Kovu remembers the day perfectly. She walked into the coffee shop with her platinum blonde hair tied back into two messy little buns, her pink nail polish covered finger tips stuck out of her grey gloves as she tapped them thoughtfully against her plump lips. Kovu also remembers how enthralled he was by her appearance, she had that effortless beauty that so many girls craved. He bet that she looked good getting out of bed in the morning and he thought to himself that he’d like to see it for himself if it were true.
The one thing Kovu distinctly remembers, though, was missing the first half of her order because he was too busy thinking about how this woman looked in the morning.
“Venti,” Was all he got but her voice was sweet sounding enough that he had no qualms about asking her to repeat herself.
“I’m sorry.” He said, shaking his head a little. “I didn’t catch that.”
“Strawberry frappuchino, venti.” She repeated tilting her head suspiciously at him.
Kovu nodded, grabbing a slip of paper and writing down her order but paused suddenly, “I need your name as well, princess.”
She had suddenly tensed up, as if the pet name bothered her, but still kept her composure. “It’s Tabitha.”
“Tabitha,” He smiled. “I like it.”
And that’s how it started, Tabitha returned to the coffee shop every morning for a month and ordered the exact same thing. Kovu had to play dumb, the first few days he continued asking her for her name only pretending he forgot but in truth it had been swimming around his head nearly every second of the day. Eventually, he started chatting her up after she ordered. Not caring if he backed up the line, he genuinely wanted to know how her day was going, where she worked… If she had a boyfriend… She did. That didn’t stop Kovu in the slightest, however. He should’ve figured someone like her was taken, anyways. He continued harmlessly flirting with her into the second week and then the third.
One day she didn’t come in. Which made the hours of work following her usual arrival bleak and he found himself dumbly wondering what had chain of events had unfolded that she would miss her morning coffee run. He found out the next day; a fight with her boyfriend the night before had kept her up for a while and she overslept and missed her alarm. She had to skip the coffee in favor of being on time to work. The next few days Tabitha had come in later and later and then finally she was on time again.
“I broke up with Tony,” She said as she handed over her change.
Kovu had to fight a smile, “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that…”
Tabitha merely shrugged, “It was bound to happen. I can’t hold down a relationship to save my life and he was hates commitment… Plus, he was kind of a dick.”
Kovu took that as a sign to move forward with his plans. Entering the third week he started drawing pictures on her coffee cup, then little notes like; ‘have a good day’ or ‘I like the new shade of nail polish’. Finally after a few more weeks, Kovu had finally mustered up the nerve to write his cellphone number down along with the word ‘date?’ scrawled out in his chicken scratch. And that night when he got home he was anxious to see if she’d call him. He never did find out just when she got off work so he found himself staring at the clock and playing guessing games with himself as the hours passed. Then finally… His phone rang. It was Tabitha. She apologized for not getting a hold of him sooner, late night at the office, and then she said she’d love to go on a date with him. They agreed to dinner on Sunday, he got off early and she didn’t have to work at all.
Sunday finally rolled around and Kovu met her at her apartment on the upper eastside. That was when he finally learned just how much money Tabitha was bringing in. She didn’t exactly live in an apartment, it was more so an upscale loft, her building even had a door man. Which just made Kovu extremely self-conscious about where he was taking this girl for dinner. But oddly enough, Tabitha was completely fine with going to a sports bar which Kovu appreciated because he couldn’t exactly afford anything else. They talked and drank, Tabitha told him about her job. She worked as the head of sales for her father’s company. Also, she raced cars for fun. Which only made Kovu feel even more inadequate when he admitted to working two jobs in order to pay his rent and didn’t really have any hobbies other than street art. They drank a little more and talked a little less, the Mets lost to the Red Socks and the date spiraled downward.
It wasn’t so much that Kovu didn’t like Tabitha, she was everything he wanted in a girl; pretty, street smart, sarcastic wits that measured up to his own… But she was entirely out of his league. Still, he wasn’t going to let this night be a total bust. He was determined to see if his theory about Tabitha looking good while getting out of bed in the morning held true. If he could just get her drunk enough to—
“Do you want to go back to my place?” Tabitha asked suddenly, “The mood in here kind of died…”
“Yeah, it has…” He turned around on the bar stool, called the waiter over and he and Tabitha split the tab and the cab fare to her apartment. The elevator ride up to her floor was silent at first, awkward, tense. She was on the twenty second and right around the seventh floor is when she began playing with the collar on his shirt and whispering to him how she liked the color green on him. Then she got a little more frisky and began messing with the buttons on the shirt, Kovu suddenly found himself playing along, grabbing her a little forcefully by the wrist in order to get her to stop and that to her was the invitation to start kissing him.
She had the softest lips that tasted distinctly like cherry chapstick and her kisses at first were slow and cautious, searching even as if she was looking for something but if they were going to do this then Kovu didn’t want to be sitting in the backseat for most of it. He quickened their pace, poking his tongue through the opening between her lips. Kovu quickly learned that Tabitha didn’t easily let other’s take the lead, when the door finally opened on her floor she grabbed Kovu by the hem of his half buttoned shirt and pulled him after her. Keeping her hold on him until she opened the door to her apartment and tugged him inside.
“I hope you’re not allergic to cats,” She said almost as an afterthought while draping her arms around his neck, having to stand on her tip toes in order to do so.
“Not at all,” He said absentmindedly, resting his hands on his hips and going into to continue where they’d left off.
Their first time together was sloppy and hastily done. Looking back on it now, Kovu would’ve liked it to have been more romantic and perhaps not on the first date but the early Monday morning after was one of the best mornings of his life. His theory proved right, Tabitha was just a gorgeous after a night of romping around the bedroom as the day he first set his eyes on her. She was standing in front of her full length mirror when Kovu had woken up, he glanced briefly at the clock—which read six am—and then back to Tabitha who, Kovu now realized, had nicked the green shirt she claimed to like so much last night and was wearing nothing but.
“I’m going to need that back,” Kovu said as he kicked himself free of the covers.
“I don’t know, I’ve taken a liking to it myself,” Tabitha turned to face him, a triumphant smile on her face. “If you really need a shirt my ex-boyfriend’s crap is still taking up my closet space. Help yourself with that and then you can help yourself to breakfast…”
Breakfast? Admittedly, this was the weirdest one night stand he’d ever encountered but then again, he was getting free food. So why complain? He walked toward the closet grabbed the first men’s shirt he could find—which was a good two sizes too small—and then made his way into the kitchen where he found a bagel and a fluffy white beast waiting. Somewhere in the apartment he heard a shower turn on and that’s when the beast turned toward him, it’s blue eyes narrowing and looking him over rather judgmentally for a cat. Kovu cautiously made his way toward the bagel, sat himself down at the counter stool and tried to avoid eye contact with Tabitha’s feline roommate. However, the cat made it a little impossible when it decided to hop on the kitchen counter and sit right in front of Kovu, it’s tail twitching with curiosity.
“What?” Kovu seethed. The cat merely stared blankly back at him, “Don’t worry… I don’t plan on staying long. Tabitha’s all yours as soon as you let me eat this bagel in peace.”
The cat had no response. It just continued to stare at him blankly.
“No, she’s a great girl don’t get me wrong,” Kovu sighed. “I just don’t stand a chance with her.”
More blank staring and untranslatable tail twitches.
“Look, I really don’t need to take this from a cat—“
“I see you’ve met Sugar.” Tabitha’s voice sounded from behind him, “Don’t expect him to respond. He’s deaf.”
Kovu nodded as if that explained everything and cringed slightly because that meant that Tabitha had practically just heard everything he said, “That’s, uhm… Unfortunate. How much of that did you hear?”
“Just the part about how you don’t need to take that from a cat,” Tabitha assured with a small laugh, now rounding the kitchen counter. She was dressed for the office, the same general outfit he was her in every morning. “Do you want to split a cab to work?
“Is it that late already?” Kovu asked glancing around for a clock.
Tabitha nodded, “Seven o’clock on the dot… I’ll take that as a yes, coffee-boy?”
“Yes,” Kovu got up from his seat, patting Sugar on the head and following Tabitha out of her apartment for what he thought would be the last time.
