Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
A blush crept up my neck from the very memory, and my legs quivered with need.
Despite the aches and the lack of sleep, I’d never felt more alive in my life. The world seemed brighter, sharper somehow. Like I’d had a film over my eyes for the past eighteen years—for my entire life, actually—and this was the first time I was seeing clearly.
However, a man could not be credited with this.
Though he played a huge part.
It was the decisions I’d made last night. The decisions I’d been making for the past three weeks. All of them my own. All of them outside of the person I’d been pretending to be all these years.
This, today, felt like the first day of my life.
“I’m warnin’ yah now, there’s gonna be like a quarter of an hour wait on the coffee,” an accented voice informed me.
I blinked at the man in front of me, his brows pinched together with stress and his eyes slightly wild.
“My barista just quit,” he informed me, speaking close to a shout over the screech of steaming milk. “And it took me years to train her because Yanks have no idea how to make good bloody coffee,” he continued. “I’m usually the main chef here too, but because I am the only one within a hundred-mile radius who can make proper coffee, it’s on me to do this.” He nodded down to the machine, still yelling even though he’d stopped steaming milk.
“And because of that, word gets around so bloody everyone comes from three towns over to get my coffee,” he grimaced, pouring milk expertly into a takeaway cup.
He fastened the lid on and yelled, “Flat white for Hannah!”
I winced at the sound and moved aside for a pretty young woman with a baby on her hip to take the coffee.
Indeed, the café was full, all of the tables occupied and many people standing around, obviously waiting for takeout. I’d been too deep in my head to notice all of this.
The man behind the counter looked very stressed, his hair was mussed, cheeks ruddy and red. He was short, in his mid to late forties, trim and muscular.
“I know how to use that,” I blurted, nodding to the machine.
His eyes widened at me in disbelief. “I highly fuckin’ doubt that,” he scoffed.
Being cussed at in his accent didn’t have the same effect as it might’ve if he was an American.
In fact, it was cute and endearing.
“I don’t mean to be rude, darlin’, but I’m just speaking from experience. Most of you Americans call dirty water coffee and consider a Keurig an ‘espresso machine.’” He scrunched his nose in distaste.
I grinned at him. “I consider Keurigs a crime,” I told him. “We have a very fancy espresso machine at home…” I trailed off.
Home.
I’d said the word without thinking, and it went rotten on my tongue.
The place with the espresso machine, chef’s kitchen and expensive furniture was not home.
My only true home was a daughter on another continent.
The stressed man with the accent I was pegging to be Australian was staring at me, assessing me dubiously. I understood that. He was obviously passionate about coffee and naturally distrusting of a nation that had bastardized the name of coffee—one of the few things I was grateful to Preston for, introducing me to real espresso.
“You really know how to make it? Properly?” the man asked.
I nodded once. “Yes, I can make a flat white perfect as if my life depended on it,” I joked, even though it wasn’t far from the truth.
I had learned to use our intimidating, fancy machine because the consequences of fucking up were swift.
The man in front of me was still not entirely convinced.
“Or I can just leave you to deal with all of this on your own,” I offered, waving my hands at the door where more people were entering.
“Fine,” he said finally. “But you make me one first before I serve it to anyone. I have a reputation to uphold.”
“Deal,” I nodded, walking around the counter to situate myself at the machine. He handed me an apron I took gratefully.
And then, for the first time in years, I worked.
Six hours later, I was exhausted yet wired.
Julian—the owner of the coffee shop and the stressed man from earlier—flipped the ‘closed’ sign and locked the door.
“You saved my ass today,” he informed me, handing me a beer he’d retrieved from a fridge under the counter I hadn’t noticed.
Not that I had much time to notice the layout of this place beyond the coffee machine. For a small town, people really took their coffee seriously. It felt like every resident had come in twice for a cup of java. Well, everyone except the patched members of my favorite local biker gang.
My arm and shoulder burned from tamping the coffee—thirty pounds of pressure was what I’d come to learn created the perfect cup—and my legs ached from standing all day—I wasn’t wearing the right shoes since I hadn’t entered expecting to work at a coffee machine for hours.