Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Avery

THE GUY AT the curb straightens when he notices me approaching. He almost looks scared, but that's ridiculous. I'm not a large human. Who would be scared of me ? Yet the closer I get, the more it feels like this guy is doing everything he can not to turn and run.

"Hey, need some help?" I say long before I reach him, hoping to set him at ease.

"Yeah, I think so," he says.

I take that as a cue that I can get closer. Once I step off the sidewalk and into the street with the stranger, I notice how much taller than me he is. The streetlights turn his rich brown eyes almost golden behind his glasses. Dark stubble sits like a shadow on his brown cheeks, and his deep black hair sweeps back from his forehead .

Well, lucky me. If I have to be helping a stranger when I'd rather be snuggled in bed, at least he's a gorgeous stranger.

"Car trouble?" I say.

He startles, like he forgot I was there and is surprised to find me beside him. "Oh, yeah. I mean, I think so," he says. "I don't know. It made some weird noises and then gave up on me."

His eyes sweep up and down me, but with my high ponytail and choice of clothing, I'm not exacting giving "grease monkey" right now.

"Sorry, I don't know anything about cars," I say, confirming his assumptions. "Do you need to use a phone?"

"No, I have one," he says. "I just don't have anyone to call. You wouldn't know of an auto shop that's open around here, would you?"

"Not at this time of night. You won't be able to get anyone until morning."

The stranger heaves a huge sigh and slams his hood shut, but he seems more defeated than angry.

"Great," he grumbles. "A mile from my apartment and I break down."

I can hear Mia, and my brother, for that matter, telling me I'm going to get axe murdered for doing this, but the stranger broken down in front of my house is so sad that all my Boyfriend Café instincts kick in all at once.

"You know," I say, "I live right here. I don't have a car, but I do have a spare bedroom. You can crash and then call someone first thing in the morning to fix your car."

The stranger has his hands planted on the roof of his car, his head hanging between his shoulders. When he glances over at me, some of that pitch black hair has fallen across his forehead, like he's the windswept protagonist of a movie or something. I can't pretend even in my own head that that look isn't a large part of the reason I want him to accept my offer.

"Really?" he says. He seems to study me, those golden brown eyes sharper all of a sudden. I don't hate the attention, not when it's coming from a handsome stranger.

"Really," I say.

"I didn't think people did that kind of thing out here," he says.

"What? Help each other?"

"Let strangers into their homes. Isn't that dangerous in cities?"

I burst into laughter before I can stop myself. "Montridge isn't a city. And even if it was, look around you. Not exactly a frightening place."

I wave at the residential homes and tall oaks. How anyone could be scared of a place like this is beyond me. When the college empties out during breaks, the population is mostly geriatric.

"Anyway," I say, "you don't have too many other options, do you? I guess you could get a rideshare, but it's going to be super expensive, and you probably want to save that cash for your car. This way, you can wake up in the morning, call whatever shop is open, and get them out here first thing without having to travel back and forth."

"I…"

The guy seems reluctant, so I step even closer and stick out my hand.

"I'm Avery, by the way."

He takes my hand gingerly, as though he doesn't have several inches and at least twenty pounds on me.

"Diego."

"Nice to meet you. Can we please go inside now instead of standing out in the dark and cold? I'll make you some tea."

"I have all my stuff here," Diego says.

I never actually looked inside his car, but when I do, I see it's full of suitcases. At my insistence, we fit all of the ones we can into his trunk. We each carry one toward the house.

"I can't believe I'm spending my first night in Montridge in some strange guy's house," Diego mutters to himself as we approach the house.

"Not a guy," I say. It's almost a reflex at this point. I know what people see when they look at me. At first, I wouldn't say anything, would just let them continue being wrong. But I forced myself over time to speak up for myself and correct the misconception, as uncomfortable as that usually is.

Like right now. When the hot guy following me into my house looks at me with utter confusion and says, "Huh?"

I point at myself with my free hand. "Not a guy. You're not going to a strange guy's house. I'm non-binary."

His eyebrows shoot up, but it's not the look I'm used to, the look of mingled annoyance and anger that suggests I'm placing some burdensome imposition on this person. Diego's gaze holds mostly genuine surprise, like he's a nature photographer glimpsing a rare bird he never expected to encounter in the wild.

"I'm so sorry," he says. "I should have asked."

"It's okay," I say. "Most people get it wrong the first time. Just remember for the future."

I wink, trying to lighten the mood, and if it weren't so dark I would be absolutely positive that heat is sizzling in Diego's cheeks. But there's no way. That's far too much to hope for out of a chance encounter.

I get Diego inside. We set his suitcases near the door so I can lead him to the kitchen and get started on some tea for both of us. While it's brewing, he scrolls through his phone, likely looking up auto shops. When I set two cups of tea on the kitchen table, Diego looks up. He blinks like he's seeing me for the first time.

"You're young," he says. "Sorry. Wait. That wasn't supposed to be out loud. I'm just surprised. This is your house?"

"It used to belong to a friend," I say, "but he moved and asked me to stay here and look after it for him. Plus, it houses the café I run."

"You run a café?"

I grin. "Yeah. The Boyfriend Café. We basically do, well, this. Sort of. Tea and conversation. It's a refuge for the students at the university nearby. A lot of them come to us when they're stressed out and just need a calming environment for an hour."

"The literature didn't mention a café."

"Literature?"

"About the university."

"Are you a student also?" He looks a little older than most of the student body, but maybe it's just the stubble.

"Yes," he says, then quickly adds, "grad student. I'll be a TA starting in a few days. Well, I'm supposed to be a TA anyway. That all hinged on me getting to my apartment tonight, but as you can see, that sort of went awry."

"That's a coincidence. I'm a student. You're actually only a block from the university itself right now."

Diego laughs nervously, cupping his tea in both hands. "A student. It's probably inappropriate for me to be in your house."

I wave the comment away. "The semester hasn't started. And anyway, I don't think it's inappropriate for me to offer to help you out, right? The odds that you're a TA for any of my classes has got to be super low. I don't think we actually need to worry about that."

"You're probably right," Diego says. "Well, either way, it's fortunate for me. Thank you again for all this. I'll get out of your way as soon as I can."

"Don't stress it," I say, even though what I want to say is that he can stay as long as he wants. In fact, the moment he mentioned being a TA, I couldn't help hoping I would run into him in one of my classes. Staring at Diego for a semester sounds a lot better than staring at some crusty old professor.

Diego sips his tea, and his shoulders ease away from his ears.

"This is such a mess," he mumbles.

"Hey, don't stress yourself out before the semester has even begun. You'll have your tea, I'll show you the spare bedroom, and in the morning you can get this all sorted out. No big deal."

"Thank you. That…" He looks between his tea and me. "That weirdly does make me feel better."

I flash him my best Boyfriend Café smile. "That's what we do best here. You're getting the Boyfriend Café experience for free."

Thanks to the lights in the kitchen, I can see it this time when heat flushes into Diego's cheeks. It makes me realize what I just said to a person who is technically a teacher at my university .

"Oh. Shoot. I mean," I scramble. "I just mean because of the tea and everything."

"I … I understand," Diego says, but he looks into his tea instead of up at me.

"Anyway, um, would you like to see your room?"

Diego nods and I show him the room upstairs. It's sparse, but Albert did throw a bed and nightstand in there at some point. We haul Diego's suitcases upstairs, and I leave him there for the night before things can get any weirder. I didn't mean to imply anything with that comment about the Boyfriend Café, but Diego clearly heard the boyfriend part loud and clear.

Something clicks in my sluggish brain.

He reacted to the word boyfriend. That's not exactly what you'd expect from a straight guy. Could he be…

I shake my head at myself as I brush my teeth. It doesn't matter. Even if he is, he works at the university. Plus, I'll almost certainly never see him again after he leaves in the morning. C U of M is a huge university. We have a ton of TAs who teach classes of all levels. Whether or not Diego is straight will soon be completely inconsequential. He'll disappear from my life, and I'll disappear from his, footnotes in each other's wild anecdotes.

I head to bed absolutely certain that this will be the first and last time I ever make tea for Diego, much less torment myself with speculation over his sexuality.

HE LEAVES EARLY the next morning. I'm not even out of bed when I hear the door downstairs open and close. Later, I find a note on my kitchen table thanking me for my kindness and assuring me he got the car looked at this morning.

And that's the end of it.

At least, I assume that's the end of it.

So it's really damn weird when I walk into a classroom a week later and find Diego of all people standing at the front of the room behind a lectern.

We both stop, locking eyes for a beat as the world goes weird and surreal around us. I blink, but he's still there, staring back at me with eyes as wide as mine feel.

I look down at my syllabus. This is definitely the right time and the right room for my Queer and Trans History class.

Which means that Diego is definitely, beyond any doubt my TA.

We're going to spend the entire semester pretending he didn't sleep in my house. Four months of acting like I never made that comment about the Boyfriend Café — and he never blushed about it.