Page 24 of Not That Ridiculous

He held himself a little stiffer, as if offended. “I could probably get Craig to give you a good price on it if you’d rather?—”

“No. God, no, that man is not coming anywhere near my house, thanks. If I hire anyone to do it, it’ll be you.”

“I work for Craig, though.” He sighed, and seemed to think that was the end of it.

Not for the first time, I wondered why Kevin didn’t tell Craig to fuck the fuck off, and set up his own handyman business. From what I heard these days, he was the one doing most of the work anyway.

His shoulders were slumped and he seemed a bit wistful. It didn’t last long—he perked right up when he spotted my restored vintage Gaggia espresso machine on the counter by the window.

“Ooh,” he said, and rushed over.

I rushed after him, and reached out just in time to smack his hand away before he could start pushing buttons and twisting knobs.

He looked at me, eyes round, and then something shifted in his expression and he went to touch the machine again. This time when I tried to smack his hand away, he caught my wrist and held it firmly.

I huffed and tugged, pulling free but only after he’d held on long enough to let me know he was allowing it.

“No one touches my machine,” I said.

“Aw. Not even me?”

He said it as if he was special. He was, buthedidn’t know that.

…hedidn’tknow that, did he?

“I’m your gym buddy after all,” he said. “Your gym bro. I de-virginised you, like, an hour ago.”

“You are not my gym bro, and no. Nobody gets to touch it. Amalie let Jasper have a go on the La Marzocco at the shop once, and he pulled a knob clean off. I had to serve nothing but filter coffee for two days before the engineer could come out and fix it.”

“Yeah, but I’m way better than Jasper with this stuff. If I break it, I can fix it. I’m good at fixing things, Charlie.” He reached out again, paused at my warning look, then very deliberately poked one of my knobs.

I rolled my eyes at him.

He ran his fingertips over the boxy body of the machine and brushed them over the buttons. He was startlingly gentle with it. He didn’t jab and twist and click things like it was a child’s toy, which was what Jasper had done.

Of course, Jasper had been about fifteen at the time and was an actual child, but still.

Kevin ran his hands lightly over it as if he was reading it. I remembered what he’d said earlier about being a kinaesthetic learner.

“This,” he said, “is not a Nespresso pod machine.”

“Hah. Nespresso wishes. This is a Gaggia,” I said proudly. “Vintage. I got it on eBay.” I’d paid more than I wanted for it, but while I could compromise on kitchen cabinetry, I refused to compromise when it came to coffee.

Kevin’s attention went from my face to the machine and back. “You really like your coffee,” he said.

“Yes. It’s a good trait to have, what with me running a coffee shop.”

He made apfftnoise. “I reckon a fair amount of people want to have a coffee shop because they like the idea of it, and not because they’re into coffee like you are. They probably think it’ll be like the coffee shop on that old sitcom,Friends,or something.”

He wasn’t wrong.

The coffee shop industry was an absolute bastard. It was highly competitive, had a glamour to it that glossed over financial risks and hard realities, and being an independent coffee shop in this economy was about as easy as being an independent bookshop.

I lived in daily fear of Starbucks sliding on into town. Once that happened, all the other franchises would follow, as they always did.

As for me, I wouldn’t survive.

The Chipped Cup had started out as the friendly sort of teashop that used to clutter up every British high street. My parents had pivoted to coffee in the early noughties and The Chipped Cup became a popular fixture in town. I was fiercely determined to hang onto it.

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