Banking on the idea that the kid probably wouldn’t be working on a weekend, at least not at a time that Liam could spare around his double shifts at The Nook, Liam waited until the following Monday to bother venturing into the uptown region once again.

It was slightly past a quarter after three and Liam was searching his surroundings with wide eyes, not unlike a predator lurking around a forest, waiting for its prey. He had tuned out most of the thoughts zooming around him in the bustling traffic, so they were no louder than low murmurs to his open mind. He wanted to be aware of his physical environment that afternoon. Something within him told him that just trying to listen wouldn’t help, not now, not in this situation. His nerves were running on high as he walked the same route as the previous week, noting some familiar faces he had passed before on their afternoon routines. There were quite a few similarities, he was beginning to notice, just as a bike whizzed past him, weaving between the crowds in a blinding fury.

Liam glared after him, wanting to shout a demeaning curse his way for such reckless riding, but the words choked up in his throat as his eyes caught a second glimpse of the bike’s rider. He didn’t much remember what the kid looked like, but he could tell it was him, the same backpack with a hole in the top, the same slightly baggy pants, the same black mountain bike.

He didn’t hesitate as his feet pushed him forward, moving without any conscious demand as his eyes narrowed to try and follow the boy and his bike, almost out of sight, nearly two blocks away. He paused outside the coffee shop once there, taking a moment to gain his composure, to think, to coax his nerves to settle. But his heart was thumping wildly in his chest like he was just called back at the dentist’s office, his stomach flip-flopping unhappily. His hands at even broke out with a slight sweat, and as his eyes landed on a familiar black bike chained up the front window, he was flooded with a wave of second thoughts. What’s the point? He wondered, considering just turning around and leaving. What good would come of it, walking in there and finding out if the boy actually does have thoughts? Maybe it’s just some weird mutation. Maybe he is normal.

But maybe it’s something more, a little voice spoke up at the back of his mind. And that little voice was enough of a push, and Liam entered the rustic, albeit homey, coffee shop with a deep, steadying breath.

The coffee shop was a quaint little place, filled with a few standard tables and chairs, a mess of couches were set in the one corner for a more welcoming display, and there were even chairs set up at the counter. It wasn’t very crowded, which was to be expected at the time of day, and most of the customers were of middle and high school age, leading Liam to feel unbearably old.

But an even older, gentle voice pulled Liam from his assessment. “Can I get you anything, honey?” it asked from behind the main counter, and Liam turned to find a woman, well into her seventies, staring at him with a warm, amiable grin. Her gray hair, so tethered with white that it shone almost silver, was pulled back into a messy bun. She was wearing a thick, wool sweater that was decked out with crafty, sewn on leaves and trees of felt, the type of sweater that only a grandmother could pull off, partly covered up by a dark green apron. Wringing her hands together out of nervous habit, she tilted her head to the side and lifted her brow, curious.

“Oh,” Liam closed his jaw, flushing as he realized he was taking much too long to respond. His cheeks warmed and he scanned the menu, scrawled across a black board behind the counter, garnished with a frame of fancy doodles. “Um,” he hummed uncertainly, exceedingly aware of the blush turning his cheeks quickly to a beet red. He hadn’t even planned on ordering anything, but he couldn’t very well sit in the shop empty handed. So he murmured with an ever deepening blush, “Sorry, I’ve never been here before.”

The woman’s smile turned even pleasanter, if possible, her cheeks squishing up around her eyes, highlighting her laugh lines. “Take your time, sweetie.”

Liam found himself smiling in her presence, relaxing for the first time since heading out for the coffee shop after work. He exhaled a breath full of nerves and, for a moment, forgot why he was in the coffee shop in the first place. “So what’s good?”

“Well, I’m a fan of the hot chocolate myself,” she said with a merry chuckle, glancing at the chalked up menu. “But we just got in our pumpkin spice this week. That’s always a crowd pleaser.”

“Pumpkin spice?” he echoed. “You know, I think I’ll—”

“Grandma, that Miniskey order’s all wrong,” a younger, boyish voice interrupted him, its owner blushing and stammering an embarrassed apology upon realizing his untimely entrance. But as he looked at Liam, he gawked, his eyes widening. “Oh… shit.”

“Daniel!” the woman hissed, swatting the boy on the arm with the dishtowel that had been hanging from the front pocket of her apron. She muttered a few more hushed words at the boy, but Liam didn’t hear them.

Liam was too busy studying the boy to pay attention.

It was him, and he took a minute simply to take him in before even bothering to listen, his eyes shifting from head to hip, as far as he could see past the counter. The kid was dressed in a simple band t-shirt and jeans, both of which hung loosely from his lanky frame, but not unattractively so. A similar dark green apron was tied limply around his waist, and his hands fooled with the excess strings at the front as he bowed his head and nodded under the woman’s harsh words. His face was nothing spectacular, plain really, though his brow was hard, severe, and he had a mound of light brown dreadlocks drawn into a tie behind his back that made him stand out from his surroundings, rather than blend in like he might.

The woman let out a heavy sigh, stirring Liam from his thoughts. “You take care of the counter, watch your mouth, and I’ll go straighten out the Miniskey order. You know Kirby, can’t ever get one all right,” she said, patting the boy’s cheek as she passed by him and disappeared through a curtain that led to the back of the shop, leaving Liam and her grandson to the stiff, tense silence that fell as soon as her smile was out of the room.

The kid turned toward Liam, a sheepish smile crawling upon his lips. His cheeks blemished with a guilty blush, he scratched at a spot behind his left ear. “So, um, did you order yet?” he asked, picking up a pad of paper and playing with a pen. He doodled at the corner of the page, keeping his eyes low the entire time.

Liam only continued to stare at him, wide-eyed, his tongue ostensibly twisted into a knot far too complicated for him to undo.

Hearing nothing, the boy raised his gaze from the counter. His brow knitted in the middle. “You’re not here to order something, are you?” he asked, his voice lowering. He knew better, and he straightened from the counter, his brow flattening and lips turning down just slightly. And with his eyes scampering across Liam’s form, his mind rushed off in a direction he only hoped was wrong. “Shit, shit, shit,” he started to chant and ran a hasty hand over his scalp, huffing out a breath as he swung around the end of the counter and came to stand before Liam. He was a few inches shorter, but he looked the customer over from head to toe, his eyes wild with unease.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, crazed eyes shifting madly to make sure no one was listening in. “You’re hurt, aren’t you? Shit, why didn’t you say anything the other day! Is it bad? How bad? No, wait, don’t tell me, just…”

He trailed to a sigh, rubbing at his face.

Liam only stared, bemused.

And unreservedly entranced.

The kid did not seem to pick up on the humored smile that had crossed Liam’s sealed lips, however, or the way he was looking at him with narrowed eyes, a furrowed brow and a cocked head. He was too busy assuming the worst. “Look, we can work something out, okay?” the boy continued, looking hopeful. “I’ll… I’ll pay for your hospital bill and whatever else, okay? Just, I don’t know, just please don’t press charges. We can’t…” He paused, dropping his voice. The blush darkened his cheeks even more. “My family can’t deal with that right now. We’ve got enough to deal with, and my dad is struggling enough just to make ends meet for me to go to community college next year and it’s not looking good and he’s still got my brother and sister to take care of and feed and everything, and we really, really, really can’t deal with anything major like this right now. I’ll help pay for the damages, and, shit, I don’t know, some free coffee. Do you like coffee? You can have whatever, on the house, my treat, for as long as you need to, or want, I guess, just please.”

Only then did the boy take a moment to meet the customer’s twinkling eyes, feeling the man’s odd stare upon him. He withered, automatically throwing out an apology for speaking so fast, assuming the odd look was for his rash, weird tirade.

And in part, it was, though not entirely.

Liam was staring at the boy with such large, sparkling eyes because he had never seen anyone like him.

In his twenty-three years of life, he had never encountered someone quite like the young man standing before him. He had never been in the presence of, dare he say, a normal human being. But, no, no, that wasn’t exactly true. This boy was far from normal, Liam reminded himself with a troubled blink. He had been around normal human beings; he could read normal humans. He read them every day for well over a decade now, from the moment his eyes opened in the morning until the very moment they fell shut at night, when he succumbed to slumber and the much needed silence that night brought with it.

Every day he was bombarded with the thoughts and feelings of total strangers, sometimes even when he cared not to hear any at all. Some people’s thoughts were too loud to be ignored, crying out for help, begging for attention. That he was used to. That was normal. But this?

This was far from normal. There wasn’t a normal thing about this boy, this young man. He stared at him as he rambled, thoroughly confused and bewildered as to what the kid was even going on about or why. In any normal situation he would merely listen to the kid’s thoughts, pick up on a couple of his emotions and understand his reasoning entirely. Here, though, he was utterly lost, completely out of the loop. He hadn’t the slightest clue of how to react, no cues to go by.

“You’re… you’re not hurt, are you?”

Liam straightened up at the sound of the boy’s uncertain tone and felt the back of his neck warming as he realized how close he had been leaning while studying the odd human. And that’s what he was—an odd human. That’s all there was to it, no matter how poorly that fact sat with Liam. Terribly uncertain as far as how to act in this kid’s presence, he studied his boyish face before shaking his head, hesitant. “No,” he responded in a quiet voice. He raised one dark eyebrow, a thought occurring to him. “Did you want me to be?”

The boy nearly squawked at the question. “No, shit, no, it was an accident, I swear,” he sputtered out, his chest rising at an alarming rate. His mouth felt unbearably dry, but he swallowed anyway, trying to rid of the lump that had settled into his throat since laying eyes on this customer. A part of him had been worrying over this since the incident, and he had blessed his luck that this man hadn’t showed up at the coffee shop to tear him apart for being so reckless. Now, though, he felt like throwing up. His lunch wasn’t sitting too well since the man had entered the shop, and the way he kept looking at him wasn’t helping. He narrowed his eyes. “What?” he wondered; the man had been giving him the same wide-eyed look after the incident. It was… unsettling, like he had this man’s undivided attention.

Liam blinked and shook his head. “Nothing,” he chirped, forcing a little smile. “I’m Liam, by the way.”

The boy eyed Liam’s outstretched hand with a weary look but gave it a firm shake after a moment. “Dan,” he reciprocated. Confused.

With a light, real smile sidling easily across his lips, Liam readjusted his shoulder bag and nodded, taking a step back. “All right, well, I’ll see you around then, Dan,” he said and turned away without another word, leaving Daniel and the coffee shop in the same quiet confusion that he heard every time he was in the peculiar boy’s presence.