While you were dreaming, p.1
While You Were Dreaming, page 1
Dedication
For the ones who spend their days
with their heads in the clouds:
I hope you get to stitch all your dreams into reality
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Ad
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter
One
The main character? Not me, not in real life. That’s what my daydreams were for.
At some point, the disappointment of crashing back to earth might teach me to stop engaging in said daydreams. But—
“Sonia!”
That day wasn’t today.
I jerked my mind away from my current preoccupation and glanced over my shoulder to find my boss’s daughter scowling at me, frown lines disrupting her otherwise smooth face. Paris wasn’t really good at anything except immediately noticing when one of us wasn’t on task. “Hi, sorry. Yes?”
“Is that sandwich done yet?” She enunciated the words slowly, which meant she’d probably asked the question a couple of times already.
The bagel dropped out of the bottom of the toaster right then, saving me. I grabbed it. “Yup. One minute.”
She gave an annoyed shake of her head but placed the customer’s drink on the bar. “Hurry, please.”
We had no backlog of orders at the moment, but I was quick. I assembled the BLT, wrapped it in the café’s signature paper, dotted with little Eiffel Towers—Café Paris, of course—stripped my gloves off, and brought it to the pickup counter, snagging the drink along the way. “Harry?” I called.
A woman standing there glanced up from her phone. “Um, Marie?”
It wasn’t unusual for Paris to screw up a name. “Large strawberry shortcake tea with a bagel BLT?”
“Yup.”
I handed it over and eyed the customer as she walked away. Her purple-and-yellow spandex leotard and tights fit her like a glove, the cape spilling off her shoulders in a cascade of silk.
The entire block was filled with flammable fabrics today, since the bookstore next door was holding its annual comic book day. Costumes were encouraged.
I loved cosplay, both creating it and seeing it. I may actually love cosplay more than the comics that inspired it, though that was something I’d never admit to a real comic book nerd. I’d be crushed under the weight of their ridicule for being able to list the inseams of Superman’s tights but not his parents’ names.
“Veggie sub on everything bagel, toasted,” Paris called out.
“On it,” I replied, scurrying back to my station. I didn’t mind working on food. The view from in front of the toaster couldn’t be beat.
Through the massive window on the side of our small building, I could see right into the bookstore. And the register. And the guy who was working it.
James Cooper, my oblivious soul mate. He was too far away for me to make out the details of his costume, except that it was black, and he wore no mask. It didn’t matter; I was sure it looked good on him, because everything looked amazing on him.
He was a fellow junior at my school, he ordered a large drip coffee at 4:30 p.m. on his way to work, and he smiled a lot. My crush had bloomed when we’d wound up in the same AP Calculus class at the beginning of the semester. Twelve nonconsecutive hours of his sweet smile and kind eyes was all it had taken for my heart to get hopelessly entangled with his.
When he’d turned around in class last week and told me he hoped to see me at the event, I’d spun a fantasy. I floated invisibly through high school, not a main part of any social strata, so I wasn’t in his circle of friends. But that circle had changed since he’d broken up with his popular/terrible girlfriend. Why couldn’t I swoop in while he was on the outs of his clique?
On my mom’s old sewing machine, I’d create the most magnificent costume and wear it during my shift. He’d see me through the window, abandon his job, and rush over to tell me how talented and amazing I was. Our capes would float behind us as we spun around in a tornado of passion and coffee cups and muffins—
Okay, so like most of my imaginary musings, this dream was a bit far-fetched, but I’d taken confidence in my neatly placed stitches.
If only my costume wasn’t packed away in my backpack. Though the neighboring businesses had all gotten in on the fun, Paris had declared costumes cringey when I’d shown up for work this morning and banned them for the employees. So here I was in the baggy jeans and long-sleeved shirt I’d thrown on right after I’d hopped out of bed. Garb that was unlikely to get me into any kind of tornado of passion.
Perhaps I could change and go over to the bookstore after work, though. Casually peruse the shelves. Bring the tornado of passion to his workplace.
“Hey, Sonia. Can you come over here for a second?”
I handed the sandwich to the waiting customer and walked over to Paris. “I’m about to put a fresh batch of muffins into the oven.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’re all out of mix anyway.” Paris gave me a sweet smile, and it was such a contrast to her previous testiness, I put my mental guard up.
Hana, my newest coworker, rounded the counter. I waved at her, and she responded with a nod, then turned to the register to clock in. I had no idea what her full name was. She was Hana, one word in my head, like Gaga or Beyoncé. She was new this year, had moved from somewhere in California. Though I’d seen her around school, we were usually on different shifts.
“I’m so glad Hana’s here. I need to head out soon, and I’m sure the two of you could cover the place until closing, right?”
I’d opened; I didn’t want to close as well. Plus, I wouldn’t get to go over to the bookstore at all, then! It closed an hour before we did.
Hana didn’t look up from the computer. “Saturday afternoons are busy. There’s usually three of us on.”
“And the bookstore event will make us busier,” I added.
Paris waved a hand. “Oh, now, I’m sure you’ll both be fine.”
Token protest lodged, Hana walked away, leaving me alone with our boss’s daughter. I drifted closer. “Um, I actually, um, I have plans.” The plan was simply changing my outfit, but Paris didn’t need to know that.
A customer walked up and opened his mouth. “Excuse me—”
Without looking at him, Paris held up a hand, and the man subsided, which wasn’t a huge surprise. Paris’s fragile-girl-next-door vibe tended to get most men twisted around her tiny fingers.
Her wide blue eyes turned pleading. They were usually pleading when she asked me to cover for her, which happened a lot. “Please? I have a party to go to tonight, and I need to get my hair and nails done.”
I bit my tongue to keep from asking if it was another high school party. Paris had an odd affinity for showing up at those, though she’d graduated a few years ago.
She clasped her hands in front of her. “You have to help me, girl. It’s going to be the party of the year, I can’t not be there.”
I held my joke about double negatives. “I can’t.”
Paris spoke rapidly over me. “I’ll make sure you get paid for my full shift as well as your own.”
I stopped, and my conscience piped up. Your sister would do it, why can’t you? Funnily enough, my conscience often sounded like my mom.
I thought of Kareena at home. When I’d left for work, she’d been busy ignoring me, stretched out on the tired floral sleeper sofa in our living room in her garish pink work uniform, playing a video game on the console she’d gotten for her eighteenth birthday. Lately most of her spare time and cash seemed to go into video games, the more violent the better. One of the self-help books I’d gotten from the library said that grief often took the form of aggression. I was fine with that, so long as she took her aggression out on animated characters and not me.
Since she’d graduated last May, she’d taken every odd job she could find. In addition to the diner, she also worked at a movie theater. And at a gas station.
For you. There was only so much I could earn when I had to go to school, too. It was Kareena’s jobs that paid our rent.
Damn it. Mentally, I kissed my latest fantasy goodbye. “Okay,” I said quietly, interrupting Paris’s hard sell.
Paris whooped and undid her apron. “Perfect. Hana, Sonia’s in charge.”
Hana, the personified embodiment of a shrug, didn’t respond, as uncaring about my temporary promotion as she was about everything else.
“Oh, you’re leaving now . . . cool,” I said to Pari
“Can someone help me?”
I mentally sighed and stepped up to the register. “About time,” the waiting customer groused.
“Sorry.” I picked up a paper cup and the pen. “What can I get for you?”
“A large iced chai latte with oat milk. And don’t put dairy in it by accident. I swear last time, one of you tried to kill me.”
“Yes, sir.” I kept my strained smile on my face as I rang him up, and he retreated.
“If I wanted to kill him, he’d be dead.”
I jumped at the low, flat murmur right behind me, then checked to make sure the customer had shuffled out of earshot. I handed Hana his empty cup. “Here you go,” I said cheerfully, choosing to ignore her vaguely sinister words.
Hana placed the cup on the counter. Her sleeveless red top was in defiance of the season, but I couldn’t blame her. If I had that cool brightly colored floral tattoo on one arm, I’d ban sleeves forever too.
If you had tattoos at sixteen, you’d be dead by the hands of your ancestors.
Hana cocked her head. Her hair was almost blue-black and ruthlessly straight, the blunt cut just brushing her shoulders. “How long have you worked here?”
I straightened, oddly proud of my tenure at this, my first real job. “Almost six months.”
“I’ve worked here for less than a month, and I can tell you that Paris will forget to make sure you get paid for taking her shift.”
That was an accurate assessment of Paris’s priorities. “I’ll remind her.”
“Hmm. Seems like it would be better to not be a mouse and let her walk all over you.” Hana’s tone did not modulate at all. “If you have plans next time, might want to keep them. I like money too, but the minimum wage they pay us isn’t worth bowing down to the princess.”
I tried to hide my flinch. “Thanks for the advice,” I said, instead of what I really wanted to say, which was, You don’t know me, fuck off.
Or more specifically, my sister works three jobs so I can stay in school, and that minimum wage helps me feel less guilty. Fuck off.
But I kept my lips zipped, because some things were better muttered in my own head.
“Nice perfume, by the way.”
That was a kind thing to say, and usually I’d be happy that someone had complimented my mother’s perfume, but I could only give her a tight smile. Hana went off to fulfill the lactose-intolerant customer’s order. So I wouldn’t dwell on disappointment, I grabbed fresh pastries from the warmer and methodically moved the older ones to the back of the window display.
Without Paris here, maybe I could take the risk and go put my costume on. With the courage of my mask, I could sneak away for a minute to the bookstore on my break and say something sexy to James, like . . . like . . .
“Excuse me, miss, where is the bathroom located?”
No, I could come up with something better than that. The teenager who had asked the question peered at me from behind thick glasses. I straightened and placed the pastry tongs back in their spot. “Around the corner; the code’s 4563.”
“Thanks.”
He left, and I froze. Because behind him was my dream, standing within reach.
With a calm I didn’t feel, I approached the counter, wiping my hands on my apron. James smiled down at me. “Hey, Sonia,” he said, in the deep voice I knew well. I’d spent enough time in class hoping he’d raise his hand to answer a question so I could hear that voice.
Tall and lean, he was dressed in tight black leather and rubber. Did I mention his damn costume was tight?
So tight. Holy crap, that bodysuit was tight. That body was tight.
I tore my gaze away from his stomach. His mother was Indian, his father Black. His skin was a deep, rich dark brown, and it gleamed, the dying sun reflecting off his shaved head and high cheekbones. He had a strikingly perfect face, all interesting hollows and sharp angles. It wouldn’t be a problem to stare at that face for hours, to trace his nose and his firm jaw.
Or his lips.
Nope. Forget his lips.
He smelled so good, like peppermint. Not that I smelled him. It was more like the smell had found me.
Forget the peppermint too. “You’re Batman,” I managed, then I mentally kicked myself.
“That’s right,” he said, and tapped his naked temple. “The mask smelled weird, though. Couldn’t keep it on. Don’t know how Bruce Wayne does it.”
“The real Batman’s costume is probably made of something better than cheap plastic.” Why was I talking about Batman. Why hadn’t I just said hi.
A dimple popped into his cheek. “The real Batman, huh?”
“Obviously not the real one. Batman’s not real.” A child dressed like a bat at the table closest to the register turned toward us, eyes wide. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and wished I wasn’t wearing it in a limp ponytail. “Hey. James. You look great.”
“Thanks.” He looked me up and down, and I felt every inch of my baggy comfort clothes and lack of makeup. “Guess you’re too cool to dress up?”
I nearly laughed at the idea that I was too cool for anything but caught myself. “Not at all. I love cosplay.”
He brightened. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, I used to go to comic cons all the time when I lived in Cleveland.” All the time was probably an exaggeration, but my mom had occasionally gotten tickets from one of her favorite customers. I’d gone mostly to gawk at the cosplayers and learn what I could about crafting. Unfortunately, the opportunities had been more limited since we moved to this much smaller western New York town a few years ago.
“So where’s your mask?”
I tried to look casual and lean on the counter, but I accidentally jostled the stack of cups next to the register. I righted them as unobtrusively as possible. “My boss is anti-costumes.”
“That sucks. It’s been fun seeing people from school. It’s like Halloween came early.”
My shoulders lowered. Had he invited everyone at school? “I bet. Um, what can I get you today? A drip coffee?”
“Hey, you remembered my order.”
Another kick. Why couldn’t I be unbothered like him? Oh, right, because I was an awkward mess who loved him, and he was a track star usually surrounded by equally graceful people. “I’m, yeah, I’m really good at remembering orders, and yours is so easy.” One of those things was true. My crush on him wasn’t entirely due to the fact that he ordered a simple drink, and not a complicated viral hack someone put on the internet, but it wasn’t hindered by it either. “Do you wanna try something else?”
“Nah, that’ll do.”
“Cool.” I turned around and quickly poured the coffee.
“To be honest, I’m glad to see you today. I hoped I would.”
I nearly dropped the hot coffee, but caught it in time. I carefully put the carafe down and picked up the cup and brought it over to him. Thank God Hana was busy on her phone, so her too-observant eyes couldn’t see my internal meltdown over James thinking of me at all.
He pulled out his credit card. “You tutor, right?”
I met his eyes, though it was hard. Like looking at the sun, if the sun was two warm brown pools of chocolate. “I do.” I’d only ever had one paying student, so tutor was probably a stretch. I had decent grades and a fairly good affinity for math, so I periodically posted messages in our class group in the hopes of some nibbles. I hadn’t expected James to nibble, though. Not on anything of mine.
“I’m not doing so hot in calc, and my dad gets on my case if I get anything lower than a B.” There was a slight strain around his eyes, like he had a headache, and I wondered if his dad was tough on him. “I’m sure you’re busy, but do you have room for any students right now?”
The card reader beeped and I pressed the button for a receipt, on autopilot. Meanwhile, my mind short-circuited. “Um. Sure.”
“Cool. It would be convenient, since we work so close to each other.” He tucked his change into the tip jar, because he was a perfect man who tipped service workers. “Want to meet up on Monday around four?”
That was two whole days away. Today. Tomorrow. Monday. Yes, that was how days worked, last time I’d checked. “S-s-sure,” I managed. “Where do you want to meet up? Here?”
“I was thinking my family’s restaurant. It’s a couple blocks over. Gulab?”
I knew of the Indian restaurant, but I’d never been to it. In Cleveland, we’d known a lot of South Asian families, but the community was smaller in Rockville. Since we’d moved here, my mom had been too busy working to socialize anyway. “Yeah, I know it.”
