Coffee kissed the porcelain with a tink, then sloshed up the inside of the mug and curled outward, splashing onto the soft, cotton blue sleeve of Timothée Chalamet’s shirt. The server gasped, grabbed a towel from the apron, and dabbed at him.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”
“No, no, it’s fine. Happens all the time,” Timothée said with an effortless, almost princely calm.
The server rotated his hand, pressing the towel to his wrist with firm but tender waitress care. The citrusy scent of bergamot hair conditioner, mixed with a faint note of Azzaro, toasted slightly by the heat of his morning body, drifted around him in an intoxicating aura.
“May I ask you a question?” Timothée said, eyes lowered to the café table. “Wait — first, I didn’t get your name.”
“Dorinda,” the waitress replied in a whisper with a crack of shyness.
“Dorinda,” he repeated. “That’s beautiful. Your parents must have loved you genuinely. They had the foresight to give you a name apart from the Heathers and Madisons choking the city. May I guess your pronouns? Only if you’re comfortable.”
Being asked this by Timothée Chalamet was the fulfillment of a very specific type of private fantasy. Dorinda nodded without hesitation.
Timothée pressed a hand to his forehead. “I want you to know I honor whatever pronouns you choose. But… if I had to guess…”
Dorinda clutched the towel and coffee pot in anticipation and felt an instinctive urge to urinate.
“Yes,” Timothée said, gathering conviction. “No doubt about it. ‘She/her/hers.’”
A jolt of confusion pinged through Dorinda’s chest. Those were correct. But “no doubt about it”? Was it really that obvious? Was her gender that easy to read?
Unsettled but polite, Dorinda managed, “That’s correct. Thank you for asking.”
Timothée exhaled into his palm. “Okay. I have a question. Look at these.” He gestured to a row of sweetener packets lined up with unnatural precision: Sugar. Sweet’n Low. Equal. Splenda. Stevia. Monk Fruit. “Do they look straight to you? Not just straight, but perfectly aligned? Equal spacing?”
Dorinda examined them. “Yes… except the Splenda. The left side’s pulled up a bit.”
Timothée winced. “Fuck. See? That’s why I asked you. Something told me you’d notice. Dorinda, tell me if this sounds strange, but I feel like we’ve known each other longer than five minutes. Like we were lovers in another life.”
That sounded strange. Very strange. A serious red flag. Yet his soft mustache and sweet aroma neutralized the panic rising up her spinal column.
“I have a theory,” Timothée said. “Well… speculation, really. See, I believe the sweetener you choose in the morning shapes your entire day. I realized this while filming Wonka.”
Dorinda instinctively stepped back. “Table twelve needs napkins…”
“I get it, I do. I don’t want to get you in trouble, but hear me out. Sugar is the classic choice. But it’s poison. Fifteen years off your life. Minimum. Sweet’n Low? Your grandparents loved it, but they also put mercury in their teeth, so clearly you can’t trust their judgment. Put that stuff in your coffee, and you’re buying a gun by noon.”
He plunged deeper.
“Equal and Splenda? Fine, if you enjoy bleached chemicals and disappointing hard-ons. Stevia is from a natural plant, but so what? Poison ivy is a natural plant. Monk fruit… I like it, but do I trust it with my destiny? My future? Am I willing to say ‘fuck my sixties’ just for a sweet cup of coffee today?”
He stacked the packets into one tidy bundle, pressing them tightly together and wavering like a man at a crossroads.
“So which do I choose? Do I sacrifice longevity for flavor? Do I sacrifice flavor for erections? Who am I, Dorinda?”
“Have you… tried black coffee?” she asked gently.
He raked his fingers through his curls. Tears pooled in his greenish eyes.
“Black coffee? No. That’s asking too much. I need familiarity this morning. Okay, I’m going with Stevia. Again.”
He reached for her hands as if they were the last thing keeping him from sliding into a sweetener-induced existential collapse.
“Would you hold me? Just for thirty seconds, then bring me some creamer.”
•••
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