparent reason. She didn’t complain or ask questions, who would? Aside from her horrible and abusive boyfriend of several years she had nothing to do but work all the time and keep her head out of other people’s business. Then one day a while before the 5/9 hack she had just gotten home from breaking up with Luke for the tenth time when this guy came into the shop. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why, but he was striking to look at and seemed terribly frightened of everything. She was off that day, but she walked over to him anyway.

“Hey, you want some coffee?” she asked.

He nearly jumped out of the booth and she thought for a moment he might take off running before he said, “you work here?” he looked at her outfit which was a short skirt and tall boots.

“Yea,” she chuckled, “I mean I sort of run the place so I can wear what I want.” It was a lie; she wore her uniform on days she worked but it was partly true.

“Oh…” he said looking down at his laptop.

She waited a while before saying, “so?”

“What?” he looked startled again as though he forgot she was standing right in front of him.

“You want something to drink, or eat, we have pastries and…”

“No,” he cut her off, “I mean… umm no thanks I just want to use the WIFI… if that’s okay?”

Normally this interaction would’ve seemed rude but something about the way he looked up at her with his big eyes and childlike expression made her feel incredibly sad.

“Of course, just let one of us know if you need anything, I’m Raine…” she stood there waiting on him to introduce himself but he just looked at her again and she saw just the edge of his mouth turn upward, “okay,” was all he managed before going back to whatever life-altering thing he had going on, on his laptop.

She didn’t want to continue pretending to work because she was tired, it wasn’t too strange for the manager to say “hi” to a new customer even when she wasn’t working. Hopefully, this mystery guy wouldn’t think it was weird either, but she doubted he even remembered their conversation. He was so focused on his laptop and he kept darting his eyes around mainly at the front door. She knew she had a proclivity for bad boys, but this guy seemed either seriously dangerous or seriously in danger. So why couldn’t she stop thinking about his dark blue eyes that held so much pain and innocence? Those misshapen thick lips, olive skin, and jawline didn’t fade from her memory too quickly either. She shook her head and tried to focus on something else. She climbed up into her loft and decided to draw something. All she could think about was that face, hidden away in the darkness of his hood. She drew him quickly and completely from memory. She looked down once she was done. “There, maybe it was just an interesting face my mind wanted to use for inspiration,” she tried to tell herself. She flipped the page and tapped her pencil on her lip trying to will her brain to think of something else. “Ugh,” she groaned after a few minutes that felt like hours. She had almost completely forgotten about the guy she’d broken up with a couple of hours ago. She couldn’t even really remember what he looked like at this point. The face of a stranger was the only thing she could picture in her mind. “This is crazy,” she thought as she hopped off the loft onto her mattress a few feet below. She didn’t even bother putting her shoes on as she grabbed her drawing tablet and pencil and headed downstairs. She slowed down on the last two stairs to look out at where the guy had been seated. He was still there hunched over his computer typing like a madman, his hood was pulled back and she could see his short dark hair in an unusual cut for someone like him. It was clean and tidy looking and very thick. She wanted so badly to touch it. She shook the thought from her head frantically. “You don’t even know him,” she said.

“What?” an employee was just leaving the kitchen with a tray of coffees right in front of her.

“Nothing… talking to myself…” she said.

“Oh okay,” she said.

They were used to her being sort of eccentric and didn’t mind it, she paid them well and was pretty fair as far as bosses go. She snuck around to set in a booth nearest the counter and far away from him. She watched as he chewed on his bottom lip a bit, which made her unintentionally bite her own. From this angle, she could only see him in profile and he was absolutely gorgeous. Not like some movie star or model but in a way that was completely his own. He looked nothing like anyone she’d ever seen before. She hoped he didn’t look up and see her staring at him, but it didn’t seem likely.

Without even asking, one of the employees, Amber, brought her a decaf pumpkin spice and looked over to where she was staring.

“Ever seen him before?” Amber asked.

“No, have you?”

Amber shook her head no, “I think he’s up to no good, he seems weird.”

Raine gapped up at her, “you don’t think he’s… I don’t know… kind of hot?”

“Him? No! he seems creepy.”

“Hmm,” Raine mused.

Was she actually crazy? Did no one else see what she saw? Yea, he looked like he was doing something sketchy but that had no effect on the way he looked physically. Amber walked away and Raine began drawing another picture of him. She felt like a stalker, but he would never know. He would probably leave soon, and she’d never see him again. The thought made her panic a little, but she didn’t know why. Once she was done, she laid her tablet down and looked up. He was starting to pack up his stuff, so she jumped up, ready to find out his name or something. Some way to find him again. He put his hood up and threw his backpack on his shoulder just as she rounded a table to face him. He stopped in his tracks and looked at her like a deer in headlights.

“Umm I just wanted to say thanks for coming and I hope you come back soon,” she said putting on her most professional smile. He looked confused at her feet for a second. She looked down at her own bare feet and almost melted into the floor. She couldn’t even bring herself to say anything else as she embarrassedly waved and moved out of his way. He kept his eyes on her like she was a dangerous wild animal as he walked around her and even backed out of the front door. He thought she was a lunatic, she was sure of it, and wasn’t she? What was she even doing right now? Sure, she’d come downstairs without shoes before, but she had never let customers see. She felt completely mortified and ran back to grab her tablet and run up to her room. Once she got there, she buried her head in her pillow and screamed. The scream turned into sobs until she eventually fell asleep. She eventually forgot about the mystery guy because he never came back, not that she could blame him. She didn’t tell anyone about what happened, and Amber hadn’t even seen her, so she just buried it deep down in her mind never to be thought of again. Then one day, about a month after the mystery e-coin had shown up in her account, a girl walked into the shop. Long wild light brown hair framed her pretty face. She had perfectly pouted lips and wore heart-shaped sunglasses.

“Who do I talk to about a part-time job around here?” the girl demanded like she owned the place.

“That would be me,” Raine said politely.

“Cool… so uhh what do you want me to do?”

“Well usually our employees come by recommendation of friends, do you know anyone that works here?”

“Uhh… no… don’t you have like and application or something?” she said completely bored and seemingly uninterested in actually working…ever.

“Well no… you could bring in a resume.”

“Got it,” she slammed a piece of paper in front of Raine.

Raine took the paper and read over it slowly. “Well… Darlene, according to this you are extremely overqualified for this job.”

“Yea whatever I just don’t want to dress in a suit and work in an office, that life nearly drove my brother to suicide and what does he do? Goes right back to it, now he’s telling me I need a job…” she scoffs before continuing, “we have all the money we need but he said that I need to learn how to handle living day to day again whatever that means and that it builds character and blah blah blah… like I need that shit from him ya know? I mean after all the BULLshit he put me through he’s trying to tell me how to live my life?”

Raine just stared at her for a minute and started to open her mouth to respond but Darlene continued, “I mean I love him, he’s probably the best person I know and I know he’s looking out for me and doesn’t want me to get myself in trouble and look I get it, I do but anyway this place looks cool and he said he thought they let you wear literally whatever you want here so…” she waved her arms around as if everything was explained.

“Well actually we have uniforms,” a thought crossed Raine’s mind before she brushed it off, “I don’t know why he would think that, but we actually do have WIFI and need someone good with IT so would you like to do an interview.”

She stared at Raine for a while and finally said, “let’s get it over with, I can tell him I tried at least.”

Raine didn’t know why but she liked this girl, she almost beat up a customer during the interview because he was harassing one of the baristas. She had him by the collar and threw him out the door.

Amber walked by and leaned down to Raine’s ear, “hire her, NOW!”

So, she started working that afternoon but refused to wear the uniform. Raine let her get away with it because she knew this was the only way to keep her. And for some reason, it felt like Darlene belonged in her life and she turned out to be one of the best workers they had ever had when she decided to show up, aside from her people skills. They became friends almost instantly and Darlene went on and on about her brother all the time. His name was Elliot, but he never came around. She ended up telling Raine everything, she and her brother had started fsociety and did the 5/9 hack. One day she told her about how they had stolen the Deus group money to redistribute. Darlene hadn’t told anyone, so it was very odd to Raine when she just started telling her about the events of the past year of her life all the time. It was a lot to take in, that day she told her about where the ecoin came from, Raine just looked at her and said, “Y’all are freaking Robin Hood.”

“That’s what I said, dude!” Darlene shouted.

“But why me?”

“What do you mean?” Darlene took a drag off a joint and leaned against the brick wall behind the shop. Raine took her hit and looked out over the Hudson behind her blowing smoke out into the wind, “Why are you trusting me with all of this stuff all the time… I mean it’s a BIG deal.”

“I don’t know I just do, there’s something about you, you’re cool,” she paused to take the joint from Raine and hit it, “plus I was about to explode, I need to talk to someone about this and Dom is gone most of the time, Elliot was cool with it for a while but now he says it’s time for the next thing, whatever the fuck that means.”

“Does he want to do another hack?”

“I don’t think so, he is different now… but not… it’s hard to explain.”

Darlene had expressed this sentiment before, not as though she was complaining she just wasn’t used to his integration yet.

“Well, I never met him before so…”

“Yea he’s still Elliot, anti-social and nervous but he’s doing a lot better than he was, we thought he fully integrated, but Mr. Robot is still around.”

“That makes sense, given what I have learned about the disorder, and what you’ve told me about them.”

“Oh, I forgot you’re like a psychology major.”

“Was… I had to drop out when Papi got bad, but it has helped me with my own messed up… stuff.”

“And me… I don’t know what I would do without you honestly…”

It was rare for Darlene to be vulnerable like this and Raine doubted many had seen this side of her.

“I’m still in awe of all of you… and well I’m sorry, for the people you lost.”

“Yea well that part fucking sucks,” Darlene said taking a last hit off the joint and putting it out on the wall.

“Want to have a sleepover?” Raine asked trying to lighten the mood.

“Oh man I want to so bad, but Elliot needs me to dog sit because he works early tomorrow.”

“I can’t believe he’s working a tech job after what you told me.”

“Yea well he says part of his healing process or something to do with keeping a routine because that’s what part of him is used to or some shit.”

“He sounds really smart.”

“He’s a genius… and a dumbass…” Darlene smiled to herself and Raine could see and feel the love she had for him radiating off of her. These two were very close and Raine wondered why he had never been to the shop before.

Weeks had passed and Darlene had opened up about every little thing and the more she divulged about this mysterious brother the more Raine grew curious. Then one day Darlene came up to the apartment for a girl’s night in and she began scrolling through her camera roll, showing Raine pictures of stupid things she had found on the internet. All of a sudden, a picture of a man appeared, standing next to Darlene at Coney Island.

“Who’s that?” Raine said right as Darlene swiped away from it uninterested.

“Who?”

“Go back,” Raine said scooting closer.

Darlene went back to the picture, “That’s me and Elliot.”

“Wow,” was all that Raine could manage.

The hoodie, the face, all of it. It was the mysterious stranger she hadn’t seen in over a year but still haunted her dreams.

“Wow?” Darlene was literally smiling from ear to ear.

“I just… I… he’s… pleasant looking.”

“What did you say?” Darlene was now full-on laughing, “just say it… you think my brother is hot.”

“What? No, I mean, not no but yes but no… he’s your brother, that’s weird, shut up.”

“You are so flustered right now; I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Come on D, leave me alone.”

“Umm hello light bulb.”

“No.”

“You should date my brother.”

“NO!”

Not only could she not date her new best friend’s and employee’s brother, but if she remembered him, what if he remembered her. Things connected in her brain one after the other. The hack, him hunched over the laptop, the paranoia, him telling Darlene about the way people dress here. Was that why he would never come here? He was obviously too embarrassed or creeped out to be around Raine again. Not only could she not date Elliot, but she also could never let Darlene bring him around her.

“Darlene, who are you texting?” Raine said suddenly realizing she was smiling and tapping her phone rapidly.

“I’m telling Elliot to come over.”

“I said no,” Raine whined.

“Calm down… I’m not saying anything… yet… I’m having him bring me something so he can come here and see you and fall in love instantly because you are smoking hot and let nature take its course, we won’t even have to tell him you liked him first, he’ll be BEGGING me for your number.”

Darlene was sweet and maybe would’ve been right if Elliot hadn’t already met Raine and decided she was an embarrassing freak. She wondered if she should tell Darlene about the interaction. She decided to try out a little bit of it, “You know …he looks familiar.”

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“He said he’s been here but the WIFI sucked… sorry.”

“I just pay the bill, the WIFI is your department.”

“Among everything else I do, I make a mean latte, also it was before I worked here, remember I said he told me to come here to work.”

He had done that, but why, if he wanted to avoid Raine so badly, why did he want his sister working here? Maybe the WIFI had sucked.

“Well then it’s a good thing you came along and made it better… you did, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yea you don’t even have the same provider you used to.”

“Neat”

“That’s gonna be the only issue, my brother is a techie, majorly, he uses hacker jargon as his regular vocab.”

“Okay, so?”

“Well, you maybe don’t know that much about computers.”

“I do alright.”

“No, you don’t get it, this. Is. His. World.” Darlene said holding up her phone, the only tech readily available.

Raine looked around her apartment at her boho-themed life, she had a laptop and knew more than most people, but she wasn’t even close to Darlene and Elliot’s level.

“Well, I’ll just have to adapt.”

Darlene smiled, “good.”

“Wait… you just tricked me into agreeing to this didn’t you?”

“First lesson in hacking: social engineering… people are so much easier to hack irl than on any terminal.”

“Now that sounds like something I can do… but why?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what would I use it for?”

“To get what you want, duh, how do you think I got this job?”

“I hired you because I liked you and your interesting and… holy shit you manipulated me,” Raine laughed.

“It was for your own good, look at how good I am at shit and I’m getting you a boyfriend and you love me,” Darlene shrugged her shoulders adorably when she finished talking and Raine couldn’t begin to be mad at her if she tried, she was good at this.

“You need to teach me that,” Raine teased.

“Oh, you’re good at the IRL stuff, I’ve seen you, you just didn’t know you were doing it.”

“Yea I am really good at reading people I guess.”

“Good so you’re almost there, Elliot will really like that about you, but it will also scare the shit out of him, sometimes I honestly think you’re psychic.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know you just know things about people from just looking at them, remember that wall street guy that we kicked out… everyone else was all over him trying to get good tips and you had him pegged from day one… then I see homeless people come in and you treat them like kings, no one else here sees you like I do, like really sees you.”

“Do they say stuff about me?”

“They love you, but they still don’t GET you, I get you.”

Raine knew she was right, she had never met someone like Darlene, she seemed so rough around the edges, but she had a heart of pure gold. They had grown so close over a few months that Raine felt like they had known each other forever.

“He’s on his way,” Darlene said typing into her phone.

“NOW?! Oh my gosh I need to change clothes and…”

“Elliot doesn’t give a shit about things like that.”

“Well, I at least need to put on shoes.”

“Why?” Darlene chuckled.

“Ugh okay so don’t tell him this but I do remember Elliot… I mean I didn’t know it was him until I saw the picture but last year a guy came in and sort of… caught my attention so I tried to talk to him but he was not having it… then I came up here for a while then decided to try again but I forgot to put shoes on,” she paused, Darlene was already cackling and rolling on her bed.

Raine continued, “it’s not funny… anyway I run straight into him as he’s leaving and I barely say a word because he looks down at my bare feet and he just looked at me like my hair was on fire and bolted, he thinks I’m an idiot.”

Darlene was gasping for breath as she tried to stop laughing, “OH my gosh is that what you think happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sure he barely noticed, last year Elliot was… in a really bad place, I mean you know this… but you don’t really… if he thought it was odd, it was nothing compared to all the other shit that went down… trust me.”

“I thought he stopped coming because I freaked him out.”

“No, if you would’ve had good WIFI your hair ACTUALLY being on fire wouldn’t have kept him away… he doesn’t care, trust me…he barely knew his own name last year, he forgot for I don’t know how many months that I was his sister… your bare feet are nothing.”

“I wondered what had happened to him… I kind of forgot after a while but that picture… that’s not a face you forget.”

“Really?”

“I mean… you probably don’t think of him that way but yea he’s really… different.”

“You can say that again, look to make you feel better let’s just go down without shoes, both of us and when I tell him you live upstairs if he does remember it will make perfect sense… I mean it’s not weird when you consider everything, I mean you DO live here.”

“Okay but please don’t mention any of it because I don’t want him thinking I’ve been pinning for him for a YEAR.”

“Have you?”

“What? No… I mean he crossed my mind once in a while because I don’t know he looked so scared and helpless at the time that I just wondered if he was okay.”

“Aww… well he wasn’t, but he is getting there, let’s go.” Darlene grabbed Raine’s arm and pulled her out the door and down the stairs.

Raine was prone to panic attacks and seeing the black hoodie again almost made her pass out. She couldn’t even look at him, it was too intimidating. Elliot walked up to Darlene and lowered his hood running a hand through his hair a couple of times, Raine could feel his eyes on her.

“Elliot this is my friend and ‘boss’, Raine,” Darlene had made air quotes around the word boss. Raine managed to look up as Elliot cast his eyes down and mumbled “what’s up?”

Darlene sighed heavily grabbed his arm and hugged it, “this is the famous or infamous Elliot I’ve told you so much about.” Elliot’s head jerked up to look at his sister like HER hair was on fire. He started to shake his head no very slightly for some reason and she gave him a gentle look and he stopped. Raine mustered up courage enough to say, “It’s nice to meet you, Elliot,” and she stuck her hand out for him to shake but he just looked at her for a moment and squinted at her before politely shaking her hand. As he touched her hand, she realized he was trembling slightly. She had to bite her lip to keep from whimpering. Poor guy was so nervous but why? She gave him the warmest smile she could, and he seemed to relax a little.

Darlene had let go of him and was standing between them grinning like the Cheshire cat. Raine needed a distraction, “Darlene, why did you air quote the word boss?”

“Because you know you can’t really tell me what to do,” Darlene teased.

“Ahh,” Raine replied, “see what I have to deal with?” Raine said to Elliot, who grinned for a millisecond before saying, “I have no sympathy, I’ve dealt with her, her whole life.” Nothing about his tone suggested he was joking but Raine laughed anyway. Elliot looked down and grinned sheepishly as if no one had ever laughed at his jokes before.

“Darlene? Can we talk…alone?” he said suddenly.

“Don’t be rude, Elliot, you can say whatever you want in front of Raine, she’s cool, I tell her everything.” He looked at Darlene with wild eyes before looking at Raine again. She couldn’t read his expression, but she knew he had previously had no idea Darlene had been telling her about their past. He took her arm and pulled her away without even glancing at Raine again. Darlene gave her a look and rolled her eyes. Raine felt like an idiot just standing there so she began straightening up tables because they really needed it anyway. The place was always a mess when she and Darlene both were off. To her surprise, Darlene was a neat freak and completely efficient at her job. She supposed keeping busy helped Darlene’s nerves like it did her own. She went and got a rag and came back and tried to pick up things from Elliot’s and Darlene’s hushed conversation. They had taken a booth and he seemed to be scolding her. Darlene sat slumped back in the booth with her arms crossed making annoyed faces. As Raine made her way to a booth near them Elliot didn’t see her, but Darlene did. She heard him say “you can’t drag innocent people into this, she could get hurt.” Raine felt a warmth inside her, he was concerned for her?

“How? It’s over, isn’t that what you’ve been saying for months, the Dark Army is practically nonexistent now.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” he said.

“Who’s the leader now huh? Irving? He’s a well-known author now.”

“And white rose was China’s minister of state security,” he retorted.

Well, that was something Darlene had failed to mention. Darlene looked up at her and shook her head because Elliot was getting up. Raine turned and started to walk away quickly but felt a hand grab her arm, the hand-spun her around and she was face-to-face with Elliot who looked like he was on the verge of tears.

“We need to talk,” he said. She just nodded and followed him to the booth where she slid in beside Darlene.

“He’s freaking out over nothing,” Darlene said.

“I’m not freaking out, I’m just trying to keep people safe,” he said glancing quickly at Raine before drilling holes into Darlene with his eyes.

“Hi, I’m people,” Raine said holding her hand up and waving slightly, “don’t I have a say in this?”

Darlene and Elliot looked at her surprised. Elliot worked his jaw uncomfortably before setting back and saying, “alright.”

“I’m fine, this stuff doesn’t scare me at all, after what I know I’m glad that you guys did what you did and I’m just glad I know someone on the right side, I would only be scared if I was trying to go against either of you, you guys are like modern-day techie Robin Hood badasses,” Raine said. Elliot looked down and sucked in the corners of his bottom lip to fight a smile. Darlene raised an eyebrow at Elliot in an “I told you so,” manner.

Raine continued, “And I won’t tell anyone, I honestly don’t have anyone to tell, Darlene is my only friend.” Raine’s voice cracked when she said “friend” and she felt one tear fall out of her eye. She hadn’t even realized that was coming. Elliot looked up at her and watched the tear fall onto the table. He tilted his head like a confused puppy for a second before sighing, “I’m sorry, I’m a dick, I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

“I know I just…” Raine couldn’t finish as she felt a lump forming in her throat. ‘Great’ she thought, ‘I’m embarrassing myself in front of Elliot again, what is wrong with me?’

Darlene put both her arms around Raine and pulled her close and Raine had to fight even harder not to cry. Elliot looked like he was about to jump out of his skin.

“You made her cry, Elliot!” Darlene said. His face twisted in pain and his eyes got as big as quarters

“No,” Raine said, “no, no, no, it’s not him or even this… I just I guess I just now realized that I didn’t have anyone besides Papi, before I met you,” Raine looked up at Darlene who pouted her bottom lip out in sympathy.

“I just need to pull myself together, I’m not… I’m not ready to talk about it,” Raine said as she hopped up and walked away before she could embarrass herself even further. She stopped in the kitchen and grabbed Amber, “give me your shoes.”

“What?” Amber shouted.

“I need to go out back and smoke, I’m about to lose it,” Raine told her desperately. Amber sighed and nodded taking off her flats.

“Thanks,” Raine shoved her feet in them and threw open the door, the cool night air hitting her face. She felt around in her sweatpants pocket hoping she had shoved a joint in there earlier like she had intended to. She brought it out and leaned against the wall. She put it in her mouth and started looking for a lighter.

She couldn’t find one and she sighed, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes, “shit.” She heard a click and her eyes flew open and she saw a flame first then the hand, without moving she looked over at Elliot who was offering her the light impatiently. She brought her hand up to block the wind and lit the joint. He shoved the lighter into his hoodie pocket and kept his hand in there with the other one, his hood was up.

“Thanks,” she said, he just nodded and stared at her, so she offered the joint to him after she took a hit. He took it without saying anything and looked at it for a while before taking a hit himself. As he exhaled his voice came out gravely, “you don’t look like a stoner.”

“What does a stoner look like?”

“I don’t know but I’ve never seen one as…” he stopped and grinned at his feet, blushing.

“As what?”

“Well… you’re pretty,” he said, sounding a bit childlike.

“Stoners aren’t pretty?” she teased, taking the joint from him and taking a long drag.

“Well yea they are but…” he paused and gave her a pained look.

“You just wanted a way to tell me that you think I’m pretty?” she offered. He outright smiled for the first time that she had seen, and her heart melted.

“I guess so,” he shrugged.

“Because you really think that or because you’re trying to make me feel better?”

One corner of his mouth twitched like he wanted to smile again as he said, “both.”

She winked as she said, “good save.”

“I’m serious,” he said, and honestly, she hadn’t seen anyone look at her more seriously in her life. It made her smile. She passed the joint to him and he held it for a minute before he said, “I wasn’t mad at you, ya know?”

“I know but you shouldn’t be mad at her either, I know you think she just does things without thinking but she doesn’t, she needed me, and I needed her.”

He nodded taking a hit, “I used to think that about her, but I’ve learned…” he stopped, looked confused, and said, “how did you know I used to think that?”

“Because I know that’s what most people would think about her, but they would be wrong.”

“You two are pretty close huh? She talks about you a lot.”

“Yea we are.”

“You like her?” he asked.

“Of course, she’s my best friend, my only friend.”

“Well I know but I meant do you like her? Like…”

“Am I into girls?”

“Yea.”

“No, unfortunately, I’m attracted to men for some reason,” Raine said, sighing.

Elliot laughed, “Not to be all ‘not all men’ but…”

“I know, I didn’t mean you obviously but most of my exes or whatever, customers, mostly one ex in particular.”

“Pretty bad?”

“Really bad… like criminally bad.”

“Abusive?”

“Yea.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

“Eh I’m fine now just… you know lost all my friends because they took his side and I have like PTSD or some shit.”

“You should go to my therapist, she’s really good, I like her a lot.”

“I might, I don’t get much time off, just weekends.”

“Excuses,” he said leaning against the wall beside her and nudging her with his elbow. She gave him a mock scowl as she grabbed the joint, they had been sharing from his mouth and put it out on the wall. He watched her intently and took his hood off brushing a hand through his hair. She was jealous because she had been wanting to do that for over a year. She shook the thought away and started walking to the door.

“You leaving?” he asked.

“I live here so… no.”

“I meant, are you leaving me?” he looked surprised as the words came out of his mouth and he started to backtrack, “Leaving the outside I meant… I mean…”

“You mean ‘going inside’?” Raine laughed.

“Yep, those…words are better, shit, I can’t talk,” he looked genuinely panicked so Raine shrugged and laughed, “It’s fine, I was just messing with you anyway, you’re good.” She wanted nothing more than to stay out here with him all night or bring him in with her, but she knew they were both very nervous and that it was best to leave on a high note and leave him wondering about her. She opened the door to go in but he called out to her, “Raine?” she just stopped and looked at him, he was lighting a cigarette, he took it from his mouth and blew the smoke in the air and for some reason, she found this incredibly sexy, he looked at her and said, “I’m glad she told you.”

“Me too,” she smiled and ran into the kitchen before she could find a way to ruin a nearly perfect conversation.