by Клео Коул
“Yeah, yeah…” Esther pushed up her black rectangular glasses, rolled her dark eyes, and in an oh-so-droll tone began to recite my playlist playbook. “No rap, hip-hop, heavy metal, or arena rock.” She took a theatrical breath. “No polkas, bagpipes, Broadway show tunes, military marches, or anything recorded by Ethel Merman. Oh, and…wasn’t there one more verboten type of music on your list?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Anything by Wagner. But that’s not my rule. It’s Madame’s.”
I personally enjoyed Wagner’s epic compositions. But if approaching Nazi tanks had forced me and my family to flee our beloved Parisian home with little more than the clothes on our backs, I probably would’ve banned Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer from being played in my coffeehouse, too.
“Look,” said Esther in the sort of can’t-you-be-reasonable tone I’d heard a thousand times from my daughter, “the CD’s only been playing about fifteen minutes. Nobody’s complained. There’s only one more song. Can’t we let it finish?”
I glanced around the room. It was almost midnight, and there were only three customers left in the place. An Asian man and East Indian woman were nursing lattes with heads bent together in a first-date-passionate conversation. They didn’t appear to be bothered by the music. Neither did the young white guy in a black leather blazer, lounging near the crackling fireplace, bopping his blond, spiky head to the beat of the rapper’s profane chant.
“Fine, Esther,” I said. “I’ll let it go this one time… but what the heck possessed you to put it on in the first place?” Like all of my baristas, Esther had a preferred playlist—one that seemed much more aligned with her feminist sensibilities. “What happened to your Fiona Apple, Liz Phair, Siouxsie and the Banshees mix?”
Esther shrugged.
“What does that mean?” I pressed. “You like rap now?”
“My boyfriend’s into it. He brought the CD over special and everything, you know? The least I could do was play it for him.”
Hold the phone. “Boyfriend?” Ever since I’d known Esther, she’d dated here and there. But never before had she used that “antiquated, Leave It to Beaver term”—as she’d once deemed it.
“He’s right over there.”
Esther pointed across the room toward that wiry young blond man; he was still bobbing his head to the rap. Just then, he looked over at us. He stared for a moment, then winked at Esther and gave her a little wave.
Esther sweetly waved back. “Isn’t he cool?” she murmured out of the corner of her mouth. “He’s waiting for me to get off.”
I raised an eyebrow, more than a little curious about the young man who’d finally cracked Snark Girl’s hard-as-a-hazelnut shell.
“Where did you meet him?” I asked. Something about the combination of his angular face, stiff posture, and outer-boroughs clothes told me this little guy was way too street hardened to be an NYU student. And I’d bet the contents of tonight’s register drawer that underneath the dude’s black leather blazer was a mass of tattoos.
“I met him a few weeks ago,” Esther said, “at a Park Slope poetry slam. He read, too. He was awesome.”
“What’s his name?”
“Actually…he hasn’t told me yet.”
“What?”
Esther shrugged. “He wants me to call him by his handle.”
“Which is?”
“BB Gun.”
Good Lord. I stepped around the counter and pulled Esther aside. “How much do you know about this guy?”
Esther shrugged. “Enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Oh, boss, you’re way too suspicious of people. I appreciate your concern, but you don’t have to worry. He still lives with his mother.”
“Esther, that’s no recommendation! Serial killers live with their mothers!”
What is it with these girls? The more mysterious the “dude,” the more irresistible they find him! Joy was no different. And, although it pained me to admit it, neither was I—at their age, anyway. When I was nineteen, I’d known next to nothing about my ex-husband, yet I’d let myself fall completely in love with him.
I’d been spending the summer in Italy with my father’s relatives, making a study of Renaissance art. Matt was a few years older. He’d been traveling through Europe, visiting friends along the way. When our paths crossed on an Italian beach, that’s all I’d known about Matteo Allegro. Still, I let him take me to bed, again and again—until I’d come home from my European vacation pregnant with Joy and agreeing to wed a young man who believed the “fidelity thing” was an optional rider to any marriage vows.
“Esther, are you hearing me? Am I getting through?”
“Boss, get a grip.”
I glanced at the young man again. “Don’t you think a nickname like BB Gun should send up a red flag?” I whispered. “Don’t you think that boy could be violent?”
Esther rolled her eyes. “It’s just a handle. On the Internet, I call myself Morbid Dream Girl, but I don’t go around dispensing nightmare-inducing hallucinogens.”
“True…but you do like being morbid.”
“Goth’s my human condition. I can’t help it. Anyway, BB thinks I’m deep.”
I frowned. Not sure what to say to that.
“Listen, boss…” Esther put a hand on my shoulder. “BB’s been crushin’ on me since he heard me recite at the slam. He’s been taking me to dinners and movies and paying for both of us—that’s a first. And tonight he brought me the CD. I appreciate your concern and everything, I really do, but would you butt out of my love life? It’s really not your business.”
I bristled for a second, ready to tell her smartly that her love life was absolutely my business when it involved playing profane lyrics over the Village Blend’s sound system, but I zipped my lip.
I was obviously still in mother hen mode after coming away from my daughter, and while it was true that Matt, Madame, and I all felt that our employees were part of the Village Blend “family,” Esther was right. She deserved her privacy, and, frankly, the last thing I wanted to do was drive away a well-trained employee. I was short-staffed as it was, and good technique didn’t emerge overnight in this business; it came with hours and hours of repetitive practice. (Top coffeehouses, ours included, required a barista to train at least three months before pulling even one espresso for a customer.)
Despite her occasional crankiness, Esther really had blossomed as a barista. Her espressos were top-notch, and her latte art skills were nearly at the competitive level. And while I didn’t like her new boyfriend’s taste in music, Esther did seem much less depressed than usual; her jaded eyes were unusually bright, and her pale-as-a-vampire skin was actually flushing with anticipation.
“Okay, you win. I’ll butt out,” I said, but couldn’t stop myself from adding, “Just…don’t get carried away too fast. Get to know him.”
“Duh. Why do you think he’s here?”
“Right,” I said. “Tell you what, since he’s waiting for you and everything, why don’t you just get going now?”
“Really?” Esther checked her watch and pointed to the inventory on the counter. “What about restocking?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll close.”
Amazingly, Esther, queen of the jaded, actually grinned. “Thanks, boss!” she said. Minutes later, my love-struck barista and her new boyfriend were off—and so was the rap music.
In blessed silence, I took off my pinstriped suit jacket, rolled up the sleeves of my blouse, tied on my Village Blend apron, and began restocking. I cleaned the tables next, swept the floor, and emptied the garbage cans.
I’d just finished counting the register drawer when I heard the bell over our front door ring. I cursed myself for not locking up after those last two customers wandered out. Looking up, however, I saw it wasn’t a customer. The man walking in was my boyfriend.
Four
The tall, broad-shouldered police detective entered my coffeehouse like he always did, with the comman
ding authority of a seasoned New York cop. In one sober sweep, he scanned the room to take note of his surroundings, then his arctic-blue gaze came to rest on me and, ever so slightly, his expression melted.
“Hi, Clare.”
“Hi, Mike.”
In a city that hardened everyone—from little old church ladies to pretty-in-pink sorority girls—cops were the hardest cases of all. Mike Quinn was no exception. A square-jawed New York native, he had a long, powerful physique, short, sandy-brown hair, a dry sense of humor, and a load of street smarts from his years working a uniformed beat.
Like your typical poker-faced soldier of law enforcement, Mike didn’t give much away, but I’d been serving him double-tall lattes for well over a year now, and I knew how to read him.
Today, for instance, had been a hard one for him. The shadows under his eyes told me he was coming in here with the weight of a long shift on his shoulders. And the tension in his rugged face told me he hadn’t accomplished what he’d set out to.
“You closed?” Mike asked, his expression still stiff as he swept the empty room once more.
“Depends,” I teased.
“On what?”
“On what you’re here for.”
Mike strode across the wood-plank floor. He took his time stripping off his overcoat, a nicely tailored cinnamon-colored garment, which he’d finally exchanged for that battered old trench he wore in warmer weather. Then off came the beige sport coat, revealing a white dress shirt, slightly wrinkled by the leather straps of his shoulder holster. The butt of his service .45 peeked out from beneath his left arm—a turn-on for me; shameful, but a turn-on nonetheless.
He dumped his coats on one of the high chairs at the espresso bar and sat down. Then he glanced back up, right into my openly admiring eyes.
Since his wife had left him for a younger Wall Street whiz, Mike had been working out a lot more. His upper body was looking more muscular these days, and other parts of him were presumably tighter. This was pure speculation on my part, since (to my growing frustration) our first month of dating had remained chaste.
Oh, sure, there’d been kissing and touching (okay, plenty of kissing and touching), but although he was legally separated, Mike made it clear that he didn’t want us to rush the stages of our fledgling relationship. There were five of these little suckers, according to Mike, and we’d only progressed from stage one to two. What would catapult us to three? I didn’t have a clue.
I figured Mike was gun-shy—understandable, given the lying, cheating, and bipolar nightmares his wife had put him through (like the time she’d left a note informing Mike that she’d pulled the kids out of school and used his nearly maxed-out credit cards to fly them to Florida’s Disney World for a few days—a passive-aggressive reaction to a morning argument).
One thing I was sure of with Mike and me: sexual chemistry wasn’t an issue. Since we’d first met, he and I had flirted openly with each other. He’d been a loyal friend to me during some bad patches, always sticking his neck out to help. In return, I’d tried to be a good listener as he unloaded the problems of his perpetually rocky marriage. Because he was married, however, we’d never pushed for more. But now that he was separated, his wife was living with another man, and we were finally dating, I saw no reason to veil my attraction.
And, clearly, neither did he.
The moment Mike realized I’d been admiring his physique, his sandy eyebrows arched, and he turned the tables, taking his own good time looking me up and down.
Super, I thought, remembering my wretched state.
At the start of the evening, my French-twisted hair had been semi-neat at best. Now I could feel stray strands slipping all over my head. My fitted cocoa suit had been sort of sexy, but I’d taken off the snug jacket to do the closing chores, and I was pretty sure my Village Blend apron held all the allure of a granny smock.
“So, Detective?” My grin turned into a smirk as I loudly blew a loose strand of chestnut hair out of my face. “Make a decision yet? Do you know what you want?”
“The same thing I always want when I come here, Cosi…”
“And what’s that?”
A slow, suggestive smile lifted the weariness in his face. “Stimulation.”
I blinked, speechless for a moment since the sudden rush of blood to certain parts of my body put a strain on my ability to form words.
“Well, then…” I finally managed. “Why in the world are you just sitting there? If you want to be served right, you’ll have to come around my counter.”
He did. Inside of five seconds, Mike was pulling me into his arms. He kissed me deep and long, his hands roving over me, and I felt something different in him…something new. He tugged loose the strings at my neck and waist, yanked the apron off me, and tossed it aside.
My arms lifted high to pull down his head again and get back to the kissing, but the moment my hands locked around his neck, he began dancing me backward—
“Mike?”
With a slight bump, my back end hit the wide work counter beneath the marble espresso bar. He reached behind me, shoving aside two empty milk-foaming pitchers. Then his hands were on my hips, lifting me up. He set my bottom on the cleared counter and stepped between my stocking-clad legs.
“Mike!”
He smiled. “You’re serving stimulation, Cosi. Don’t hold back now.”
This was the most sexually aggressive he’d ever been with me. My skirt was hiked up, his strong thighs between my own, making me understand that there was absolutely no issue with his physically wanting me. With a groan, he started kissing me again, pressing into me.
“Whoa, Mike,” I murmured against his mouth. “You know there’s a perfectly good bed upstairs.”
“I know…” His lips moved off mine, trailed kisses along my jaw. “And if I had time, we’d be on it right now.”
“You mean it?” I gently pushed at his chest.
He leaned back. “Clare, I’ve been on duty for the past ten hours, and all I can think about is you.”
“Really?”
He sighed, rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “I think about you every day, Clare, and every night. Especially at night. I’m losing sleep. I had wanted to wait a little longer, make sure things were right…” He paused, letting his voice trail off, as if he wasn’t sure what to say next.
“What do you mean right?” I pressed.
“Just that…” He shook his head. “Forget it. I can’t wait anymore, sweetheart. You’re messing with my focus on the job. We can’t have that.”
“No, we can’t,” I said, practically giddy. “So let’s go upstairs.”
Mike checked his watch and sighed. “I’m only being spelled for thirty. Not that I couldn’t make the earth move in that time—” He smiled. “But there’s no way I want our first time to be a quickie.”
“Yeah…I don’t want you leaving me—after. Come back later, when you’re off, when you can stay.”
“Okay…” He nodded, kissed me again. Then he lifted me off the counter.
“Come on up to the duplex in the meantime,” I told him, tugging my skirt back down over my thighs. “I’ll press you a pot of my new Morning Sunshine Blend before you have to get back. It’s a Full City roast, so it has more caffeine than your regular latte, and stimulation is my business.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
He grabbed his blazer and overcoat off the bar chair, and I picked up my apron. Then I switched off the main lights and, before heading upstairs, finally locked the front door, vowing never to tell Esther that, thanks to her genius boss, a Blend customer could have walked in on something a lot more obscene than rap music.
“So what’s the job tonight?”
Standing at the marble counter, I pushed the plunger down on the French press. The coarsely ground beans filled the apartment’s cozy kitchen with arousing, floral notes. Mike made a show of inhaling the aroma.
“Mmmm…nice,” he said, his eyes following my every move as I fi
lled our mugs. Then I bent over to grab a carton of half-and-half from the fridge’s bottom shelf, and Mike murmured, “Even nicer…”
I turned around. “Mike, did you hear me? I asked what’s up with your job tonight.”
The detective arched an eyebrow. “If you want me to focus, Cosi, then don’t bend over in front of me.”
“Mike!”
“What?” He plucked the carton of half-and-half from my hand and dumped a little splash of light into his pool of black. “You have no idea how distracting that ass of yours is.”
O-kay, I thought, the man’s definitely ready to shift us into another gear. This was fine with me, except for the fact that he was out of here in twenty, and I didn’t appreciate being left hot and bothered for the next few hours.
“Go ahead,” I warned, “keep up the suggestive talk, and see if you make it out of here unmolested. Now focus, will you, Detective?”
“I’ll try,” Mike said behind smiling eyes. Then he downed a few healthy swigs of my coffee and sighed, letting the hot, fresh blend revive him.
MRRROOOOOW!
The sudden jaguar yell echoed off the kitchen walls. I glanced around to find its source, which was not in fact a 300-pound carnivore, but a 10-pound female house cat with the lungs of a famished jungle beast.
MRRROOOOOW!
“Sounds like you forgot to feed Java,” Mike remarked, glancing around. “Where is she? Java!”
“I’ll have you know I fed her a delicious dinner. She’s just protesting now because all she got was cat food.”
“Excuse me? She is a cat, isn’t she?”
I shook my head. “You just don’t understand…”
White whiskers and two coffee bean–colored paws peeked out from under the kitchen table. Then Java’s whole furry form slinked out, and she began to rub herself against Mike’s leg. He reached down to scratch her head.
“Watch out,” I warned. “She’ll think you’re a soft touch.”
“I am.” Mike met my eyes. “Depending on the feline.”
He gently picked up Java and set her on his lap. Parts of my body melted as Mike’s hand steadily stroked her: long, sweet, gentle strokes. I sighed. Lucky cat.
