⌞ always the angel, never a god ⌝

⌞ four : the cafe ⌝

"You know what you need to do. It's your track." 

___

"Well, look at you." 

I rolled my eyes as I threw my helmet at Jules. I was covered in sweat and honestly looked a mess but that didn't stop him from pulling me into a rib-shattering hug. I squirmed and that only made him hug me tighter. 

"Juuuuu-" 

"Nope, you hug me back or you're stuck." 

"Let me go! I'm all sweaty." 

"Not happening, fluer." 

I groaned but hugged him back, pretending to squeeze just as hard as he was. He gasped as I did, giving me a dramatic look. I rolled my eyes and pushed him away from me, laughing as I handed the keys to the worker on my way back to the locker room. 

As I started to strip off my sweat-soaked race suit, I thought back to the races. Two hours. Jules had rented out for two hours and god, it was the most fun I had in weeks. The first few had been what I would usually do for Charles. Just making the others look good. But then I remembered that I knew how to race. And everything changed. I slowly worked my way up the leaderboard and sooner than later, I was where I should be. First. 

I threw the race suit into the duffle and threw on my uniform, excluding the stockings and cardigan. It was too hot for those. My duffle came with me, dragging against the floor. I was too tired to pick it up, not having raced like that in God knows how long. 

"Oh, Lula.. look at you." Jules took the duffle from me. "Let's go get you a coffee and an entire meal." 

I snorted, following him out to the car, barely dragging myself along. Jules just snorted at me as he opened the door for me, helping me to get into the car before going to his side. As he started the car, he handed me my sunglasses. 

"Music is all yours, kid." 

"Yes!" I grabbed my phone and connected it to the cord. I picked some random playlist and laid back against the seat as Jules rolled the windows down. The sun was setting and we lived close enough to the coast that I could smell the salt. The wind was just the right amount of cool for spring and the world felt right. 

Jules turned up the music as we sped down the roads, both of us singing softly to the music. I didn't want it to end. This was one of those moments you could bottle up, savor, spend forever in. But like all good things, it came to an end as we parked in front of our favorite cafe. I smiled when I realized where we were, it was hard to miss that bright yellow door. 

"Was this part of the plan too?" 

"Yes ma'am." He took my sunglasses. "I even have our favorite table reserved." 

"It's a cafe, you can't reserve a table." 

"You can with the right amount of money." 

I snorted and got out of the car, following behind him. He held the door open for me. My eyes took a second to adjust from the sunlight to the low light they had in the cafe but everything was the exact same. And to my surprise, Jules was right. Our table by the window had a little card that said reserved.