Page 13 of That Thing You Brew
I squealed out loud and quickly slapped my hand over my mouth, forgetting I was home alone.
Straight and to the point. I liked that. No pointless small talk or mention of the game or his injury.
Hi. I work from 10 a.m. ’til close.
As an afterthought, I added’til 6 or so, and then we have a staff meeting.
I have practice at ten. Can I meet you at the Bevvie Bar at 8:00? We could have breakfast and talk about … you know.
Sure.
Sure? I smacked my forehead. Could I sound any less excited? Probably best. I didn’t want him to know I’d had a huge crush on him since I made his first toffee coffee.
He replied right away.Great! I’ll see you then.
I stared at his words. Instead of replying, I held my finger on his message until the emoji options popped up. Before I could chicken out, I tapped the red heart and closed the app.
* * *
The next morning,I arrived at the Coffee Loft at seven thirty. Our new owners, Jannell and Marcus Rivera, had taken the early shift this entire week to get a feel for the layout and meet the regular customers. We staff appreciated the chance to sleep in. The week after Christmas was insane.
The nineteenth-century building had originally been the town’s saloon. It was renovated into a café in the 1920s by one of my great-grandfather’s brothers. I forgot which one, as there were eight that lived into adulthood. It had changed ownership many times over the last hundred years, each new owner making it look less and less like its original vessel.
All that remained of the original furnishings on the inside was the dark-paneled side wall along the north-side wall and its matching countertop, which had been brought out of storage a few years ago and set up along the left-side wall for working customers so that they didn’t take up a whole table while they sipped. The Wordsmiths’ Bar, they called it.
The swinging door panels had been attached to the outside walls, and today a Montoya Construction employee was painting them Coffee Loft Red to match the new awning. Minor changes but bold. Definitely different. I waved to him and went inside.
The line was long with our regulars. I nodded and smiled and waved and prayed for the line to move faster. If the new owners hadn’t been here, I would have slipped behind the counter and made my own coffee. I was still getting to know them, though, and didn’t want to chance they’d fire me over something the previous owners encouraged, like eating stale cookies. The Bevells hated waste and refused to serve anything that wasn’t fresh, so the employees benefited, for sure. Anything we didn’t eat or take home was donated.
Behind the two registers, Liam Brewer and his wife, Beck, the owner of Montoya Construction, were installing a gigantic recessed mug cubby into the wall next to the kitchen door. It probably had an official name, but what else would you call shelving with individual spaces for mugs? Liam was our local architect, and Beck and her father ran the contracting business. They were doing all of the work to transform the Bevvie Bar into a Coffee Loft.
“Hi, Penny!” Marie, Jannell and Marcus’s seventeen-year-old daughter, waved to me as she emerged from the kitchen.
I waved back and smiled. She was a sweet girl, an efficient barista and an exceptional person, training therapy dogs in her spare time. She’d even cleared out a cupboard under the counter to use as a doghouse for her newest trainee, Riva. I was thrilled we were going pet-friendly. Riva was a sweet dog, gentle, loving and obedient.
Finally, it was my turn to order. I stepped up to Marie’s register and scanned the doughnuts in the case.
“You’re here early. What do you think of the new mug storage?” Marie asked.
I smiled. “It’s cool.” No stuttering. Marie didn’t make me nervous, and the crowd had dissipated. Maybe I’d be okay with Xavier when he arrived.
“I think so, too. Every summer, we go to this resort in Maine called the Cliff Walk. There’s not one duplicate mug on the property. You never know which ones will show up in your cabin or what you’ll be served with in the dining room. Mom loved that and wanted to do it here, too. For the regulars, mostly.” She leaned over the register conspiratorially. “And the coolest part is you can use them to send a message.”
“That’s a cool idea,” I said. “Passive-aggressive, but I can see how that can come in handy.”
“Yup! Only bottomless for the dine-ins, though. I’d really like to send some messages to some of the to-goers, though, know what I mean?”
I chuckled. “Sure do.”
She grinned. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll take two toffee crunch doughnuts, a Lofty-size sea salt caramel Frodoughchino, and a Lofty Matcha Madness.”
She peered at me through her glasses. “Meeting afriend,huh?” She winked and then giggled.
I laughed, too. Few people ordered the Matcha Madnesses, among them, hockey players. In the week she’d been here, Marie had already served the matcha to a handful of Volts.
A cloud of nerves descended on me, and I pressed my lips together. What had I been thinking, agreeing to meet Xavier here? Especially after yesterday and all the speculation about him and “his barista.” And I’d just ordered his food.
