Wretched Love

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.

My hair stuck to my dewy face, the air thick and humid even with the laboring air conditioning unit that was situated in the corner.

I sipped the beer, grateful for the cold, bubbling liquid sliding down my throat.

“I had fun,” I told Julian honestly.

He raised a bushy brow. “Fun?” he repeated. “You won’t think that by the end of the week.”

It was my turn to raise my brow.

He took a sip of his beer. “You’re the only person other than me who can make coffee correctly in this town, maybe this state. I’m not letting you go without a fight,” he snickered. “I can pay you well above minimum wage. Business is good, and I overcharge for the coffee because everyone else does.” He grinned. “You’re in town for a while, aren’t ya?”

I thought about that while I took another long sip. The plan had been to hop from town to town so I was harder to trace. The thought of leaving Garnett made me feel vaguely sick, though. I hadn’t encountered anything like this place. Hadn’t felt a sense of belonging like this… ever.

Then there was Swiss.

The biker who had rocked my world last night.

No, he blew me right off of my world. I’d landed somewhere else completely foreign and alien, and I liked it.

Choosing to stay here because of a man was dangerous. Reckless.

But leaving somehow felt fatal.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m in town for a while.”