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Bo Hanley sat at the bar of Expresso Yourself, sipping at the side of a chamomile tea with honey and lemon. He had taken to drinking tea in his childhood. His mother believed that tea and yoga could heal most ailments, and he had adopted this idea in his adult life now. His friend, Maxine, was sitting next to him, lamenting her crappy boyfriend who had cheated on her just the week before. She was still getting over it, and Bo was trying to help take her mind off of it. That meant texting her pictures of pretty things, cuddling her when she needed it, and otherwise talking about anything that was not her ex-boyfriend.

That afternoon, Maxine had texted him to meet up for a cup of coffee -- and so they had sat for the better part of an hour, laughing about high school nonsense while Bo did everything he could to keep her from slipping into angry musing about her ex. "I remember you streaking across the football field after the swim team took state," she said, laughing.

"It wasn't streaking. I had on a speedo," Bo countered.

"A beige speedo," she said. "My mother dropped her funnel cake on the ground. I think it ended up in the yearbook, didn't it?"

The memory brought a grin to Bo's face. It had been a good day, even if he was suspended for his choice of celebration. "Johnny hid it in one of the big senior class photo collages in the back pages. When someone pointed it out to Mr. McKinney, he nearly had a heartattack -- but hey, all in good fun. I believe in freedom of expression." His smily got goofier, and he nudged Maxine in the arm.

Her laughter bubbled out of her, at least until she checked her cellphone. Her smile dropped, and Bo immediately distracted himself by drinking from his tea. "It's the a*****e," she said, glancing out the window. "He saw us in here. He thinks we're together." She paused. "Good. a*****e." Maxine was staring daggers out the window. Bo chanced a glance out and saw her ex-boyfriend, brooding.

Without warning, she clapped one hand on each of Bo's cheeks and pulled him in for a long, overenthusiastic kiss. Bo tensed for an instant before melting into the kiss, letting it happen. She released him and then immediately turned back to glare at the window. Her ex-boyfriend's face was bright red. It was evident he was shouting, even though neither Maxine or Bo could hear it. As he stormed off, Maxine hopped off the barstool, grabbed her purse, and sprinted out the door, disappearing the way he went.

Bo stared at the door for a moment and then went back to his tea, taking a long sip. Would she come back? He had no idea. Oh well. His eyes strayed to a photograph on the wall, eyes moving over the colors of it.

The chamomile had cooled from when he first ordered it, but Bo was still enjoying the silk of it, how it soothed his throat. He seemed utterly nonplussed by what had just transpired. In fact, he was behaving as though there hadn't be a girl sitting right beside him just a moment ago. His quiet tea-drinking appeared to be a solitary activity, at least until one of the barista's approached him.

Bo glanced up to her through a fringe of blond hair. "Maxine? Oh, she's no trouble," he said, smiling. "Just sorting some things out with her ex."

The streaking brought a grin to his face. "It wasn't technically streaking -- there was a speedo involved," he said, punctuating his words with the silver spoon that rested on his saucer. "It seemed like the most natural thing to do." And Bo meant it. If an idea was said that he thought seemed cool, he would go for it with little to no reservations. In high school, it meant pseudo-streaking. In college it meant really streaking. Okay, so it was probably deeper than that, but Bo wasn't exactly the type to think critically for extended periods of time.

The mention of photography further piqued his interest. "A fan, a dabbler, all of it," he said. The photo collage had caught his eye so he pointed at it. "I do something similar in my apartment, a big wall collage of photos -- a lot of Polaroids, mostly, but some stuff I'd printed too. I like things like that, the combination of all these tiny moments in life. It's always powerful to me." Of course, he had no idea that the girl in front of him was responsible for it. Bo was just making conversation.

Bo grinned at the barista, tapping at the side of his cup of tea. He shrugged. He never really questioned his friends too deeply about their relationships. Sure, they could talk to him about whatever they wanted, but he wasn't actually a good source of advice. Everything that Bo spewed was the Power of Positive Thinking. "I'm sure they'll find happiness," he added after her own words, thinking little of it.

When the girl mentioned that SHE had created the bulletin board, Bo's eyes widened. "It's beautiful!" he said with genuine enthusiasm, smiling wider as she came closer. She was pretty; he appreciated it.

Bo examined the photo of the lake, how the water reflected. "Candid," he said. "Candid is so much more real. When you ask someone to pose, you see the version of the themselves that they want people to see." He straightened suddenly and mimicked a duck face that it seemed so many people naturally fell into when taking photos. "When no one is expecting the shot, you see them as they are. And that is always beautiful, no matter what. It could be a shot of someone vomiting. It would still be beautiful."

Bo, in fact, had pictures of people vomiting in his own collage at home.

"DCU?" Bo said, nodding as he sipped at his tea. "Nice, I went to Sovereign." He went there, but he never graduated. Bo wasn't exactly good at finishing things, just starting them. He forgot to go to class more often than he actually went, and after his third year of trying to graduate, they finally kicked him to the curb. Someone would need to tell Bo that though. He lived in the same apartment, went to the same parties, and still attended classes on occasion as if nothing had changed.

Shifting in his seat, the lanky young man angled toward the girl as she took a seat beside him. He knew she was looking at him, but he didn't care. He just smiled. Bo considered it a compliment; he considered most everything a compliment.

"Assume permission," he said. "I always do."

It was true. Bo considered the world an open book that he could sample from as desired. He never asked for permission when he snapped a photo, which had gotten him into a few sticky situations. Oh well. Like everything else in his life, Bo pretended the unpleasantness never happened and moved on.

Besides, a pretty girl was talking about him naked. He liked that. He was agreeable in that way. "Posing nude is fun," he said. Then after a moment, "Being nude in general is fun. For art? It's even more meaningful. Like the purest way that any of us can be. We're born naked. We should all be naked all the time. You know what I mean?"

It would be difficult to say anything to rattle Bo. "I'm Bo," he said quickly. "I figure you should know my name if we are entering the question of nudity." That, and he was curious about who she was too.

A tea cup was swiftly cooling. Bo dipped it to his lips and drank deeply. "Musical name," he said quickly. His own name had been a typo of sorts. His mom wanted to give him a proud Hindu name, but accidentally cut it short. So he was born Bodhi Miles Hanley, destined to be just Bo for the rest of his life. A name like Harmony was far grander.

Plus, he could never pass up a good flirt. Bo exuded flirtation in the same way he exuded warmth. Being flirty made people feel good, and he was the king of feeling good. So when Harmony lobbed a casual flirtation his way, Bo did not miss a beat. "I mean, if it is in the name of art," he said, laughing.

It could have been a very creepy thing to say, but something about Bo's good-natured grin and casual familiarity gave it a genuine edge. Probably because it was genuine. Bo would get naked with a lot of people and had. Why not? It made everyone involved feel good. It was pretty rare for Bo to put the brakes on any romantic situation.

When she asked his age, he had to think for a moment. After 21, all the years blended together. "25," he said at last. "A good vintage." The string of his tea bag slipped into the cup so he fished it out. "It's weird how the years start to peel by in your twenties. I'm pretty excited to see how I age." It was a strange thing to say, but it wasn't a lie. Bo was as fascinated with wrinkles as he was with smoothness. It was all a symptom of the human condition.

Bo lived life in a half-serious sort of way. He never quite understood the value in being serious or committed. And the only person he would ever want to commit to was not an option for him to love in the way that he really wanted. Flirtations like the one with Harmony were commonplace for him, and he tended to let the other party do the steering.

So he smirked as her come-ons became more and more aggressive. It didn't ruffle his feathers. Very little did. And if it did, he would just disappear without a word. Harmony was doing nothing of the sort. Besides, she was an artist! Bo could talk photos for awhile -- at least until his short attention span pulled him in another direction.

"Do you have your own studio or do you pay to get your prints developed?" he asked. His mug of tea was empty, but he dragged the bag around the cup anyway. "I tried to convert my bathroom into a dark room. It was a mistake." And messy. Very, very messy. His roommates didn't like it either.

"Now I do my own prints at the Quik N Click. I work there so I could develop photos for you for free. Really add to that collage." Truth be told, Bo was not ALLOWED to give any prints away for free. He just hadn't been caught yet.

Then, after a moment, he grinned up at her and said, "But also -- I'd do anything in the name of art, in front or behind the camera." He didn't wink. But it seemed like he should.

Bo could exist forever in the limbo of college. It was a shame he wasn't actually enrolled, alas. He would continue living his falsehood until it no longer served him. "Your mom is an artist too?" he said, smiling. "Good genes. My mother had a free spirit. She creates things, mostly crafts, not as passionate about photography as me. But to each their own." He shrugged it off. His mother had her own sort of business with it, far more organized that Bo would ever be.

When Harmony outstretched her phone, he took it and quickly tapped in his number. He wasn't exactly responsible with his own phone, but it came back to him every now and then. It was like destiny, he reasoned. He would lose it and then, some stretch of time later, he would find it again. Seredipity!

He entered his name as:



Charming, really.

Sensing that their time together was at an end, Bo slid his money down onto the bar. "It was a pleasure, Harmony," he said. Quickly, he grabbed at her hand and kissed it, a bit dramatically. "You let me know the next time you want to talk art and nudity -- in or out of a very dark room."

With a wink, he slipped past her and disappeared out the door, his grin widening with each step.