"Do you have a few moments?" Ethan asks. "You seemed very focused."
"No, I have some time." His hand and his gaze are having the same effect on her as last night, but she's completely incapable of withdrawing her hand. She wonders if it's possible for her to have an orgasm right here in the middle of Starbucks.
Ethan releases her hand. "Here, let me make a space for your coffee." He gathers up his papers and stuffs them in his book, which he tucks away in a battered leather satchel.
Dawn's too bedazzled to think of looking at the title until it's already out of sight. She stands there in a fog until he gestures toward the empty chair across from him.
"Please."
She laughs weakly. "You see why I'm so desperate for coffee." She chugs some to prove her point.
Ethan favors her with that wicked grin. "Late night?"
"No. Well, studying, but not -- no partying." Dawn drinks more coffee, convinced she sounds dumber with each thing she says. "You wanted to see me?"
"I was hoping you could advise me. I have a gift to buy, and I've no idea where to begin. For my niece, who's ten."
"Oh." Stupid to feel such intense disappointment. What did she think he was going to ask, for an opinion about his research? Or if she'd go out with him? He thinks of her as barely out of girlhood -- why would he see her any other way?
"You're an intelligent and creative young woman, and the one person I know for whom childhood isn't a long distant memory."
Okay. Young woman. That's better -- she thinks. "What can you tell me about her? What is she like?"
"I haven't the slightest idea." He offers a smile, this one more wistful than his usual. "My brother and I had a falling-out before she was born. I've been thinking lately that I'd like to repair the relationship if I can. This seemed like a safe place to begin. So. We'll have to operate on generic assumptions. Nothing too lavish. I don't want to make them nervous."
Dawn's disappointment crumbles away. He's shared something deep and painful with her, and asked her to share his hopes, too. That's more than she'd hoped for when he tapped on the glass. It's huge. "Okay, the two things I was really big on at that age were books and jewelry. I was an absolute nut for Harriet the Spy. I wanted to be her."
"Harriet the Spy," he repeats, as if this is some arcane piece of information.
"It's just the best book ever for a kid. About this girl in New York City who makes the rounds spying on her weird neighbors and writing everything down. And what happens when her best friends find her notebook and what she said about them. I used to do that too. So you could get her a cool blank book or diary and a copy of Harriet the Spy."
Ethan smiles, charmed. "Who did you used to spy on?"
"My sister and her friends, mostly. One of the neighbors until she called mom and threatened to go to the police."
"An arch criminal in your youth."
"Truer than you think."
"Do you still have your notebooks? Ever go back and read them?"
The question blindsides her. Pierces her through. Dawn looks away. "No. All that stuff got lost."
"I'm sorry. I've distressed you."
She shakes her head. "It's okay. There was a fire." It comes out automatically. This is what she tells people now. It usually shuts down the conversation, where saying she was from that town that fell into a sinkhole just led to a billion new questions.
"Did everyone get out safely?"
She nods, because what else can she do? When you've reduced Sunnydale to a house fire, you can't say your best friend's orgasm-friend died in it, and your sister's -- well, whatever Spike was by then.
"I must apologize." Ethan puts his hand on hers. "I was prying."
"It's okay," she repeats. "Really. It comes up now and then. We've wandered off topic anyway. Your niece."
"You said your other suggestion was jewelry."
"I always loved it. Around that age I started going away from the little heart necklaces and that. I had a big bead on a leather cord -- it looked like carved ivory, though it couldn't have been. I wore that thing to death. I went in for these weird Day of the Dead skulls on a pair of earrings for a while, but that probably wouldn't really get you back in your brother's good graces."
The corner of his mouth quirks up. "I very much doubt it."
She toys with her coffee cup, looking up at Ethan through her lashes. "I got in a little trouble with the jewelry thing," she admits. It feels bad that she lied to him about Sunnydale, after his revelation about his brother. "I was a little klepto for a while. The skull earrings I stole, and that's not all."
Ethan's smile widens into that inviting just between us mischievous grin. "A bit of the rebel in you, even as a girl. I thought I saw something in you, even the first time I laid eyes on you. A kindred spirit."
Kindred spirit. That's what she's been lacking, so far from her family and friends.
Dawn offers him a mischief-laced smile of her own.