Chapter Four

James circles the block twice and takes a breather in the small dog park a couple streets over before giving in and calling Karen. She lets the calls go to voicemail twice before picking up, sounding more exasperated than irritated.

“No,” she says, before he can even get a hello out.

“I didn’t even say anything!”

“You’re not coming in.” Her tone is clipped, and she would have sounded almost angry to anyone but James, who had known her his whole life. “I told you to take a break. Did you buy milk?”

He had, thank you very much, but he just replies with a roll of his eyes and a pointed groan. “I got coffee, too, from that place you just hired.”

“Matthew’s?” she asks, a hint of interest creeping into her voice. “Did you try any of the food?”

“Pumpkin bread, and I think I fell in love.”

“With the bread or with the baker?”

“Ha ha, very funny,” he replies mockingly, even though his mind helpfully flashes an image of the barista, tall and charming and entirely too handsome to be working behind a coffee bar. Maybe it was a sales ploy, putting someone attractive at the register to con people into spending more money. James kicks himself for not getting the man’s name, but he hadn’t been wearing a name tag and James had been far too busy trying to hold his composure to strike up a conversation. “I didn’t see him around,” he said, “just ordered my food and left.”

“That’s a first.”

“Hey, you told me not to work.”

Karen is silent for a few seconds, and James lets a smug smile steal over his face when he knows he’s won. On the other end of the line, Karen sighs in defeat, and James can picture her pinching the bridge of her nose like she does whenever he annoys her a little too much.

“Does that mean I can come in?”

Karen doesn’t reply for a long moment, she just groans and mumbles something unintelligible, quiet and far away, as if she had pulled the phone away from her face.

“Bring me coffee and I might let you stay.”

James grins and shoves down the urge to fist pump. He’s professional, after all, and standing in the middle of a fairly busy street.

“Not from Matthew’s, though,” he replies. “I just went there and I’m not going back in just yet.”

“Sure you are,” says Karen, tone all no-nonsense and businesslike, and he pulls a face.

“Fine,” says James, hanging up the phone and making his way through the crowds back toward Matthew’s.

***

The barista isn’t there when he walks in again. Instead, a college-age girl is leaning over the counter, smiling brightly and chatting away to the woman at the front of the line. James tries not to let his disappointment show on his face; after all, it had been some time, maybe the man had ended his shift or taken his lunch break. He steps up to the counter and greets the girl—Margaret, her name tag says. She gives him a smile for his troubles, standing ready with a marker in her hand to take his order.

“Large caramel cappuccino, please,” he says, pulling his card out of his wallet and trying not to crane his neck too obviously as he glances around for any sign of the other barista. “And a medium cold brew.”

“Afternoon pick-me-up?’ asks Margaret, a knowing smile painted across her face. She seems nice, personable in a way that seems surprisingly genuine in contrast to the usual forced cheer of coffee shop employees. It’s a welcome change, and James finds himself smiling back in spite of himself, nodding along as Margaret chatters on about how early afternoon is usually busier than this, and how James must be in a rush so does he want his coffee to go, and at that James shakes his head and asks for his coffee in-house with a lopsided grin.

He pays for the drinks and retreats to a table in the corner, pulling out a notebook and jotting down a few notes and reminders for things he needs done when Karen inevitably lets him return to work. It’s a simple enough task that Karen won’t give him any trouble for it when she sees him, and involved enough, that it manages to soothe a bit of the itch that creeps up his spine at the thought of spending his work hours lounging around a coffee house. The wedding is the biggest job looming on the horizon, of course, which means Karen won’t let him lay a finger on it until she deems him acceptable for society again. There are a couple corporate banquets and a graduation party that are low-effort enough that he can put together designs without fear of getting yelled at or forced to use up his rollover vacation hours, though.

Plotting layouts is a simple enough task and it keeps his hands busy. He does a rough outline of each venue and starts to sketch out tables and chairs on the paper, and within five minutes he’s engrossed enough that he nearly misses Margaret stopping by his table with his drink. She smiles down at him, pushing his coffee further toward the center of the table so it’s no longer in danger of falling off the edge. “Should I give you the other one in a to-go cup?” she asks, not even bothering to hide her interest as she looks over his sketches. “I can bring it to the table if you’re waiting for someone.”

James considers it for a moment. He supposes he could manhandle Karen away from the office for a couple hours; if he isn’t allowed in then he might as well make her bring the work to him. “Please do,” he replies, giving Margaret a crooked smile as he shoots off a text to Karen telling her to come down to Matthew’s for her lunch break.

“Work meeting, or just social?” Margaret asks, and it’s a testament to her winning personality that James isn’t bothered a bit by the questions. It’s not prying, just comfortable conversation, and he wonders absently if he could offer to hire her as a replacement for their snippy, perpetually bored office receptionist. She seems perfectly happy serving coffee, though, and James hardly wants to buy out a wonderfully personable barista from a bakery that he’ll be working with for the foreseeable future.

“Work meeting,” he replies, “sort of. It’s just my sister, we work together.”

“Oh, family business?”

“Something like that.” It’s the best way he can describe it, and it certainly started out as a family business, even if they’re successful enough to net sponsorships and several tiers of employees underneath them now. “It’s just the two of us, for the most part.”

Margaret nods sympathetically. “Work probably piles up,” she hums, pursing her lips. “I know it does for me, at least, and I’m the only one here.”

“What about the other barista?” he asks, a bit confused. The man had definitely been there, behind the counter in a professional-looking outfit, taking orders with a confidence that suggested he knew the menu like the back of his hand. Margaret tilts her head and furrows her brows, fixing him with a look he can’t quite place.

“It’s just me here, for most of the year at least. We had a couple girls working here over the summer, but other than that it’s just me and Matt, and he never leaves the kitchen.”

“The baker?” James asks, then mentally kicks himself for needing clarification when the name was hanging on the storefront in bright red block letters.

“Yeah, that’s him,” says Margaret. “He’s not much of a people person, really. Only really comes out to set up shop in the morning and clean up at night. Don’t know how he can bear to spend all day working, but I guess he just loves it that much. I know I need a break sometimes, I’ve been hounding him to take on a couple more hands.”

James can understand that – Matthew seems like a man after his own heart. He figures it won’t be hard at all to work with him, if they have the same outlook on work. The heavenly baking isn’t a point of contention either, and James makes a mental note to pick up a few more bagels for his apartment on the way out.

Margaret heads back to the counter when the door chimes, making a hasty apology to James and brightening when he tells her not to worry. He likes her, he thinks. He likes the whole bakery, the smell of coffee and fresh bread filling the shop and the soft sound of jazz filtering quietly through the speakers overhead. It’s the kind of place he’d like to spend his free time, if he had any when he wasn’t forced to take a break from his work.

As if on cue, Karen breezes in through the door, planting herself firmly in the seat across from him and pulling out her tablet. James glares at her, staring pointedly between her face and the tablet until she puts it back sheepishly.

“If I can’t work, neither can you,” he says, turning his nose up and taking a sip of his coffee. Karen scoffs.

“Really, how long are you going to hold it against me?”

“As long as it takes,” replies James, making sure to slip a haughty note into his voice, just to rile her up a bit. Karen gives him a flat stare, looking disappointingly unruffled. Out of the corner of his eye, James sees Margaret making her way over from behind the counter, Karen’s coffee in hand. There’s a bit of a line, so she doesn’t linger, just drops off the cup with a cheery greeting and heads back to the front. James tries not to be too disappointed. He likes her conversation, and he half wishes he had some sort of a buffer between himself and Karen’s onslaught of sisterly advice.

Karen watches him with a narrowed gaze, staring over the rim of her cup and raising one curious eyebrow when he slumps a bit in his chair. He fiddles with the corner of his notebook and racks his brains for something to say that isn’t about work or how much Karen really needs to stop prying into his life. Silence hangs between them for a while, and Karen just blinks at him as he struggles to find words.

“All right,” she says eventually, taking pity on him and reaching one hand out to tap on the cover of the notebook. “Show me what you got.”

James breathes a sigh of relief and opens up to his sketches from earlier, trying and failing miserably at acting like he wasn’t desperate for a chance to fall back into the comfort and familiarity of his work.