Coffee Boy

1.

Kieran expected Heidi Norton’s campaign office to involve a fancy building. A stern exterior. Heavy security. Something intimidating, or at least austere.

Instead, the San Antonio branch of the Norton campaign resides on the top floor of a completely average commercial building. The elevator is slow, the floor is plasticky, and fluorescent lights flicker out of a speckled gray ceiling. The sign on the office door is crooked, and inside there’s a jumble of cramped desks and cramped people mixed in with printers and filing cabinets. The door is ajar and the windows are open, letting in a trickle of summer breeze, but it’s still agonizingly hot.

Kieran stands in the door for a long moment, his work-appropriate satchel clasped under his arm, feeling altogether more anxious than he wanted to. His pronoun pin gleams on the lapel of a shirt he neglected to iron, and his binder’s already sticky with sweat. A few people turn to look at him.

Kieran clears his throat. Hi? I’m the new intern.

A middle-aged white lady sitting at the desk nearest to Kieran gives him a benevolent smile. That’s right! I forgot we were getting someone new. I’m Marie. Finances.

Kieran. He stretches across her desk to shake Marie’s hand, then settles stiffly back against the door. I don’t know about finances, but I’m excited to get started. If he says it often enough, maybe it’ll become true. Nice to meet you.

Marie nods, smiling. You’ll want to talk to Seth, dear. He’s in his office right now.

Seth? The name is unfamiliar, and Kieran blanches. Wait, is Marcus here? I was supposed to see Marcus.

Marie shakes her head. No, no, he won’t be in until later. Seth handles everything when Marcus isn’t around.

Okay. It’s not okay. Kieran feels his guts freeze. It’s bad enough that Marcus got him into this whole internship situation—now he’s not even around to handle the introductions? Kieran smothers his nerves and scans the room, catching sight of the one other door. Is that Seth’s office?

Marie tuts and waves him back. Now, wait a minute. He said he was making an important phone call. You don’t want to interrupt Seth when he’s on the phone! She chuckles, and a few people nearby laugh uncomfortably. Have a seat, dear. He’ll be out soon.

There’s really nowhere to sit except at a chair across from Marie’s desk, like he’s settling in for a consultation. Kieran sits, unwillingly. He’s hoping Marie will go back to work and let him fade into the background, but she keeps watching him. He smiles vaguely and averts his eyes.

She leans forward anyway, clearly intent on engaging him. "Kieran, you are the administrative intern, aren’t you?"

That’s me.

Oh, that’s so funny. Marie beams. "Marcus thought you were a boy. She winks, like they’re sharing a joke. When Kieran stiffens and stares at her, the smile slowly slides off her face. I’m sorry. I’m sure it was just a mistake—"

He wasn’t wrong, Kieran snaps.

He waits for some kind of clarity to dawn on Marie, but she just looks more and more confused. He feels himself blushing. I’m a guy, he says, loudly. Thanks.

I’m sorry, Marie repeats, bafflement written all over her face. She’s studying him like she just can’t make the pieces fit.

Kieran grips his knees. Trust Marcus to promise him a trans-friendly workplace and not even bother to find out if anyone around him is trans-friendly.

It’s your hair, Marie says finally, with hopeful satisfaction. I’m just not used to seeing such long hair on boys—

Yeah. I get it. Even to his own ears, his voice sounds sharp and mean. Kieran can feel people turning to look at them, probably as bewildered as Marie, and he suddenly needs to get out of the room. He can’t handle the mystified stares or the inevitable questions that come any time he tries to say who he is.

His options are hiding in the hallway outside or diving deeper into hell, and if he walks out of the office now, he’s pretty sure he’ll never be able to make himself go back in. He squares his shoulders, gets up, and walks brusquely over to Seth’s door. He ignores Marie’s hurried protest and knocks, hard.

Because honestly, fuck this guy’s phone call.

It feels like approximately forever before the door finally opens. A tall, thin guy with black hair—Seth, presumably—glares down at Kieran from the doorway. He has a landline phone pressed to his ear, the cord stretching away toward a desk across the room.

Kieran can hear somebody mumbling through the phone. Seth presses a hand over the mouthpiece and hisses, "What?"

Kieran feels an internal shriveling when Seth looks at him, like he’s being dissected. Seth has bright, cutting eyes and an unshakable stare and a cold, angular face. He lands right at the intersection of scary and scary hot, and for a second Kieran doesn’t know what to do with the mixture of hostility and intrigue twisting in his gut.

If he were a lesser man, he’d probably clutch his satchel to his chest to put a barrier between them. But Kieran is not a lesser man, and he really wants out of this room, so he slings his satchel over his shoulder and adopts a presumptuous smile. Good morning, he says. Kieran Mullur. New intern. He looks past Seth to see three desks and a couple of table fans working overtime. Perfect. Mind if I put my stuff down in here?

The look on Seth’s face says that he does mind—his eyebrow twitches a little—but he jerks his head angrily toward the middle desk and retreats from the door.

Kieran scoots inside and shuts the door with a shudder of relief. Okay. This is not his best first impression ever, but no one’s ever pegged him for the friendly type.

At least this office is quieter, bigger, and better aerated than the other room. One desk—Kieran’s, presumably—is barren; Seth’s is painfully neat, with stacks of paperwork separated by colored tabs, matching sets of pens and highlighters arranged in precise rows, everything squared and symmetrical. The third desk has stickers stuck all down one side and a shiny desktop computer somewhat marred by a peeling Hello, my name is MARCUS label on the back of the monitor. Typical Marcus.

When his heart has stopped pounding, Kieran crosses the room and sinks gratefully into the chair at his new desk.

Although it might not be his desk for long if Seth kills him. Luckily, Seth looks like he’s too busy tearing somebody to shreds over the phone to spare much malice for Kieran. Every time he stops to listen to whatever the caller is saying, his nose wrinkles contemptuously. He’s keeping his voice down, but Kieran catches something about funding that was promised to us and pulling all mention of your business from our campaign materials.

In Kieran’s assessment, Seth looks kind of like a grown-up Boy Scout—that straightlaced, proper, honest look—but also kind of like a snake. He’s at least thirty, perfectly clean-shaven, sleek. He has hair trimmed short and blunt, long on top but slicked down, and despite the heat, he’s wearing a crisp blazer. The only part of his look that seems out of place is a single steel stud in his right ear, and even that is vaguely intimidating.

Awesome.

Feeling intimidated doesn’t stop Kieran from wanting to eavesdrop, though, because he wants a distraction as much as he relishes drama. He takes out his phone and pretends to be distracted by Twitter while listening as hard as he can. Seth’s side of the conversation is choppy, as if he’s being interrupted.

I can’t be any clearer about this, Seth says. "The senator does not offer business endorsements in exchange for donations. If a member of her staff told you otherwise, I—sincerely—apologize. He listens intently for a moment and out of the corner of his eye, Kieran watches Seth squeeze the phone like he wishes it were someone’s neck. No, that’s—no, there are no exceptions. Absolutely not. I suggest you contact the main office if you have any more concerns, because as