Page 18 of Wide-Eyed
I could have kicked myself for adding that.
Kev’s eyebrows went up. “Is he now? That’s interesting.” But he didn’t press the subject. “Can I get you a coffee, Lyssa?”
“Yes, please.”
“What do you want?”
Kev said that like it was one word, waderyuwunt.
I looked at the blackboard over his head. Flat white. Long black. Those were adjectives, not coffees. Some places in New York did this style of coffee, but I usually got a frappé, which was missing from the Levitate menu. The lack of coffeepot on the counter also threw me.
“Mike drinks tea with lemon,” Kev said conversationally. “But I need more caffeine than that. I’m partial to a flat white with almond milk. We do them with two shots of espresso. Want to try that?”
“Yes, please.”
Kevin waved off my money and started tinkering behind the big silver espresso machine. “My niece Hannah didn’t tell me that cow’s milk gave her the shits until I’d been making them for her for ten years,” he said conversationally over the machine. “I still feel bad about it. So if almond milk doesn’t agree with you, don’t be backward about coming forward, okay?”
A laugh fell out of my mouth. “I promise to keep you informed of any critical bowel movements.”
“Top notch. Take a seat anywhere. I’ll be taking a break in ten if you’d like some company?”
“Yes, please, Kevin.”
“Call me Kev.”
While he chatted with a steady stream of customers, I studied my New Zealand road code and sipped my coffee, which was delicious. Nutty and rich but strong. I would have to be careful how many of these I had or I’d never get on a normal sleep schedule.
The road code was as expected.
Mike had been such a snob about my driving. Sure, most New Yorkers don’t drive, but I’d grown up in Connecticut! We drove all the time! Mike would know that if he’d ever watched one of my Come with Me to Thanksgiving in Connecticut videos, which I mostly filmed to have the barrier of a camera between my mother and I.
Still, I felt like I should make an effort with this little road rule book, seeing as Mike had gone to all the effort of finding it and laying it out for me before five a.m.
I was brushing up on New Zealand’s roundabouts when Kev pulled up a chair across from me. I didn’t ask him why Mike would care if I knew what to do at roundabouts when Woodville didn’t even have any. Instead, we swapped pleasantries (my flight, the weather, the birthday party here yesterday) before Kev worked his way to the question he really wanted to ask.
“Does Caroline know you’re here, Lyssa?”
“We keep missing each other,” I half lied. “I’m waiting until later tonight to call her back. Because of the time difference.”
“Call her at eleven,” Kev suggested. “That’ll be about seven p.m. for her, which is after she’s eaten and fed their rabbit—is it called Pickles or Tickles? I forget—but before she has to start getting ready for one of her shows. But if you want to talk to Chase at the same time, that gets a bit harder, because he’s usually at his games place when Caroline is home.”
I definitely didn’t want to talk to Chase. When he found out what I’d done at Bossi, he would lecture me to death. Maybe he’d technically be right, but I didn’t need it rubbed in.
That said, even a lecture from Chase would be easier to bear than Caroline’s hurt that I had never told her about Paul.
“To catch both of them, I think three a.m. would be your best bet,” Kevin finished, like that was a perfectly normal time to make a call. I guess for him, it was. His daughter had been overseas for a long time. “How long are you planning on staying?”
“Maybe a few weeks.”
Kevin Holliday leveled a teacher-ish look at me, and I predicted his next question before he asked it.
“Do your family know you’re here on the other side of the world, staying with a man they don’t know?”
The idea was laughable.
“I’m grown. I don’t need to notify anyone if I take a vacation.”
“Caroline said the apartment you two lived in belongs to your mum?”
