I sat at my desk and stared at two pictures. The first was of a woman at a desk with her laptop a little off to the left. Her right hand held a steaming coffee mug as she looked out the window. There was a fuzzy, busy street and her reflection was clear.

Did that make me want to drink coffee?

The second picture was of a woman sitting on a wide window sill. The frame of the window was old with white chipped paint. The window was slightly open. Her hands cupped a smaller mug and she held it near her nose, eyes shut, smiling as she inhaled the yummy smell of a fresh cup of coffee.

Did that make me want to drink coffee?

My eyes scanned left to right.

I personally called bullshit on both pictures, but it was my job to figure out which one would sell more coffee.

That was my job.

I was working as a waitress when an old friend from high school came in and told me she was starting a business and wanted my help. When she said it was a coffee business, I curled my lip. Ironically, I was holding a pot of coffee when she proposed the idea. She wanted me to help her get the business up and running. I had about fifty bucks in my pocket, and there were about three dollars in gratuity on the counter from the regulars as I took off my apron and figured why not?

We worked together, lived in her small apartment, and managed to actually start a business. Of all the things in my life I thought about doing, I ended up as this. The marketing person for a small coffee company. But it worked. I lived. I was happy. My boss was my friend, which sometimes made life easier, but it was still like having a boss.

My father dreamed of me going to med school and becoming a rich doctor, but he always said it with a smile. Of course he dreamed big for me, but at the end of the day he just wanted me to be happy.

And that word - happy - was something that came and went like the weather.

Or marketing campaigns.

I stood up and grasped the first image.

My office was enclosed by an all-glass frame that looked across a wide open-plan floor to a second identical office, which was Molly’s. Some technology company had been in the small building before us and we took over their lease. On the right hand side of the building was where all the roasting was done. Roasting coffee. For whatever reason, Molly took to the idea and was actually good at it. The company was growing and always busy.

In the middle of the floor were a handful of desks where employees worked.

Bambi was newly twenty-one and stood at my glass door wearing big red glasses and had her hair all twisted, and somehow, standing still on the top of her head. She raised an eyebrow and tapped a pointer finger on the glass.

“Come in,” I said.

She opened the door. “I have numbers.”

“Oh?”

“And orders. And… some bad news.”

“I don’t do bad news,” I said. I turned the picture of the woman at the table around. “I do good news. Happy news. I make it so you want to drink coffee.”

“Yeah, sure. So, these are the current financials…”

“Why do I want to see these?”

“I don’t know,” Bambi said. “Molly said so. And she also said you need to go out on a run.”

“Huh?”

“Kelly isn’t here today.”

“Why not?”

Bambi pointed to her stomach.

“Pregnant?”

“No. Period.”

I curled my lip. I thought about making a comment, but I held back.

I looked forward through my glass window all the way across to Molly’s office. She stood there, smiling at me. I put my hands up, the silent sign of what the hell? and she quickly reached for her phone and shook it as though she was getting a call. She put it to her ear and threw her head back with laughter.

“Bitch,” I whispered.

“I’m telling her you said that,” Bambi said.

“Then you’re fired.”

“Can you fire me?”

“Yes I can.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, Molly is a total bitch.”

“Hey, that’s my best friend,” I said.

Bambi’s eyes went wide. “Uh…”

“Give me the stuff,” I said. “Or just put it on my desk.”

She slapped down a bunch of folders that I had no desire to deal with.

“I have a conference call,” she said. “When you’re done with the financials, I’ll take them back and get everything finalized.”

“Bambi, pick a picture,” I said.

I backed up and picked the other picture up off my desk.

“Huh?” she asked.

“Which one do you like better?”

“Where’s the one of the half-naked guy in bed drinking coffee?” she asked.

I smiled. “Not sure how that would go over with our casual coffee image.”

“It’s casual,” Bambi said. “A little sex. A little coffee. Go home. No strings attached. What woman wouldn't want that?”

“Our target market…”

Bambi just stared. Ask her to code a website and she was a pro. Ask her to master social media and she was good to go. Talk to her about anything else and it was just wide eyes and dazed.

“Never mind,” I said.

“Haven’t you ever had anything casual?”

“Of course,” I said.

I turned and threw the pictures onto my desk.

I had no desire to go out and make deliveries. It wasn’t as fun as in the old days when it was me and Molly, in a used SUV that taught me how to do basic repairs on a vehicle. Or we’d just take it to the garage where my father worked. He’d fix it up, remind me that I was never too young for nursing school, and kiss me on the cheek.

Look at me now, Dad.

I got into my SUV and backed it up to the back door. Bambi met me there with what needed to be delivered and where.

When I saw the last stop, I rolled my eyes.

* * *

Deliveries weren’t that bad. It was nice to get out and see people. Talk to people. Talk to those who were buying the coffee and those who were drinking it. In fact, I caught myself a few times just sitting in a corner and watching people. That’s when it hit me that Molly probably gave Kelly the day off on purpose for this exact reason. To get me out into the world to see our customers.

I hated when Molly was right but I would never tell her that she was.

Going to my final stop was something I had to deal with carefully. The old building still had the look of a church. No giant steeple or anything like that. No bell. No clock. No tower. But it had that church look to it.

Stephanie was a nice woman. Her father bought the building and gave it to her to do what she wanted with it. I’m sure my father would have loved to have done the same for me and my sister, but it just wasn’t in the cards for us. That didn’t mean we loved our father any less. Even though he always wished that he gave us a better life.

I parked out back and walked around to the front. There were a handful of people there, none of them together. Three men. Two women. All alone at their own tables. Laptops. Tablets. Phones. Eyes glowing against the light of a screen. Amazing how the world was so much closer because of technology, yet the people right next to you were the ones you never talked to.

Behind the counter, a woman with a name tag that read Beth asked for my order. For the hell of it, I ordered a large coffee.

“Don’t let her pay,” a voice said.

I turned and saw Stephanie next to the counter, stacking up little tin cans of loose leaf tea.

I had already put money on the counter.

Beth looked at me. I smiled. “Take the money.”

“Uh…”

Stephanie climbed down. “Take that money back. I should be paying you.”

“True,” I said. I grabbed my cash. “How are you?”

“Wonderful,” Stephanie said. “Are you parked out back?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Let’s go for a walk.”

I helped Stephanie carry in all the boxes of different roasts of coffee. Each was a large bag of whole beans that she would grind up herself. Then there were boxes of individual bags of both whole and ground up beans.

“Just leave it all here,” she said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. You don’t get paid to put stuff away. Unless you’re looking for a job.”

“Not sure you could afford me,” I said with a wink.

“Plus, Beth needs to do something. She just stands there and stares at the stage waiting for… well, you know…”

You know.

That’s what it had all become.

I forced a smile and a nod.

“Come on, let’s go have that coffee,” Stephanie said.

As we moved from the back area toward the front, I heard the sound of a guitar. Funny how that sound took me back more years than I cared to admit.

Then I saw… him.

Standing on the small stage in the coffeehouse, strumming a guitar as he sat on a barstool.

I froze in place and he looked right at me.

We weren’t strangers. So it was no real surprise in seeing him. I knew he gave guitar lessons in the basement of the place. I knew he played shows around town whenever he could.

But I also knew what he had done to my heart over and over.

* * *

Foster saw me and quickly stopped playing. He put the guitar down and walked off the stage. He gave a wave and a smile as he walked toward me.

I clutched my coffee as though it were a safety blanket. Not that I was afraid of Foster or anything that had happened between us. It was just that old tug o’ war feeling on my heart that I had no interest in dealing with right then.

“Slug,” he said with a smile.

“Foster,” I said.

“Slug?” Stephanie asked.

“Don’t ask,” I said.

Foster laughed. “Let me get that for you.” He reached into his pocket.

“Paid up,” I said.

“Oh,” Foster said. “Well, then let me get one. Got a few minutes?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Beth, got any whiskey for me back there?” he asked.

Beth giggled and snorted, her cheeks turning four shades of red.

I raised an eyebrow and felt my lip curling. As though Foster was my boyfriend and some woman was hitting on him. I looked away, shaking away that old flame that still gently flickered.

“Come on,” Foster said. “Let’s grab a seat and catch up.”

“I see you’re still the king of guitar lessons and open mic nights?”

“And you’re still the queen of caffeine,” he said, without missing a beat.

I smiled. He always could make me smile. As long as I guarded my heart, Foster was good to be around. He’d give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. But just don’t ask him to make plans or promises.

“How’s your father?” he asked.

“Good. Still working.”

“When’s he going to retire?”

“Never.”

“Doesn’t shock me. He was never the type to settle, huh?”

“No. What would he do? It’s all he’s known. To work and take care of me and Vivian.”

“How is your sister?”

“Good.” I felt the conversation was forced and repetitive. “Still doing hair. Enjoying life.”

“I saw her not too long ago.”

“Oh?”

“Doing hair.”

“Your hair?” I asked.

I looked at Foster’s messy brown hair and couldn’t see him in a salon chair, getting a haircut from my sister. He’d had the same messy hair from the day I met him. Only now, he had shed any boyish features, trading a chubby chin for one cut from steel, and he had a little stubble that covered his face and neck.

“Not my hair. Someone I was seeing.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right. Your…”

“Nobody,” he said. “Didn’t work out. They never do.”

“You’re too much of a pain in the ass, Foster,” I said with a smile.

Foster stood up and put a hand to the table. I realized then he was wearing the thumb ring he stole from me a long time ago. It had a unicorn on it. All silver. And it fit his pinky finger.

I looked at him.

His face was dead serious. Then he said, “They never work out, Rose, because they’re not the one I want.”