“A fall blend too.” Jodi’s voice sounded just as harassed. Very unlike my employees.
“On it.” I turned around and grabbed my extra large coffee carafe from the bottom shelf. I hadn’t had to pull it out since the rainy Fourth of July this summer. On autopilot, I set the coffee grinder for an extra large batch and refilled water reservoirs. I glanced at the corner of the counter where Gideon’s thermos was still standing.
Nope. I wasn’t going to think about Gideon right now.
Even if he had never, ever missed a coffee pickup since the first time he’d tasted my damn coffee.
Then again, he’d been lying to me for over two years. Why should anything surprise me now? Not to mention the fact that no one in freaking town had ever mentioned that he had a kid either.
“Macy, how’s that coffee coming?”
What the hell was freaking going on? Were we living in OppositeLandia that Clara would be barking at me for coffee instead of the other way around?
I slammed the top on the first carafe and set it on the pouring station. Clara was building an espresso and had another Americana in progress. Brewed Awakening had singlehandedly turned people in the Cove into coffee snobs. Not that I was proud or anything.
I grabbed the last carafe and then jumped in to help.
“Hello, Mrs. Berkley, nice to see you.”
The older woman raised a nervous hand to her simple cross peeking from her demure collar. “I know it’s busy, but do you think you could…”
I grinned at her. “Donna special coming up.”
Donna Berkley blushed. “I hate to make you do anything extra with it being so busy.”
I waved her off and went to the espresso machine. Donna loved the idea of a fancy drink, but she was far too anxious to really enjoy a good caffeine-loaded latte. That and she was one of my eternals. Between the daily Box of Brews that she picked up for the school and the bakery items she purchased every Friday, the third grade teacher was one of my favorite kinds of customers.
I quickly tamped down a quarter espresso bean batch and set aside the remainder to use with another order. A “Donna” was more cocoa powder and cinnamon with frothy almond milk.
She didn’t really know what was in it. None of my customers were privy to their specialty drinks. I liked it that way. It kept a little mystique where the café was concerned.
I spotted two of my other regulars in line right behind her and started up their regular orders. It was busy enough that they’d get what I gave them and not fucking complain.
Clara and Jodi both had orders going, and we worked around each other in a choreography that only a coffee house would understand. However, this dance was usually done by now, which normally gave us some time to get ready for the even heavier lunch rush.
Not that I didn’t love all the extra customers—and money—but at ten in the morning? Yeah, that didn’t compute.
I glanced over at the far side of the counter to find Tish giving me some serious side-eye and an expression loaded with what-the-fuckery.
This was usually the time Tish and I snarked over coffee and a fritter. She tried to figure out what her secret ingredient was, I wouldn’t give her a single clue, and we’d trade insults for ten minutes. It was the goddamn highlight of my morning.
Not to mention her guesses had definitely made my list for other secret blends.
I quickly made Tish’s drink and snaked a fritter out of the case. I dropped it on top of her to-go cup. “I’ll catch you tomorrow, Cayenne.”
Tish Burns—auto body princess and metal mistress—jogged closer. “Girl, you rock.” She shoved the pastry into her mouth and waved.
“Ladies, what’s going on? Got a little backed up?”
Tish shot a look over her shoulder and we both rolled our eyes at Lucky Roberts’s booming voice from the door. He was a massive tree of a guy with more hair than sense. For
some reason, Gideon kept him on his payroll. Lucky seemed to flap his damn lips and flip his hair more than he worked, but I wasn’t his boss.
Thank fuck.
The sea of women turned at his deep baritone. Some gave him a longer perusal—he was objectively attractive if you were into that sort of thing—but most were disappointed. The murmuring increased as Lucky waded into the fray. He pulled a pencil from behind his ear and dug out a little notebook from his back pocket. He licked the tip of the pencil and gave the nearest female his most charming grin. “Can I take your order?”
I rolled my eyes. That pencil action wasn’t nearly as hot when Lucky did it.