Autumn (Chapter 2) (Patreon)

The coffee shop was adjacent to a small art theater and Autumn walked through the doors the next afternoon. She saw Mike standing in line with nobody behind him. He looked good. When they used to work together at Starbucks, all the girls had crushes on him and she was no exception, although she would never reveal that.

Mike turned and smiled. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

He inspected her. She was dressed in a pair of high waisted jeans and a cute black shirt with sleeves so short that they barely covered her narrow, yet softened shoulders. Her upper arms were so much more fleshy and plush than Mike remembered, a clear indicator of her recent weight gain. “What do you want to drink?”

“I’ll get it.”

His smile dimpled. “No, it's on me. You walked all the way over here, it’s the least I can do.”

She looked at him blankly, then shrugged. “Okay.” Her long dark eyelashes fluttered in thought for a moment. “I’ll have a soy chai, twelve ounce.”

“You got it.” Mike got a little lost in her gaze. Her chocolate eyes were stunning and they complimented her fair skin and beautiful auburn hair perfectly. It seemed she had spent a little extra time on her makeup that afternoon and he took notice. He wasn’t the only one either, as he caught the bearded barista checking her out pretty hard as well. “Go ahead and find a table, I’ll bring it over.”

“Okay.”

Steam rose and hissed from the espresso machine as the hipster behind it prepared the hot beverages. When the drinks were ready Mike put the lids on and walked them over to the small round table next to the window where Autumn was sitting.

“Thanks,” she said.

“My pleasure.” He took his jacket off and sat across from her. “So what happened to your foot?”

She brought her Chai to her nose then set it down. “It was an ankle fracture, kickboxing training at the gym.”

“Really, kickboxing?”

“Yeah, messed up my knee too, but that’s pretty much healed now.”

“That’s too bad.” Mike nursed his Americano carefully. He was nervous. This was what he had been hoping for since he moved. A chance to sit down and have coffee with Autumn. Now it was actually happening and he desperately wanted to make the most of it, but her fuller figure and haughty beauty was not exactly doing anything to put him at ease. Was she always this gorgeous?  “Cool that you were kickboxing though, I’ve always wanted to try something like that.”

She adjusted her hips in her seat. “So, when did you move again?”

He cleared his throat. “Just about a week ago.”

“Why the hill?”

“I just needed a place. Took one of the first apartments I saw.”

She gave him an expressionless and prolonged stare as if she didn’t believe that was the whole story. “Breakup?”

“Yeah.”

“Doing okay?”

He sat up straight and looked her in the eye. “Oh yeah, it was my decision and it was the right thing to do, so it’s good.”

“What happened?”

His americano was beginning to cool down and he took a sip before he spoke. “I don’t know.” He paused, searching for words. ”She was a little bit older, I think we were just in different places in life, wanted different things.” He looked out the window at the busy city street, then back at her. “How about you? You got a boyfriend?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Went through a breakup a few months ago.”

“Do you mind if I ask what happened?”

“I don’t know.” She took a sip of her Chai. “We went to Hawaii together, got in a big fight and split up when we got back.”

Mike had figured she was single but he was relieved all the same when he heard her say it. He had gone through her Facebook and Instagram accounts and had seen a picture or two of the guy he assumed she was talking about. He was young and handsome, seemingly much more like himself than the huge bodybuilder guy he knew she dated a few years prior. “What was the fight about?”

She sighed again. “I wanted to go out to nice restaurants and enjoy myself, he didn’t want to spend money.”

Mike nodded slowly. “Oh.”

“I was like, okay, we’re here, we’re not here very often, I want to go out and have fun…but he wasn’t into it. He said he didn’t want to waste money on needless stuff and said I was too bossy.”

Mike shook his head slowly, but in agreement, although he knew from his experience of working with Autumn, that she most definitely had authoritative aspects to her personality. “It’s not bossy to want to go out to a nice restaurant.”

She rolled her eyes in an exaggerated way that Mike found incredibly sexy, but then again, everything she did was sexy. Just watching her lips move seemed to mesmerize him.

“I know,” she said.

“Relationships are hard. I feel like the closer I get to 30, the heavier everything feels.”

She slid her butt to the back of her chair. “Well you gotta work at them, and you have to be with someone who is willing to work.”

“For sure.” He looked into her eyes and then down at her drink which she was clutching with both hands. Her hands were small, delicate and her nails were manicured a creamy sea-green color. “Are you lactose intolerant?”

Her head tilted upward. “Why because of the soy?”

He was testing her. “Yeah, just curious.”

“Not really, it's just that regular milk upsets my stomach sometimes.”

“So many people around here are gluten free or vegan these days.”

“Omigod yeah.”

“But you’re not?”

“No, I don’t give into trends that easily.”

“I like that.” He smiled. She had passed his test with flying colors. He had dated girls in the past that seemed to be allergic to everything and had multiple dietary restrictions and he found such things to be difficult to navigate during the courting phase of a relationship.

They sipped their beverages and made small talk for a while longer and then Mike said: “Got any pets?”

“Yeah, I have a cat.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Boy. His name is Samson.” She pursed her lips for a moment and smiled through her eyes. Her facial features were delicate and feminie, much like her hands. Mike always thought she looked a little bit like a redheaded Scarlet Johansson, and he found it alluring and intriguing that despite the weight gain, her beautiful face seemed to have remained unchanged and unaffected by the extra pounds, at least in comparison to her hips. She moved her chair backwards a little. “You wanna meet him?”

“Yeah.” He took a final swig of his coffee then stood up. His eyes drew down towards her legs which were packed so snuggly in her stylish jeans. Still in her seated position Mike had a clear view of her hips and thighs. She was even bigger and curvier than he had initially realized. He had always known Autumn to have a small, tight little hourglass figure, but looking at her now she seemed more bottom heavy and pear-shaped, much to his delight. He watched as she scooted back her chair further and placed her hands on the table. “Need help?”

“I can manage,” she said in a haughty if not breathy voice. With a little more effort than he was expecting, she heaved herself up carefully. Mike moved a chair out of her way to clear a path then grabbed her Chai, it was empty.

“I’ll recycle these real quick,” he said.

She nodded then focused her attention back on walking without putting too much weight on her foot. Mike held the door open and they headed outside.

He kept in stride with her and they crossed the street and continued to walk slowly until they were in front of her building. They stopped.

Mike put his hands in his pockets as a cool breeze chilled the air. “You uh, want a cigarette before you go?”

“I’d need a jacket.”

“You can wear mine.”

“No, it’s okay.” She paused for a moment then smiled at him. “We can smoke inside.”

“You can smoke in your apartment?”

“Not really, but I do sometimes. I just turn the fan on and try to blow it out the window.”

“Okay, sure.”

He followed her to her front door. Her building was old and quaint, probably 1890’s construction, he thought. She led him inside to a small maroon carpeted lobby, then around the corner to the left. She took keys out of her brown leather handbag and unlocked the door to her ground level studio. They went in and a black cat with a lion’s cut greeted her cautiously.

“Hey buddy, how are you?” She stroked his furry mane and ran her fingers down his little shaven body. Mike crouched down and brought his hand to the cat's mouth, only to be shunned. Autumn smiled. “Don’t take it personally. It takes him a while to warm up to strangers.”

Mike smiled back then stood up and looked around. Out of the handful of years that he had known Autumn, he had never been in her apartment before. Somehow, it was exactly as he pictured. It was not a big place and there was a queen size bed in the center of the main room. To the right there was a blank canvas propped up on an easel, and behind that was a black leather sofa in front of a wall mounted flat screen TV. On the other side of the sofa there was a small desk with an open laptop computer.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Almost five years, ever since I graduated from college.”

“You work from home?”

She draped her purse over the side of a chair and turned towards him, her stylish heeled boots creaking the old oak flooring in the process. “Mmhmm.”

He took his jacket off and hung it on the coat rack against the wall near the front door. “You like that?”

“It’s a little stressful, but it’s been nice with the leg and everything, not having to commute.”

He followed her around the bed and through an open doorway where there was a small kitchen. Her place wasn’t exceedingly clean, but it wasn’t overly messy either. A candle sat on the table of a tiny breakfast nook, and more than a few dirty dishes were piled in the sink. “How have you been getting food and stuff? I’d think it would be hard to lug grocery bags all the way from QFC with your injury.”

“I manage,” she said blankly. “I usually get Amazon Fresh deliveries or take an Uber.”

“That’s good.”

She took an empty coffee mug from one of the cupboards, placed it on the table, then turned on the kitchen fan which was built into the ceiling. “What about you?”

Mike sat down in a chair next to the table. “What do I do for groceries?”

She shoved the kitchen window upward, then took out a silver cigarette case and opened it. “No, what are you doing for work these days?”

“I just finished a big video editing contract, but got hired at the Google Campus up in Fremont with a facilities company, JLL it’s called.”

She placed a cigarette between her lips and Mike lit it for her with his zippo. “Wow, that’s cool, I love Fremont.”

“I actually start on Monday. We’ll see how it goes I guess,” he said before lighting one himself. “So what are the best places to eat around here?”

Autumn leaned her butt against a small wooden ledge that was part of the wall that separated the kitchen from the rest of the apartment. She really did have an amazing body. Her thighs and hips were shapely and substantial; and while her waist was still small, there was a bit of a soft belly roll poking out just above the high waistband of her jeans causing her black top to ride up slightly toward her breasts.

“There’s a lot of good places to eat around here,” she said. “There’s ramen, Little Woody’s, Fogan Cocina across the street, tons of great Thai places as well.”

“I’ve been getting Hot Mama’s pizza sometimes, it’s not bad.”

“Yeah that place is good but I tend to gain weight if I eat that kind of stuff.”

Mike's heart skipped a beat after she said that. She said it almost as if she was unaware that she had already gained weight. Of course, to be fair, she had seen herself everyday for the past four years while he certainly had not. To Mike, her curvier, more voluptuous appearance was obvious, but perhaps in her mind she looked the same as she always did. She was a mystery to him and a bit of a walking contradiction. Just the fact that she smoked cigarettes seemed to go against her progressive, intelligent and adventurous personality; but it was something Mike always liked about her as it told him she wasn’t quite as rigid and stuck up as she sometimes appeared. He remembered when they went on a date a few years back. She made a big deal over the fact that she had skipped out on the gym in order to meet with him. She was pretty fit then, and while very cute and attractive, she wasn’t what he would call curvy, and she was never a girl with overly prominent T and A. Looking at her now it was evident, and with her injury understandably so, that she hadn’t set foot in a gym in quite some time and she had T and A in abundance.

Mike flicked ash into the coffee mug and gazed up at her slowly and lustfully. He cleared his throat. “You look great.”

“Thanks.” She took a short puff on her smoke and looked back at him. His tight shirt showed off his broad shoulders and lean muscular arms. His piercing blue eyes brooded at her so longingly that they nearly took her breath away. “You too.” There was a moment of silence that to her felt like an eternity. “Still have your motorcycle?”

“Yep, still got it,” he said proudly. “You don’t have a car right?”

“No. Like I said I take Uber, there’s no place to park around here anyway.”

“Right.” He flicked more ash into the mug.  “I uh…I know you probably got a few more hours of work but we’ll have to do this again sometime.”

She stood up straight as her eyes brightened. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

He took a final drag on his smoke then stabbed it out. He rose. “Alight, I should get going.”

“Okay,” she said.

He took a step forward and they gazed at each other face to face. She was so young and ripe for the taking. Her lips were full and plump and looked so delicious Mike could hardly stand it. He thought about grabbing her and kissing her right then and there but his nerves held him back. “Call or text anytime, you know I’ll always be close by.”

She smiled in her understated way. “Yeah I know where you live.”

He walked over to the front door, unhooked his jacket and put it on. “See you later Autumn.”

“Bye Mike.”