Love in 24 Frames Read online

  “I love wearing the apron, though,” Shota said.

  “Green suits you.” Oh my God.

  But he took the weird compliment in stride. “Thank you.”

  I kept staring at him. Shota very much looked to be waiting on… something. I’d already paid at the counter. Was I supposed to do something else?

  “I’ll let you eat,” he stated after I failed to fill the silence with whatever he was searching for. “Maybe I’ll see you at the studio tonight?”

  I started to answer, whether “yes, of course,” or “no, I’m leaving forever and can’t explain why,” I didn’t know. Because it’d occurred to me at that moment—his tone. It wasn’t that professional one I used with my own clients, where I asked various niceties but really didn’t care, or thought, Please God say you’re busy and we’ll have to email instead of have an in-person meeting because I don’t have the mental stamina to deal with another person today. Shota sounded truly interested in whether or not I’d walk into the studio tonight, and that made me wonder… had he declined the invitation from Noah last night?

  “Do you want to join me?” I asked quickly, pointing at the spare seat.

  Shota’s eyebrows went up. “Well, I’m working,” he said, laughing a little bit.

  “Oh. Right. I mean—of course. Sorry.” Please let me melt into the grout of the floor….

  Shota looked over his shoulder, then said, “I have a break coming up.”

  Come again?

  Say what?

  “Give me five minutes?”

  I nodded in a daze. “Five minutes.”

  “Great.” Shota walked away then but glanced back at me a few times before disappearing through an Employees Only door.

  I didn’t move.

  My coffee cooled.

  The cheese of my caprese sandwich hardened to the plate.

  But I didn’t dare get comfortable. I didn’t want to shatter the fragility of the moment and realize it was all a dream. That I’d imagined Shota was my waiter, and in fact, no one was going to be joining me.

  But in what felt like exactly five minutes, Shota came back through the door, sans apron. He walked directly toward my table, pulled out the second chair, and took a seat. He smiled and rubbed his palms against his thighs.

  “Welcome back,” I said.

  “Thanks.” His expression faltered, and he pointed to the food. “Is something wrong with the sandwich?”

  “Huh? Oh. N-no!” I quickly motioned to it. “Please.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Have you eaten?”

  Shota hesitated. “No….”

  I pointed again at the sandwich, sliced in two.

  He gingerly picked up one piece. “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Groves.”

  “Declan. Please. Mr. Groves makes me sound over-the-hill.” I cleared my throat and touched my graying hair. “I’m not quite that old.”

  Shota put a hand over his mouth as he said between bites, “I think of you like a fine, aged wine.”

  I blinked, hand still in my damp hair. “You do?”

  He swallowed and said, “Sure. A smooth, full-bodied, sophisticated personality.”

  I had to keep myself from looking for a hidden camera crew.

  Shota set the sandwich down. “Can I tell you something?”

  I nodded.

  “For a few months now, I’ve had a bit of a… crush. On you.”

  I finally lowered both hands to the tabletop and straightened in my seat. “A crush?” Is there an echo in here?

  “It’s strictly against WAS policy—fraternizing with clients,” Shota explained. “I guess something happened a few years ago at their Upper East Side location between a staff member and client, so there are pretty serious rules in place now.”

  My throat was suddenly parched, and I had to swallow a few times before I managed to ask, “Why are you telling me? I mean, if you can be reprimanded for it.”

  Shota’s brows rose. “Well, we’re not at Wandering Artist right now.”

  That was true.

  “I’ve been hoping you would say something,” he continued, “because then it wouldn’t have been initiated by me, understand?” He laughed and a bit of color flushed his face. “I’d worked out an entire plan too—asking for your help moving something heavy before you left for the night. Then we could walk out together, officially after hours. Would that have worked?”

  “I—I’m not sure. I don’t know if I’d have believed you needed help. Because you’re….” I made unclear motions with my hands. “Fit,” I finally decided on.

  Shota smiled again.

  “But I’d have done anything you asked.”

  “You’re sweet.”

  “What about Noah?” I blurted out.

  Shota looked confused for about half a second, then shook his head. “Oh him? No. I’m not interested in cradle-robbing.”

  This couldn’t be happening.

  “I hope you won’t be tongue-tied around me anymore.”

  “I’ll try not to be.”

  Shota picked up his half of the sandwich, studied the cooled cheese, then set it down again. He was frowning a little. “My timing isn’t very good.”

  “No?”

  He shook his head. “But it was kismet, you walking in here.” Shota reached across the table and set his hand palmdown like mine, the tips of our fingers barely touching. “We’re understaffed, so I’ve been coming in for morning and afternoon shifts. Then I’m at the studio until eleven o’clock.”

  “Oh.”

  Shota looked pained, his expressive brows knitted together. “Not that I’m asking you to wait. But if you’re free in… January… I’m definitely interested in a date or something to that effect.”

  My palms felt sweaty against the tabletop. I moved them, and sure enough, nervous condensation had gathered, outlining where my hands had been. I hastily rubbed at the spots with the sleeves of my shirt and said without looking at Shota, “Since 6:49 p.m. on June third, I’ve prayed for this moment to happen.”

  “What happened on June third?”

  Leaning back, I expelled a breath I felt I’d been holding for half a year, and said with devastating sincerity, “I met you.”

  Shota blinked. He looked away, studied the windows to his left, and touched his mouth in a self-conscious way.

  “I can wait two more weeks.”

  Shota nodded in acknowledgment but didn’t say anything.

  “What’s the W stand for?”

  He hastily rubbed one eye before looking at me again. “S-sorry?”

  I motioned to where he usually wore his name tag. “Shota W. I’ve—erm—wondered for a long time.”

  “Watanabe.”

  Shota Watanabe.

  “Shota!” An exceptionally tall woman was waving a tattooed arm from the counter.

  “I’m on break,” Shota called.

  She shook her head. “The espresso machine seized up again!”

  Shota’s shoulders slumped. He nodded at her before looking at me again. “I have to go.”

  “Okay.”

  He took out a ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket, snatched my napkin, and hastily wrote on it. “Here’s my number.” Shota stood.

  “If I see you at the studio, why would I need it?” I asked, watching him.

  Shota smiled, then shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems like the right thing to do.”

  I took the offering, and he left the table in a hurry to help his coworkers as the line of customers began to back up. I looked down at the napkin.

  Dearest Declan—

  555-0199

  Shota W.

  I SAT hunched over my desk at Harrison & Cooper, scribbling out a storyboard on printer paper of an amended ending to my stop-motion film. Luckily, the alternate conclusion wouldn’t require any reshooting, which would have set the project back God only knew how long.

  When I’d begun renting the studio at Wandering Artist, it was because I craved having an offic
ial workplace. My apartment was suitable for crafting puppets and doing all of the postproduction, like editing and voice-over, but it wasn’t a practical location for building a large set. Nor was the lighting all that decent. I had wall-sized windowed doors that opened onto a balcony, and trying to control the level of sunlight filtering in and out at all hours of the day was too complicated. My little shorts might have only been hobbies, but I still prided myself in their quality.

  I technically hadn’t even had a project underway when I snagged the long-term availability of 14-0848, Mimosa. At least not until I’d fallen head over heels for Shota. After failing again and again to talk to him, I’d decided to make him a movie. Let the puppets say and show what flustered and confounded me. Telling him through stop-motion actions, second by painstaking second, was a way of being seen without being seen.

  If that made sense.

  But now that we’d spoken—that Shota had, without any real apprehension, told me he, too, was interested—the sort of sad ending I’d plotted out didn’t seem… right. I still wanted to make him this film—I was three-fourths of the way done already. And maybe it wouldn’t be an icebreaker anymore, but if it was the thought that counted, it’d be an all right Christmas gift.

  I mean, better than an ugly tie, at least.

  Not that Shota wore ties while fixing coffeemakers and greeting socially awkward artists. But still. The point was—

  “Groves,” called the gruff voice of my boss.

  I froze, scrambled to cover the drawings with a stack of tax documents, and turned in my chair. “Mr. Barnes?”

  “How’s the Charleston account coming along?” Barnes was tall, rail-thin, and with dark eyes that had no sparkle, no joy. And his frown was so distinct, so persistent, it made him seem more like a caricature than a real man.

  “Ah… it’s….” I looked at the desk and quickly pawed through several thick files before finding Charleston buried at the bottom. “It’s right here.”

  “I asked how it was coming, not where it was.”

  Had I even started yet? I was afraid to look.

  “Coming,” I echoed with a quick, jittery nod.

  Barnes’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll need it done by tonight.”

  “Oh. Er—”

  “Is that going to be a problem?”

  “No. Of course not, sir.” I smiled automatically, waited until Barnes had walked away to scare the living hell out of another employee, then opened the file.

  I hadn’t even started.

  Great.

  I leaned back in the computer chair, stuck my hands into my trouser pockets, and stared at the ceiling. My fingers touched a napkin. I immediately perked up and took out the phone number. The ink had smudged a little from returning to the office while it was still spitting that awful mix of rain and snow. I glanced around the open layout of desks, confirmed that Barnes had moved on to one of the offices down the hall where the managers resided, and removed my cell phone. I punched in the number and sent Shota a text message.

  I got a response almost immediately.

  New phone who dis?

  Fair enough. I’d forgotten to actually include my name.

  It’s Declan.

  U got a big dick Declan?

  I looked at the napkin again. Those were 9s, not 0s. Shit.

  Wrong number.

  No its rite. I’ll suck u for $20

  No, thank you.

  I blocked the number and tried again.

  This is my number. It’s Declan Groves, by the way.

  I’d been up to my elbows in the Charleston file all afternoon before my cell phone vibrated with an incoming text. I so rarely received messages from anyone that the reverberation against the desktop startled me. I looked at the screen.

  Thank you, dearest.

  I STUMBLED through the door of Wandering Artist at quarter after eight.

  Shota looked up from his computer, smiled suddenly, and stood. “Hey. I was wondering if you’d changed your mind about coming in tonight.”

  “Busy night with the Charlestons.”

  Shota cocked his head to the side and waited for clarification.

  “I’m a CPA.”

  “Learn something new about you every day.”

  I thought of Noah’s onion comment. I wasn’t nearly as interesting as they imagined me to be. Clearing my throat, I set a take-out bag that I’d been clutching on the desk’s countertop. “I got you this.”

  Shota reached into the bag and took out a plastic container of still-hot broth. He removed a second container of sliced meat and noodles before looking at me. “You brought me pho?”

  “From Pho Palace. I don’t know if you even like—”

  “I love pho.”

  The stiffness in my back and shoulders eased. “It’s only… I noticed you eat a sandwich for dinner every night. And… I think they’re from the café.”

  Shota chuckled. “Employee discount,” he confirmed.

  I touched the bag, peered inside at the package of bean sprouts, jalapeño, fresh basil, and lime, then said, “I thought m-maybe… since you don’t have time for a date… I’d bring the dinner to you.”

  Shota took my hand and gave it a brief squeeze. “Thank you. This was very thoughtful.”

  His warm skin and firm touch sent actual tingles all the way up my arm. Like little pinpricks of light. My suit felt constrictive and my tie as if it were cutting off oxygen. It’d been a long time—too long—since I’d been touched like that. Even something so innocent as holding hands.

  “I won’t keep you,” Shota said. He let go and winked. “Let me know if you need anything, Declan.”

  I took the elevator upstairs and entered my shared studio. “Hello.”

  Noah grunted some vague acknowledgment under his breath. He sat in front of an easel, staring at his work in progress. He didn’t typically suffer from the moodiness of an artist, but I supposed we all had our days. I went through the motions of hanging up winter clothes, rolling back sleeves, and turning on the set lights. I sat on my stool, retrieved my camera, and checked the settings.

  Everything was the same.

  And yet—not. My entire adult life was like the tension in a beat growing bigger, stronger, more enormous, with no end in sight. The world held its collective breath for too long. Then the drop hit without warning and the party slammed to the floor with unfathomable energy. A pressure release never felt in my entire forty-eight years. Dancing and sweating and living like it was my very last hurrah.

  All because a thoughtful man named Shota took a moment to smile my way when no one else did.

  I collected my tripod, set the camera into position, and took the first frame of the night.

  Click.

  Stop.

  Move the action of each puppet a fraction.

  Click.

  Stop.

  Another tweak.

  Click.

  Twenty-four times for one usable, fluid second of motion.

  “D,” Noah said.

  “Hmm?”

  Click.

  Stop.

  Adjust.

  “He said no.”

  I glanced sideways. “Who said no?”

  “Shota. Last night.”

  I paused and turned to study the back of Noah’s head. “Oh.”

  He spun around. “Some crap about it being against policy to date clients.”

  So it sounded like Shota was pushing technicalities on my behalf and enforcing the rules hard and fast on Noah’s. But who was I to judge how someone dealt with unwanted advances? Shota probably felt it was the best way to gently let the kid down without creating tension. And if word got to the CEO, he’d be able to confidently say he parroted back protocol of the studio’s employees.

  This was definitely confirmation for me that I’d have to tread carefully around Shota while at the studio, though. For his sake. I would probably have to move locations after I finished this project too. Just so my presence in his life didn’t get him sc
olded. Assuming the date we weren’t even bound to have until the new year went over well enough for a second.

  And third.

  And enough to lose count of.

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said politely, hoping that was good enough to conclude the conversation.

  I took another photo.

  “How do you deal with it?”

  I altered the puppet’s stance a bit. “Deal with what?”

  “Rejection.”

  I stopped working again and looked at Noah. “That’s a bit rude.”

  “I don’t mean it to be. You—you’re single.”

  “By choice.” Sort of. “Not because I get snubbed every other week.”

  Noah shrugged. “I’m not used to being told no.”

  “Rejection is part of life.”

  Noah muttered something under his breath.

  I stared at him a moment longer before returning to my project. Being hyperfocused on the repetitive, detail-oriented work of stop-motion helped me release stress after a long day. Even more so now, since the morning had been spent wallowing in my own self-pity.

  “I’ll try again,” Noah said, coming to a conclusion as if we’d been talking the entire time.

  “Disappointment hurts,” I murmured, not looking up from my work, “but as my niece says, don’t be a creep. Shota said no—leave it at that.”

  I heard the wheels of his stool turn on the linoleum floor and could feel Noah staring. “You do know that means he’s gonna turn you down too, right?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Click.

  Stop.

  Adjust the puppet.

  “D. You hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. You keep pining away over there.” Noah stood and clattered about as he put his tools away for the night. “I’m going to go get laid.”

  THE CHARLESTON report had eaten into my stop-motion time. Just shy of three hours didn’t produce much content. And after trying to squeeze in a final twenty-four frames for the night, I was late locking up the studio.

  As I entered the lobby, Shota clicked off the wall-mounted television and buttoned his coat. He glanced toward the elevator and said, “There’s my last straggler.”