He liked baristas that winked at you. He knew there was nothing more behind the wink but it was still fun to imagine what deeper meaning there was.

The tea was now stone cold. Ryan wasn't reading his texts. Pete was worried something had happened to him. But he didn't want to go home just yet. So he got up and ordered a coffee. The barista was surprised. It was a hot cup of coffee. He imagined he was back up in Spacecity with Keith while drinking it.

There was a time when drinking coffee at night was a fun thing to do. Before he was 21 that was a thing he'd do as a date. The one he thought about most was this one girl named Lexi. She didn't go by that, went by Lex, but he liked to add the extra e sound at the end. It bugged her. Strange that bugging and teasing was a thing people did when they liked someone.

Pete was out of the dating game for awhile now. He didn't know how people dated on earth anymore. Up in 

Spacecity

 

dating

was looked down on. They really didn't want you to make longterm relationships up there because once you were back on earth you would all need to go back to your own lives, one of the managers had said.

But now that Pete was back on earth, he was wondering... what was that life he was supposed to have been returning to?