Clueless in Love

“Was that a wink?” I whisper.

Priya doesn’t glance up from her latte. “No. That was pollen.”

Across the café, Jamie rubs their eye like it owes them money. I stare at the tiny constellation of freckles on their cheek and pretend I’m considering scones.

“They smiled,” I say.

“They smiled at the golden retriever behind you.”

“Right,” I say, “for sure,” and turn around to meet the ecstatic grin of a dog wearing a bandana that says BITE ME (but like, in a friendly way).

“Deep breath,” Priya says. “We’re going to decode your love life like it’s a Cold War cipher.”

Jamie approaches the counter. I feel my spine turn into a steel rod. They wear a denim jacket with patches ... planets, a cat with a sword, a cartoon slice of pizza. When I first met them at trivia night, they knew every capital city and pronounced the word gyro correctly. I’ve been in a state of romantic concussion ever since.

“Hey, Alex,” Jamie says, appearing like conjured sunlight. “Love your jacket.”

I look down at my jacket as though seeing it for the first time. It has elbow patches. It is, objectively, a teacher playing hooky.

“Oh,” I say. “Thanks. Do you mean me or just… my jacket?”

Jamie laughs. “Your whole vibe. You look like a detective who only solves pastry-related crimes.”

“Guilty,” I say. “I’ve cracked the case of the missing croissant. The culprit was butter.”

“Classic,” Jamie says, smiling, then turns toward the register, where the barista flirts shamelessly with everyone.

Priya kicks me under the table. “Your whole vibe,” she mouths, eyebrows doing calisthenics.

“My vibe,” I repeat, like it’s an unfamiliar tool.

“Ask them to sit,” she hisses.

“Like, out loud?”

“Generally how chairs work.”

I inhale courage like it’s espresso. “Jamie?”

They look back, eyes warm. “Yeah?”

“Do you, uh… do you want to… sit? I mean, not forever. That would be a prison sentence. But for a bit? Here? With us?”

“Sure,” they say, and my brain lurches into a new orbit.

Jamie sits. Priya slips on headphones and opens a novel in an exaggerated pantomime of I’m Not Eavesdropping.

“So,” Jamie says, “what are you reading these days?”

“Receipts,” I say. “And the internet. Also, the backs of cereal boxes. You?”

They grin. “I found this book about birdsong and how each species has a dialect. Like, New York sparrows have a different accent than California ones.”

“Bet the New York ones interrupt each other.”

“Rude but accurate,” Jamie says. Their phone buzzes. “Oh, trivia tonight. You in?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to be on my team?” they ask. “We usually need a film person, and you give off strong 'can quote movies' energy.”

“Do I?” I say. “I mean, I can and I do.”

“Cool,” Jamie says. “We can coordinate outfits. Just kidding. Unless?”

I laugh too big. “Incredible. Hypothetically yes.”

When Jamie heads back to the counter, I turn to Priya, who is not reading her book.

“They said my vibe,” I say.

“They basically proposed marriage,” she whispers. “Keep the momentum. Don’t spiral.”

“I am a corkscrew made of panic.”

“Text me questions and I’ll answer from the bathroom if needed.”

At trivia, Jamie is a comet: bright, slightly chaotic, impossible not to track. We come in third, largely because Jamie knows the name of the Norwegian curling skip and I know the lyrics to an early 2000s one-hit wonder.

After, outside under string lights and an earnest moon, Jamie shoves their hands into their jacket pockets. “You were great,” they say. “Also, your outfit is cute.”

I glance down at my shirt, which has a tiny embroidered egg in the pocket. “Like… cute like you’d take it home to meet your parents? Or cute like a hamster learns to use a tiny bottle?”

Jamie snorts. “Cute like… I noticed and it made me happy.”

My heart does a drum solo. “Noted.”

They tilt their head. “Do you want to get real food? Not just trivia fries? There’s a taco truck ... ”

“Are you hungry?” I blurt.

“Very.”

“Then we should absolutely ... ” I pause. Something in their face… the micro-smile? The way they angle closer? Is this… the thing? The spark? The fire hazard? Or just… friendliness? “ ... eat. Food. Yes. Together. Eating together. Not a contract.”

We walk. I try not to evaluate whether our footsteps match pace because that feels like looking for omens in clouds.

At the truck, we order tacos al pastor and Jamie asks for extra cilantro because they do not fear aliens or fresh herbs. We sit on a milk crate and a curb, our knees almost touching.

“Do you ever feel like romance is a language you missed the class for?” I ask, then immediately want to crawl into the taco shell and hide.

“All the time,” Jamie says. “I’m terrible at signals. People think I’m flirting when I’m just being human.”

“Oh my god.”

“And then when I like someone, I overcompensate and suddenly I’m speaking in sarcasm and terrible jokes and they assume I hate them.”

I blink. “So, hypothetically, if someone told you your outfit was cute…”

“They might really mean it,” Jamie says. “And also, they might be too chicken to say ‘I like you’ because… words.”

I nod like I understand, but actually my brain has become a slideshow of every smile, every wink, every allergy attack. Was any of it… intentional?

The next day, I turn Priya’s living room into a war room. On one wall: a whiteboard with “Signs?” at the top and columns labeled Friendly, Flirty, and Allergies. Under Friendly: “Remembered my dog’s name. Laughs at puns.” Under Flirty: “Invited me to draft team name. Stood close at taco truck. Said outfit cute.” Under Allergies: “Eye rub. Sniffles.”

Priya pops a grape into her mouth and says, “We’re ridiculous.”

“I need a rubric.”

“You need courage.”

“What if I say something and the vortex opens and drops me into the friend zone, where we both exchange artisanal jams until we die?”

Priya points at the whiteboard. “Friendly and flirty overlap. You can’t math your way out. You ask.”

“Ask what?”

“If they’re interested.”

“I’ll implode.”

“You’ll survive,” she says. Then she scribbles on the board: Just ask and underlines it three times.

I rehearse in the mirror until my reflection files a formal complaint. I practice with the barista; he tells me we’re better as friends. I practice with the golden retriever; he licks my hand and registers to vote. Finally, I text Jamie: Are you free for rooftop tea? Or coffee. Or tacos. No pressure. High altitude.

They reply: Rooftop tea sounds perfect. 7?

At seven, the city is a glittering murmuration. I’ve put fairy lights around the railing and set out mismatched mugs and a plate of cookies I may have burned slightly. Jamie steps out with a soft, “Wow.”

“I tried,” I say. “Sometimes trying is the whole thing.”

“It’s great,” they say, and lean on the railing beside me. The world hums. Somewhere, a saxophone sighs. My heart hammers out a Morse code that translates, tell the truth.

“I’m really bad at knowing,” I say.

“Knowing what?” Jamie asks, eyes steady.

“When someone likes me,” I say. “I never know if it’s friendliness or… something else. I misread. A lot. It’s embarrassing and I pretend it’s funny but sometimes it just feels like getting the rules to a game after everyone’s already playing.”

Jamie takes a breath. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I like you,” I say, because momentum is a rare and sacred thing. “I like you in the way where I want to know your favorite bird and your cereal box rankings and if you prefer the left or right side of couches.”

Jamie smiles, slow and stunned. “I like you too,” they say. “In the way where I remember you take your tea with honey and I’ve been inventing reasons to stand near you and I called your jacket cute because your jacket is an extension of your excellent being.”

I stare. “This isn’t… pity, right? This isn’t… me hallucinating?”

Jamie takes my hand, those planets and pizza patches rustling softly as they move. “This is me saying, not friendly, not just friendly. More.”

“Okay,” I say, and it comes out like a prayer, like a punchline that lands just right.

We stand there for a while, the city talking below, our hands speaking a language I finally get. When we sit, we share cookies and tea and the left side of the couch, and we make plans to be equally confused together, forever if we’re lucky.

Later, when a moth flutters near the fairy lights and Jamie absentmindedly scrunches one eye, I flinch.

“Allergies,” they say, and we both laugh so hard I nearly spill my tea.

- Julia O’Hara 2025

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