Coffee Is Not a Date... Is It? (Josef)

[Damien Tremblay]

So far, January was not proving to be as busy as everyone had been projecting for the office. Sure, they had cases, but they all seemed to be fairly slow moving. That left Damien with little to do beyond help Niko learn the ropes. He actually liked the kid, especially when comparing them to their last intern.

But even that wasn’t keeping him busy today. It didn’t help that it was Friday, and it was a nice day out. It would be so much nicer to be out with Gypsy than stuck in the office.

It wasn’t just Gypsy that was on his mind. He was also toying with... an idea. Sort of. Since meeting Josef, he’d found his thoughts drifting slightly every so often. He’d been so nice, and Josh had spoken fairly highly of him. (He’d had no idea they’d been friends for so long.)

... If nothing else, he really could use more friends.

It took a good deal of courage to actually look up the number for Josef’s clinic, and even more to dial the number. He’d shut the door to his office, just in case Janice was lurking around and decided to get the wrong idea.

He fumbled the number twice before finally hitting all the right keys. Unable to keep from fidgeting, he twisted a pen around in his hand as he listened to the phone ring.

[Josef Muller]

Josef, on the other hand, could swear that he was getting more and more busy. It wasn’t really the work. That was just a part of it. He had had quite a bump in student attendance after the New Years as he had expected, and the coupons and the good prices he’d offered (30 days for forty dollars was his current deal, and although he was feeling quite broke, he was getting a lot more high school students) had helped with that. However, the second part was that Terrowin had reduced in his hours, and so he was teaching more classes. He was busy, but he thought that was, perhaps, a good thing as well. It kept him distracted.

He would be lying if he were to claim that he hadn’t thought of Damien after that initial day, but he’d done his best to put the younger man out of his mind. The general vibe he’d gotten—and he’d admit, he was rusty—was that Damien had looked scared when he’d tried to flirt. That was a bad sign, wasn’t it? Ah, well.

He was in the middle of teaching a class when the phone rang, and he quickly had one of his brownbelts—he had three of them that he’d trained up now, and they were great for putting the students through their paces—take over the exercises as he leaned over the desk to pick it up.

“Muller’s Self Defense Clinic,” he said, tucking the phone under his chin as he reached for some folders on his desk and began flipping through them. “How can I help you?”

[Damien Tremblay]

Damien hadn’t been scared, per se, but more... well, the flirting had been a little unexpected. Unless he initiated it (which was rare to begin with, especially with men), he was always a flustered mess. If he was giving off a scared vibe, well, he really needed to work on that.

If he’d known he was interrupting a class, he would have hung up right then, before anyone answered the phone. He didn’t mean to pull Josef away from work. Of course, he was calling during working hours... okay, this was not that well thought out. Just because his work load was light at the moment didn’t mean everyone else was in the same boat.

He dropped his pen when Josef actually answered the phone. He had no problem remembering his voice. “Josef? Um... it’s... Damien. Gypsy’s owner?” He’d very nearly said ‘Dad’ there, but figured if this was going to go well in any shape or form, he should probably refrain from doing things like that. Hopefully that would help to jog Josef’s memory, just in case.

Now he’d lost his pen, he started twisting his fingers in the cord to the phone to keep one hand busy. So much for not fidgeting. “I was just calling to see if you were busy later? I was... maybe thinking of grabbing some coffee, and wanted to know if you’d like to join me?” It was said in a big rush, like saying it faster would make a ‘no’ sting less. “Nothing’s happening in the office, and I think I need to escape for a bit.” Did that make it seem less like a date request? He didn’t even know. But now it was out there, and he had no idea what to expect.

[Josef Muller]

Josef also recognized Damien's voice, although it took a little longer for it to click. A lot longer. He'd only been half-listening, waiting for the buzz words along the lines of "Hours" "prices" or "contracts," which would send him on the proper preordained speech. He'd had to field a lot of them lately and it was usually the same questions. And since he hadn't been expecting Damien to call, his voice didn't initially send up any names, just a vague recognition.

Which was a shame, because when Damien said his name, he promptly dropped the folders he'd been holding, and their contents spilled all over the floor. The class stopped to look at him, and he waved them on abstractedly, biting back the swear words. It was....quite adorable that Damien didn't think he'd know who he was Gypsy. Then again, maybe that was Josef just being a sap. No, he had to play it cool. On the phone, at least, since in person was clearly shot to hell.

"Damien," he said in a pleasant, not-concerned-or-excited-at-all voice (well, that was the goal), "Good to hear from you. I remember. How's Gypsy doing? And, uh." What was the cat's name? "And the lion you call a pet?" Yeah, good, turn that into a joke. When had he ever been good at this again? As he spoke, he bent to pick up the papers that he'd dropped, only to pause at his question.

Well then. Apparently, he'd read that one completely wrong. He was rusty, but he knew--in his personal experience--that talking that quickly wasn't because you wanted to invite someone out for a friendly cup of coffee. Or was that in his head? He hoped it wasn't. Better to talk before the man lost his nerve.

"I'd like that very much," he said instead. All that Zen-Master was good practice in sounding calm, although he noticed the class was staring again. Well, nothing stayed secret in Pilot Ridge for very long. "When were you thinking? I'm teaching a class right now, but I have a break in..." He glanced at the clock. "About an hour?"

[Damien Tremblay]

The sudden rustle caught Damien by surprise, but when Josef didn't say anything about it, he didn't address it. It sounded a little like paper avalanching, but maybe that was normal. Then again, he'd seen the clinic. The desk hadn't been that messy...

Why was he even thinking about this?

Right. Josef was speaking. Damien swallowed and tried not to grin like an idiot when he said he remembered him. "She's fine." The joke actually earned a quiet laugh from him. "The lion's good too. He stopped holding a grudge a few days ago." That had been proven the other night, when Charlie had wound his way around Damien's ankles as he'd tried to make dinner. Gypsy knew and adhered to the 'no animals in the kitchen rule'. Charlie... did not.

Josef was talking again. Damien was expecting him to say he was busy and to decline, and readied himself for that kind of letdown. What surprised him was that he didn't hear rejection. "Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your class." Yet he'd called during business hours. Bravo, Damien. "I should be free in an hour. Like I said, the office is quiet." He could wait an hour. Really, he could. "Um, is..." Think, you idiot. "Starbucks okay with you?" Considering he didn't even really like coffee, this really wasn't that well thought out, but it was the best he could come up with. At least Starbucks had other things, too.

[Josef Muller]

Had Damien mentioned that he could hear what was going on at the other end of the line, he would’ve been mortified. He was trying to play it cool, but it wasn’t really working. At least vocally he could pretend that everything was fine even if he was freaking out.

He actually liked the joke. He wasn’t sure if that was proof of Damien liking him (it hadn’t been a particularly good joke), that Damien just liked to laugh, or just that…Josef was actually funny.

No, it couldn’t be the last one. Who found Josef actually…Funny? He was the Zen Master, not a guy with a sense of humor. He still hadn’t gotten the name, though. Damn. He’d just have to remind himself that it was the first time they’d met. He hadn’t exactly thought that they’d be meeting…again. Not at all. Apparently, he wasn’t as unlucky as he’d hoped.

“It’s not a problem at all,” he was quick to assure the other man. “I have assistants. They do the work for me, at least for this part. Um, in an hour then.” Well, it’d been a momentary glitch in the cool and confident. He thought he could let it go. Maybe. “Starbucks sounds…great. Meet you there in about an hour?”

Once everything was confirmed, he said goodbye, hung up the phone, then gave his students a look.

“Time to get back to work, fellows,” he announced.