Page 93 of Ashes of Us
"My apartment. Finally." I held up Dover White and Swiss Coffee. "Can't tell the difference."
"Swiss Coffee is warmer. Dover's too stark unless you have good natural light."
"Swiss Coffee it is." I put the other one back. "Thanks."
We stood there in the paint aisle, neither of us moving. Me holding a paint chip and a cup of terrible coffee, her with her lightbulbs.
"You know you can just come to the bakery for coffee, right?"
The words caught me off guard. I glanced at the cup in my hand, with its cheap paper and burnt coffee.
"I didn't want to intrude," I said carefully.
"You're not intruding. You're a customer, and I'm good with customers." She shifted her basket to her other hand, eyed the half-smudged logo on my paper cup. "And that place has terrible coffee."
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. "It really is."
"So come by. Get decent coffee."
I looked at her, trying to figure out if she meant it. If this was a polite offer or an actual invitation. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. We open at six-thirty."
"I know." The words were out before I could stop them. "I've driven past a few times. In the mornings."
"Well, now you can actually stop," she said.
My chest did something complicated. "Okay. I will."
"Okay."
She turned toward the register. I watched her go, paint chip forgotten in my hand, trying not to read too much into it.
But she'd invited me to her bakery. The place that was hers.
That had to mean something.
I showed up on Thursday.
Told myself it was just for coffee. That I wasn't reading into it. That this was exactly what she'd offered… a transaction between a business owner and a customer.
The bell chimed when I walked in and Piper looked up from the pastry case, flour on her apron.
"Coffee. Black," I said.
"Coming up."
She poured it, slid it across the counter. I paid, thanked her, and left within three minutes.
It was professional and easy. Exactly what she'd offered.
I came back Saturday. Then Tuesday. It became a routine—two, sometimes three mornings a week. I’d stop in before my shift, order coffee, sometimes a muffin. We'd talk while she worked. All small things at first, like the weather or station gossip.
Then bigger things. My brother moving to Seattle. Her plans to expand wholesale accounts. Real conversations that lasted five minutes, then ten, then fifteen if the morning was slow.
Her employee, that college-aged with purple streaks in her hair, started smiling when I walked in. Like she knew something I didn't.
Three weeks in, I realized I'd started planning my mornings around the bakery. Timing my commute so I'd arrive right when she opened. Checking my phone to make sure I wasn't showing up too often, coming across as desperate.
