Coffee and Cigarettes

The trouble that Shea caused the day before comes back to him quicker than he expected. Of course he knows that he wasn't going to get away with it, but he hoped that his parents wouldn't find out about it too quickly. As soon as he steps into his house, his mother is at the door, a phone in her hand and an expression of irritation clear on her face.

Shea doesn't need to be a mind reader to know what she's thinking. She thinks and always has thought that he's a disappointment, so does his father as well. They don't know, however, how much he works his butt off at his job, nor do they know how in school he has managed to keep a B grade average even if he doesn't bother to listen in classes and actually sleeps in them instead.

Though, Mrs. Tully never bothers to listen longer than a few seconds of Shea's reasons before she gives up on thinking that maybe this time, Shea has a good excuse. She shakes her head at him, opening the door to let her son in.

"Why are you always trying to get yourself into trouble, Shea?" she asks, a question that has propped up a lot of the time now.

Shea doesn't have an answer for this question because he doesn't know the reason himself. He does it because he can, because it makes him feel like he's actually noticed instead of being invisible to his class mates. He's been like that since he can remember, he didn't want to be known as a bad boy at the start, but now people were looking at him, whispering words like how he shoplifts, how he goes out on nights and drinks himself to oblivion, how he smokes with some stoners at the back of the school every day.

They hadn't got it half wrong, but admitting this would make him feel like he was exactly what they thought he was. He acts tough though, always has. He doesn't show weakness.

His mother, Hannah Tully, waits for a response from him. But Shea being Shea only walks past her, making the fury inside her rise higher.

"Shea! If you do anything like this again then there will be consequences!" she warns him and Shea doesn't turn around or say what he should say - sorry at least. He's never said that word for a long time and if he says that now then he'd feel weird, fake.

So he doesn't say a thing and he only adds to the list of why he's seen as a disappointment to his family. But he hasn't the heart to care any more.

-

"Can you take my shift tonight?" Pash begs him down the phone and Shea really wants to hang up on him now because Pash is always asking him for favours, always saying he'll repay him when he never does.

Pash decides to phone him during Shea's break, because he knows that Shea's got no classes and that he's not busy. Before then, he was sitting on the field thinking of yesterday's events and trying to forget his mother's warning from earlier. He should think that Pash's call is a good thing to get his mind off his troubles, but he really can't be bothered to go into work.

He wants to say no, just to hear Pash get desperate but he decides that this time he won't use Pash as a way to get rid of his pent up feelings. "Fine, I will. But only if you tell me what you're doing."

He can hear Pash making a choking sound and he knows that he definitely does not want to tell him at all. Pash is extremely secretive about everything, no one knows what he does outside of Ivan's café. Shea's wanted to know for a while and he knows that Pash has to tell him now because if he doesn't then Shea isn't going to take up his shift for him. Yes, Shea loves a good old black mail trick.

"What are you doing tonight that's more important than working with us lovely people, huh, Pash? Come on, you gotta tell me now," he prompts him, an evil grin stretching across his face.

Pash clears his throat, a sound of him moving his phone in the background. "I'm sorry, Shea, I can't hear you. The signal's gone all funny, sorry."

"Stop playing around, Pash. I know you're only trying to avoid my question."

"I didn't hear that either, can you speak a little louder? Oh shit." And with that, Pash deliberately hung up the phone.

Shea looks down at the phone and is in the right mind to call him again or at least leave a very angry voice mail with him swearing profusely as a present for Pash. He should now not bother to do what Pash wanted, but he knows that the guy will probably come back and this thought makes him re-think skipping.

So he spends the rest of his school day skipping Double French, because come on, it's really not worth his time. He watches the next two hours go by and feels like shouting at the top of his lungs when the bell rings. He's out of that school quicker than you can say coffee.

And now he's back at the sanctuary of the café and Ivan's looking at him like he's got two heads.

"Why are you here?" he asks.

"Pash," and that's all he needs to say for Ivan to understand.

Ivan tries to find out what he's done with the sketchbook, but he only tells him that he's left it at his house. He doesn't tell him, however, how he's looked and analysed over all of the sketches and has taken out that picture of him - the one that freaks him out - and has it somewhere on his desk. He knows he shouldn't have taken the picture of him but he did it without thinking.

That night goes by quickly and as it nears the time when the artist should be coming in, Ivan is leaping around at the back singing some sort of love song and grinning at Shea like a maniac. Shea has to run to the back and give him a stern telling off but Ivan is now asking him rather personal questions. Shea now knows he's sure to kill Pash the next time he sees him.

He doesn't notice until someone points it out that his artist never came through those doors. He takes one quick glance around the room just to make sure that they weren't joking with him but unfortunately, they're right. He wasn't there.

He discovers that the guy doesn't come the day after, which is his day off, and nor does he come the day after that, or the day after that. It's a whole week and Shea's wondering whether the artist has fallen off a cliff or has died from all the paint fumes that he's probably breathing in. Deep down, he thinks that maybe it's his fault that he's not at the café but that's only his insecure side talking.

He tells himself that he has to come back because he left his sketchbook there, he vaguely thinks that maybe he bought a new one instead and found another café to go to. For all he knew he could be sitting in Starbucks or freaking Costa Coffee that second.

On the way home from work on the Friday, he checks those two places just in case, but doesn't see him. Still, he's got no clue where he is and he doesn't know why he feels so let down because he really doesn't know him at all, and he doesn't know his name either. He's only 'the artist' to him, and that's probably all he'll ever be.

He spends the weekend off with his head deep into the guy's sketchbook, fascinated even more with everything that is inside it. He's really talented, Shea admits, but his work is different and it makes him feel sad and a little bit disturbed to say the least.

On Sunday night, he tells himself that he should just forget about him and stop looking at that darn sketchbook, somehow he successfully manages to for that night.

His whole weekend of forgetting someone who he barely even knew to start off with is completely ruined however when he walks in on Monday afternoon once again, to see the artist talking to Ivan. Shea checks the clock, noticing that it's only gone past four. He's relieved and both surprised and he's shocked when Ivan points to him.

"He's over there, that's the one you were talking to, right?"

The artist nods, "Yeah, that's the cocky one."

Shea hears Pash's loud laughter from the counter and he's in half a mind to go strangle him because hey, he was getting on his nerves. He was also annoyed because the artist has dubbed him, 'the cocky one'. He folds his arms and takes off his beanie from his head, letting his short, no longer messed up hair out in the open.

He pretends that he hasn't noticed the artist walk up to him but when he's only standing a foot away from him, it gets pretty hard.

The artist speaks up, his eyes doing that weird examining thing that they did last time. "Hello, I met you the last time I was here. I was wondering whether you saw where I put my sketchbook before I left?"

Shea doesn't know why he doesn't just tell him where it is, but he's irritated at him for calling him cocky even if he knows it wasn't in a spiteful way. "Sorry, I haven't seen your sketchbook. But I can go look for it before I leave."

The man opposite only nods. After that, he's left standing there, not bothering to move to the counter or to sit down. It's making Shea feel awkward too. The artist clears his throat and shoves a hand towards him, all Shea does is stare at it.

"My name's Oliver Ellison," he pauses, "Erm, it's nice to meet you."

"I don't like shaking hands, sorry," Shea admits as Oliver frowns at him in confusion, "But I'm Shea Tully, apparently also known as the cocky one."

Everyone always has the same reaction when Shea does stuff like this, he just doesn't like touching people. There's not really a reason to it, he just doesn't. He gets annoyed when people actually do and this can sometimes start into an outright fight. But he doesn't want to go into it because he's afraid this boy would think he's a freak, so instead he smiles, hoping Oliver won't look into it too much. Luckily, Oliver can tell that Shea doesn't want to talk about it, so he smiles back and smirks at him.

"Well, it's great to meet you kid."

And then fucking Pash laughs again.

So he might be younger than this man in front of him but he's not that much younger than him. Only by a few years at least. Or does he look younger than he actually is?

"I'm not a kid. I'm eighteen," he lets him know and Oliver doesn't bother to take back what he said about being a kid because he's still older than him. He's apparently five years older than him, which in Shea's mind isn't that much at all.