Miles of space to play with

People like to believe the universe is some grand orchestrator, shuffling fate cards like a moody blackjack dealer. But sometimes, it just sits back with popcorn and watches two people fumble their way into a slow-burning disaster that smells vaguely of espresso and unresolved tension. Enter Nat and Miles—two souls with more chemistry than a freshman lab fire, and just about as much common sense.

By now, I assume you know Miles a bit. So allow me to introduce Nat.

Nat. Now there’s a piece of work the universe clearly cooked up on a cheeky day. All sharp wit, unreadable playlists, and the kind of elegance that doesn’t try—it just is. She walks into a room like she already knows the ending but still watches everyone else catch up. She’ll dissect a business pitch, write a blog that punches through your chest, and still look vaguely annoyed that you haven’t figured out how she takes her coffee (strong, like her opinions—with a splash of almond milk and quiet judgment). But don’t be fooled—behind that emotionally disciplined exterior is someone so poetically tormented by a man’s silence that she might actually publish a whole thesis on it, footnotes and all. Honestly, if pining were performance art, Nat would be doing an international tour.

Now, I’ve been around long enough to know the look. That head tilt, corner-smile, eyes-speaking-in-parentheses kind of nonsense. She’s got that haunted-by-a-thought energy, like someone who heard a line in a song and hasn’t slept since. And him? He walks around like he invented charm but still gets visibly shaken by a well-placed compliment. Both pretending they’re too busy conquering the world to text back, meanwhile having full-blown telepathic conversations over coffee? Kids. So here we are—two coffee shops, two mugs, and a pair of beautifully stubborn idiots about to flirt in prose like the world depends on it.

 

• Nat:

There you are. Sitting in your overpriced, underwhelming café like the misunderstood genius in an indie film no one asked for. Probably sipping that smug flat white with the same face you make when someone calls you brilliant—mildly amused, majorly self-satisfied. God, I can feel you smirking across the city.

Meanwhile, I’m over here in my quiet little corner café, trying to enjoy a damn croissant in peace. But nope. There you are. In my head. Again. You show up uninvited like an ad I didn’t skip fast enough. Except you're charming, and worse—you know it.

Why do you do this, huh? Plant little seeds in my brain and just... wait? Wait for them to grow into full-blown spirals of frustration and fascination. Like you’ve rented space in my head and now you’re decorating. With your metaphors and your mischief.

 

• Miles (mentally sipping louder):

I don’t rent, Nat. I own.

You handed me the keys, remember? Quietly. Between a half-laugh and an eye-roll. And now here we are—you in your warm-toned café with that dramatic long black you pretend to enjoy, and me, here, in mine, sipping what you once called “liquid smugness.”

You talk a big game for someone who once described me as “poetry in motion, if poetry occasionally ghosted people for sport.”

But go on. Tell me more about how I ruin your croissants.

You’re probably stirring your coffee like it insulted your birth chart—dramatic as ever. But sure, I’m the problem.

 

• Nat:

You are the problem. Ugh. You’re insufferable.

You’ve got this annoying talent for showing up in thoughts I’m not even having. Like—how do you photobomb an internal monologue? I hate that you’re right. I hate that I can hear your thoughts like they’ve got their own damn playlist. I’ll be minding my own business and—bam—there’s your laugh. Your metaphor about cities and loneliness. Your dumb theory on why sugar doesn’t belong in coffee.

You pop up like a plot twist I didn’t ask for but now can’t write around.

I’ll be thinking about taxes or whether I should try bangs again, and BAM—there you are. Laughing at my chaos. Whispering metaphors into my frontal lobe like some overly caffeinated Greek chorus.

 

• Miles:

Plot twist? I was always the main character.

You just didn’t want to admit it.

And hey—it’s because your chaos is irresistible.

It’s like watching art try to fight gravity. Wild, beautiful, doomed.

Also, try the bangs. You’ll look devastating. I’ll pretend not to notice.

 

• Nat:

Stop that. God, you're lucky I like complicated men.

Don’t be soft and smug in the same sentence—it’s confusing for my boundaries. If you were any simpler, I might’ve gotten over you by now.

 

• Miles:

You’ve never really had boundaries with me.

And yet.

You’re sipping bitterness with your pinkie up like poetry, while I sit here basking in the knowledge that you still haven’t figured out how to shut me out.

You draw lines in the sand and then hand me the shovel.

And I? Build castles.

 

• Nat:

I hate that you say things like that and it works.

I should be annoyed. I should be cold. I should stop writing half my poems about you and pretending they’re fiction.

But you keep showing up in the margins like a damn annotation I didn’t write.

I hate that I laugh. I hate that I smile. I hate that I wrote your name in my Notes app again today, pretending it was a metaphor and not just... you.

You’re like caffeine—I know you’ll mess me up, but I keep sipping anyway.

 

• Miles:

Because I taste like inevitability.

Also? You’re not the only one who writes.

I’ve got half-written texts, unsent poems, and one very questionable playlist titled “For when she admits it.”

I’m the footnote, Nat—the one that changes the meaning of the whole damn page.

 

• Nat:

Please. I admitted it in iambic pentameter two cities ago.

Also, I should block you.

Telepathically. Emotionally. Astrologically.

 

• Miles:

So admit it again. Louder.

Like we’re not both trying to be casual about this chemical warfare we call connection.

And you know you won’t block me.

You love the sound of me in your head.

 

• Nat:

You are not a connection.

You’re a glitch in my matrix. A cosmic prank. A love story that started as a distraction and turned into a damn thesis.

 

• Miles:

And yet...

Here we are. You in your coffee shop, me in mine, sipping like we’re not in the middle of the world’s most poetic standoff.

 

• Nat:

One of us will cave.

 

• Miles:

Spoiler: it’s going to be you.

Because you’ll miss the way I say your name like it’s an answer.

Because I’ll show up in your next poem as a metaphor for both disaster and destiny.

 

• Nat:

Ugh.

Buy me coffee next time, at least.

 

• Miles:

You’ll have to show up for that.

 

• Nat (smiling, despite herself):

Don’t tempt me.

You might be the one thing I sip slower than my feelings.

—as narrated by our ever-observant, slightly wine-soaked, delightfully unimpressed old chap.

And so, our caffeinated duel of the century comes to a soft, awkwardly romantic close—at least for now. Two lattes, one croissant, and approximately seventeen emotionally repressed metaphors later, Nat and Miles returned to their respective corners of the city, pretending the conversation didn’t just feel like foreplay for a Nobel Prize in flirtation.

She walked out of her café like she hadn't just accidentally confessed her soul in lowercase poetry, and he sat back like a smug fox who just convinced the hen to write him a love letter. Did either of them say anything real? No. Did they say everything? Absolutely. It’s the kind of connection that makes therapists overbook and poets weep into their overpriced notebooks.

And somewhere, I imagine the universe slowly leaned back in its celestial recliner, muttering, “Finally, these two idiots spoke.” Then probably spilled wine on itself and cursed Mercury retrograde.

Will they meet again? Will coffee become brunch, and brunch become a complicated situationship with absurdly poetic Google Calendar invites? Who knows. But one thing’s for sure: Miles will keep sipping smugness like it’s vintage wine, and Nat will pretend her new poem titled “He’s a Metaphor, But Make It a Tax Write-Off” isn’t about him.

And me? I’ll be here. Watching. Judging. Whispering, “Oh, just kiss already,” to the wind.

Fin.