By seven a.m., my feet already ached.
The Harbor Lane Café hummed the way it always did on weekday mornings—espresso machine hissing like it had opinions, spoons clinking against ceramic, the door bell chiming every few seconds. Outside, the street was gray and slick from last night’s rain; inside, it was all warm light and the smell of cinnamon and burnt toast.
I balanced three plates on my left arm, pen between my teeth, ponytail already starting to escape its elastic. Survival mode, round whatever-we’re-on. Rent due in five days. Electric bill pretending it doesn’t know me. My phone in my apron pocket, a little brick of anxiety.
“Table six, honey,” Evelyn called from the pass, sliding two more plates under the heat lamps. Her silver hair was up in its usual no-nonsense twist, her lipstick a fearless berry shade I could never pull off.
“I need eight arms,” I mumbled around my pen.
“You’ve got heart instead. Move those,” she said, swatting the air with a towel, but her eyes were soft the way they always were when she looked at me.
I dropped off the plates with a practiced smile, apologized for the wait that wasn’t my fault, grabbed coffee refills, dodged a toddler in a dinosaur jacket, and nearly collided with Thomas as he carried out a tray of muffins.
“Careful, kiddo,” he murmured. “We can’t afford to replace you.”
“You can’t afford my medical bills either,” I shot back, and that earned one of his rare, crinkly-eyed grins.
It was chaos, but it was familiar chaos. The kind that wrapped itself around the hollow places inside me and convinced them, for a few hours at least, that I belonged somewhere.
The bell over the door chimed again just as I grabbed a fresh pot of coffee. The draft of cold air rushed in, skimming over the sweat at the back of my neck.
I didn’t look up right away. Morning crowd, regular suits from the law firm down the block, construction guys with paint-splattered boots. I moved on muscle memory, refilling mugs, my mind already tallying tips.
Then a voice I didn’t recognize said, “Excuse me,” in a low, even tone that vibrated somewhere behind my ribs.
I turned.
He stood just inside the doorway, the early light from the front windows catching in his dark hair. Tall. Broad shoulders beneath a charcoal suit that whispered expensive even through the café’s lingering scent of bacon grease. His tie was loosened, like maybe he’d pulled it free the moment he stepped away from whatever glass tower he’d come from. A coat folded over one arm, a phone in the other hand, its screen lit with the kind of calendar I’d seen only in movies—solid blocks of color, no white space.
His eyes lifted from the screen to me. Gray, cool, sharply focused. He took me in the way some customers examined the pastry case—assessing, measuring. Something inside me straightened in answer, as if I’d been caught slouching.
“Hi,” I said, gripping the coffee pot a little too tight. “Table for—?”
“Just me.” His gaze flicked around the room once, then settled back on my face. “Is it self-seating?”
“Yeah, anywhere you like. Except the ceiling fan, that one’s mine.” The joke slipped out on autopilot before I could stop it.
