Page 83 of Common Grounds

Unsure of the level of clothing appropriate for the moment, I tug on my jeans and tank from yesterday before I join him. I lean my hip against the counter and fold my arms across my torso. “What’s all this?”

“Turkish coffee,” he says, pulling a set of measuring spoons out of a drawer. “This is how my grandfather made coffee before he scraped together enough money to buy that espresso machine for the shop. He still made it this way on his rare day off, or if he wanted some coffee after dinner.”

He lines up two tiny cups, a bowl of sugar, a carton of milk, and a red package of what I assume is coffee on the counter next to a small, copper pot with a long handle.

I study him for a moment, arms still folded over the middle of my body. He fills a kettle with water and puts it on the stove before he notices me watching him. “What?” he asks.

“Trevor isn’t a Croatian name,” I say.

He laughs heartily. “You’ve been thinking about the origins of my name?”

“Well, yeah. I’m curious. Job hazard,” I add with a wink, hoping he recognizes the phrase from our first kiss. He beams at me, and I smile right back. “So, where does the name come from?”

“It was my mother’s maiden name. It’s an old Welsh surname, actually. She insisted that, since my dad’s family got my surname and middle name, she got to pick my first name. My grandparents hated it, but my dad insisted it was fair. I don’t think he ever liked it either, but it made my maternal grandfather so happy. And Dad loved Mom so much. He probably wouldn’t have batted an eye if she had wanted to name me Dick. Or worse.” He’s wearing a soft smile as he pushes all of his coffee ingredients into a perfectly straight line.

“What’s your middle name?” I ask quietly.

He still isn’t looking at me when he says, “Marko.”

“For your paternal grandfather?”

He nods as he finally raises his gaze to meet mine. I know this is supposed to be a moment where we connect, where I find something deeper between us than was there before, but I’m struck by that feeling of standing at the edge of a cliff again. And, worse, I’m already off-balance.

“You sure are a medley of your ancestors, aren’t you?” I say as a joke.

Trevor blinks, his eyes burning through me. “Aren’t we all?”

An image of Cass flashes through me unbidden. She’s hunched over the table, red-eyed and head in her hands with sobs wracking her body. All because our mother couldn’t answer a call from her pregnant daughter. All because her daughter married a woman.

My parents come next. My dad is red-faced as he throws Cass’s belongings on the front lawn. My mom stands behind him, her arms crossed. Vi and I hold Cass up as her knees give out.

I snap back to the present. My laugh is cold and harsh. Almost a bark, but I’m suddenly too tired to add that kind of bitterness to it. “I fucking hope not.”

Trevor flinches. That’s it. One flinch, and my heart cracks a tiny bit. He must have remembered that my parents are out of the picture, and I guess he didn’t like that bit of information.

He takes a step toward me. The space is so small that all it takes is one step for our bodies to be close enough for me to feel the heat coming off his bare chest. He cups my jaw with a warm hand and presses a soft kiss to my lips.

I want nothing more than to melt into him, to go back to last night when being here felt more like an escape from the evening we spent trying to cheer Cass up than a reminder of it. So, I try. I part my lips and taste him on my tongue, and it feels like almost enough.

The kettle squeals, and he pulls away from me to press his forehead to mine. “I promised you coffee,” he says.

“Yes. Please.” I lean into him for one more second before he moves away to take the kettle off the heat.

He tears open the packet of coffee and adds three giant teaspoons to the small copper pot. He adds a teaspoon of sugar, then the hot water. He uses a small spoon to stir it quickly.

I raise my eyebrow as I lean against the counter again. “Hard to believe that tiny thing is going to make enough coffee for one person.”

He smirks, eyeing me sidelong. “It actually makes enough for two. They’re small. Espresso-sized.”

I flatten my lips and frown skeptically. “I hope you’re ready to make several of these.”

Trevor laughs. “If you like it, I’ll make you as many as you want.” He holds the small pot over the burner on his stove that the kettle was on. After a few moments, the coffee starts bubbling up and he quickly removes it from the heat. He evenly distributes the coffee into the two small cups on the counter, then rinses the pot out in the sink. He comes back to the cups and adds a bit of milk into each one, then stirs them carefully.

“You don’t filter it?” I ask, wrinkling my nose.

He chuckles again. “No. It’s unfiltered. You really only drink about half the cup and leave the grounds. Some people swear you can empty them on a plate and have someone tell your future from them, but I don’t have that particular skill.”

“Like reading tea leaves,” I say as he hands me one of the cups.

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