The Solid Grounds Coffee Company

by Carla Laureano

  She and Bryan. Together.

  Kissing.

  A lot.

  Which of course wasn’t the main point of any relationship, but it definitely marked a change in what had been up until now a flirtatious friendship. She’d taken extra care dressing and doing her makeup after the gym, even as she told herself she didn’t need to. This was Bryan, after all. He’d seen her sweaty and disheveled, running the steps at Red Rocks. Not to mention the fact that he didn’t seem like the type of guy to expect his woman to be made-up at all times.

  She would never admit to thinking about being any man’s woman, let alone his.

  She parked out front on the nearly empty street and unlocked the door with her key, then flipped the latch behind her. “Bryan? Are you here?”

  She heard a rustle a moment later, and he poked his head out of the cupping room. “Good morning!”

  She held up the brown sack she was carrying. “Look what I brought.”

  “A paper bag?”

  “Cute. I dropped by Bittersweet for breakfast.”

  “Oh, you are the best.” He caught her around the waist and then lowered his head for a languid good-morning kiss. She sighed happily, feeling every bit as sappy as she’d accused her friends of being.

  “I really am, aren’t I?” she said, earning a laugh from him. “I do remember you promising me some coffee. I can’t wait to test out the new roast.”

  He grimaced.

  “You didn’t.”

  “I couldn’t help myself. I was so confident I’d gotten it right, but I used the inferior beans. It wasn’t a good example. So after you left I did another batch with the Flor de Oro.”

  “And?”

  He smiled. “It’s good, Ana. It’s really good.”

  Excitement welled up inside her. “Can I have some?”

  “Of course. Let’s go into the cupping room and I’ll make you a pour over.”

  She grabbed the bag and moved into the cupping room, where Bryan immediately started weighing beans from a glass jar and then putting them into the grinder. She unpacked the Styrofoam containers that held their breakfast along with plastic utensils and settled onto a stool at the tasting bar. He’d said he’d been studying roasting, but evidently he’d been working on his barista skills, because he did the pour over exactly as she would have . . . on the scale, with a timer, giving each incremental amount time to absorb and drip through the paper filter before he poured the next. The slow, steady supply of water extracted the beans to just the right degree, while the heavy paper filter removed the oils and sediment for a clean, crisp cup of coffee. When he finally set the brewed coffee in front of her in a warmed cup, he looked about as excited as she felt.

  Ana inhaled the aroma first, clean and bright with only a little bit of the roast’s char evident. Pretty much a perfect medium roast. Then she took her first sip.

  “So?” Bryan said.

  She set down her cup carefully, a smile spreading across her face. “You’re right. It’s really good. I think you could go a little further to bring out the caramel or stop sooner and get more floral, and either would be excellent.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.” He poured the rest of the coffee from the glass carafe into his own cup and sipped it experimentally. “The question is . . . is it good enough?”

  “I say we let the experts decide. Tonight is friends-and-family night at the supper club again.”

  Bryan looked suddenly uncertain, and for whatever reason, she found that insecurity incredibly endearing. It was a sign that he cared about what he was doing, the flippant, devil-may-care climber who had done whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted. It was a change in the man she’d known. And not an unwelcome one.

  “Would you rather hear it from them or from the shop owners and chefs when I start sampling?” Ana asked reasonably.

  “Good point. Will you text Rachel and get us on the list?”

  “We’re already on it. I asked her a couple days ago if we could take over the coffee responsibilities. You can talk about the beans and I can play barista. If I recall, last time you asked me to make you a cortado.”

  Bryan circled the bar and perched on the stool next to her. “Was that only a month ago?”

  She blinked. She guessed it was. Only a month since she’d been put on leave. A month since Bryan had come back into her life. How had her life made such a drastic turn in only a few short weeks?

  “Uh-oh, I can tell you’re analyzing things. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, it’s just that . . . a month ago, I would have never thought that I would be working full-time on your coffee company. Not in a million years would I have dreamed we’d be . . . you know . . .”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  She flipped open her food container, which contained Rachel’s famous spring crepes. “I didn’t mean it that way. You did disappear for eight months. I wasn’t sure we were going to see you again.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been interested in you since the moment I met you. Remember, at Alex’s Fourth of July barbecue? He was trying to impress Rachel, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.” He opened his own container and gave her a nod of thanks when he saw she’d gotten him the same thing. “And before you say it, I wasn’t trying to get you into bed. I could tell that wasn’t your style.”

  She flicked him an amused look. “That’s not the impression I got.”

  “Maybe I didn’t know how to go about it. It’s a lot easier to flirt than to come up to an obviously intelligent and intimidating woman and tell her you think she’s amazing.”

  “You think I’m amazing?” She let the intimidating crack go, because he was right.

  “I do.” He leaned over and planted a light kiss on her lips. “And I’m glad you haven’t freaked out yet.”

  Ana stabbed a piece of potato. “I’m still considering it.”

  “You didn’t seem to have any issues last night. I think I’m just going to keep kissing you so you can’t think about it.”

  Inwardly, she thought that sounded like a very good idea. “If you do that, I’m going to forget that I have another batch of logos for you to look at.”

  “Rain check on the kissing, then. For now.”

  Ana chuckled as she pulled her tablet from her shoulder bag. She’d known he was sarcastic and charming and edgy, but this silly side was something completely new. The idea that she brought it out of him made a little flutter start in her stomach. She booted up the tablet and then pulled up the email from the graphic designer.

  Bryan took the tablet from her hand and scrolled through the six designs in the file. “These are pretty good. But this . . . this is the one.” He pointed to her favorite of the batch, designed to look like a passport stamp with a line-drawn mountain range in the center and Solid Grounds printed in a circle around it.

  “That was the one I picked too.” Ana smiled. “I’m thinking we use black, red, and cream for the brand colors. I’ll make up a brand book so we can make sure everything’s consistent across website and packaging.”

  “How long will that take? The website?”

  “The back end, with the secure ordering and the product database, will be done in another week. The front end, the design part, hasn’t even been started. He needed a logo to build it around.”

  Bryan found her hand and laced his fingers with hers. “Thank you, Ana. I couldn’t have done this without you. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  She smiled at him. “Then we can start talking about my advisory shares of what is going to be a very successful company.”

  * * *

  When Bryan got to Bittersweet Café that night, none of the guests had yet arrived; only Alex, Rachel, and Melody were there, the two women already hard at work on the meal. Bryan brought in a canvas bag that held the roasted beans and plunked it on the coffee bar, his stomach already in knots.

  “Hey, where were you this morning?” Alex asked. “I thought you were me
eting me at the gym.”

  “Sorry. I got caught up at the roastery.” That was one of the reasons, at least. After Ana left, he’d started fine-tuning the roast with the Flor de Oro beans, finding the exact right point for both the drip grind and a blonde espresso; he refused to destroy the unique, delicate character of his beans by charring them into an unrecognizable mass of carbon. Do that, and his offerings would be no different from the chain coffee shops that dominated every street corner and airport in America.

  The bigger reason was that he’d promised Ana he wouldn’t say anything to their friends about their new relationship, but he was loath to lie. And between over two decades of friendship and Alex’s multiple degrees in psychology, it would take him exactly four seconds to determine Bryan was hiding something.

  Even now, Alex was studying him with narrowed eyes. “What’s going on?”

  Bryan took a deep breath. “I have to admit, I’m really nervous. It’s one thing to think I’m good at this; it’s another thing for people to say they’ll pay for it.”

  Alex clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to my world. Every time I put out a new essay or article, it feels like being put in the stocks while the sun rises, waiting for the townspeople to start throwing rotten vegetables.”

  Bryan threw him an arched-eyebrow glance, and Alex laughed. “Okay, so weird analogy. Just know that putting yourself out there for any reason is pretty terrifying. What did Ana say? She’s the biggest coffee snob out of all of us.”

  “She thought it was good. Of course, she had her suggestions about what I could do differently next time . . .” He didn’t say that he had taken those suggestions and experimented with some tiny batches in the sample roaster. Tomorrow when he cupped the beans, he’d know if she’d been right or not.

  “Speaking of . . .” Alex nodded toward the front door, through which Bryan could see Ana crossing the street to the bakery. Even from a distance he would have recognized her; he’d been cued into her for some time—her movements, her walk, the way she flipped her hair over her shoulder when she was trying hard to be nonchalant. Which was exactly how he knew she was just as nervous as he was at this moment, though for potentially different reasons.

  “Did you know she used to be a barista?” Bryan said. “She’s going to show off her skills tonight.”

  Alex looked at him closely for a moment, and Bryan wondered if he’d said something that had given him away, but he didn’t have any more time to wonder because Ana was coming through the front door.

  “Hey, guys.” She pushed her sunglasses up onto her head, sounding perfectly normal. “Are we the first ones here?”

  Alex nodded. “Rachel and Melody are cooking, of course.”

  “Good. I wanted to talk to them about what drinks they want us to make for dessert. Bryan and I thought it made more sense to serve the same drink to everyone. Easier to judge the quality of the coffee if we remove variables.” She plopped her bag on the counter, smiled vaguely between the two men, and then retreated to the kitchen, where her friends were working.

  Bryan watched her leave before he realized he was being conspicuous and turned back to his bag of beans. Alex stood there thoughtfully for a long moment. “So how’s that whole thing going?”

  “What whole thing?”

  “You and Ana.”

  Bryan didn’t look up. “Good, I think. We’ve got the logo nailed down, and she’s called in pretty much every favor she’s owed to get our website and marketing up and running fast. She’s smart.”

  “And that’s it?”

  Bryan glanced up at his friend. “What’s it?”

  “She’s smart?”

  “Well, she’s smoking hot, but you’ve got eyes.” Bryan tried for his usual flippant tone, but from the smile that was creeping onto Alex’s face, he thought he might have missed it by a few degrees.

  “I do. As do you.” Alex rapped his knuckles on the counter and took a step back. “I’m going to go talk to Rachel.”

  Bryan sighed. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t go speculate with Rachel, okay? It will make Ana uncomfortable.” There. He hadn’t exactly told him anything, but he’d implied enough for his friend to fill in the blanks.

  “Okay,” Alex said simply. “But I give it until the end of the night before everyone knows. You are a terrible liar. Ana, however, is frighteningly good.”

  “She is until you get to know her,” Bryan said without thinking, and then shut his mouth firmly.

  Alex laughed. “Okay then. I do need to talk to Rachel, though.” He held up a hand. “About a completely different topic.”

  Alex slipped from the room, leaving Bryan alone at the bar. So much for keeping things under wraps. What had it been? Sixty seconds before Alex knew everything, just from the look on his face? There was a reason why he’d never been any good at poker. Same reason he’d never been very good at pleasing his father—he couldn’t prevent everything he thought and felt from surfacing directly in his expression and words. And most of the time, they were thoughts that probably should be kept to himself.

  He spent time going over the bar setup. He’d worked briefly in the coffee shop attached to the roastery in Oregon, learning coffee-making techniques and best practices, but he couldn’t say he was anywhere near a professional. The best he could do was check to make sure the espresso machine and the milk frother were clean, that the milk and nondairy alternatives in the refrigerator were fully chilled. He’d grind his beans as close as possible to brew time, so there was very little to do but run a damp rag over the polished bar top and hope for the best.

  Ana emerged from the kitchen not long after. “You ready?”

  “Yep.”

  She studied him for a second. “There’s no reason to be nervous. The coffee is good. And really, 90 percent of the people here aren’t going to know what they’re drinking anyway.”

  “I’m not sure whether that’s encouraging or not.”

  Ana plowed on, unperturbed. “I thought we’d start the drip when they’re finishing up the main course and bring the cortado out after dessert.”

  “Good plan.” He rubbed his hands together, a nervous gesture he’d developed in his climbing days, even though his palms weren’t covered in chalk. He’d be a lot more relaxed if he could pull her close and kiss her, but before he could even think about making good on that idea, the door dinged open to their first guests.

  It was friends-and-family night again, so Bryan had at least met most of the guests, even if he didn’t know any of them well. He and Ana greeted them and ushered them to the table, which was soon filled with people, their relaxed chatter filling the small café space. Definitely an easier audience for their first time out of the gate. Did Rachel and Melody feel this nervous when they debuted a new menu item? Probably not. They were professionals; he was hoping to be a professional someday.

  “Relax,” Ana whispered, bumping him with her hip as she passed behind the bar. “It’ll be fine.”

  He grasped her hand under cover of the bar and rubbed his thumb across the back, felt her slight inhale in response. At least he wasn’t the only one having a hard time keeping their budding relationship under wraps.

  Finally, Alex called them to the table and they filed into their places, Ana on the opposite end from Bryan, thankfully. Then Rachel and Melody brought out the salad course, which they never ate themselves. It was good, but his mind was split between Ana four seats down and their coffee debut in less than an hour; food was a bare afterthought.

  The first-course plates got cleared, and then the women came out with the second course. Rachel stood at the head of the table to address the group. “This one is special tonight. We’re having coffee-and-ancho-rubbed tenderloin over roasted potatoes, the coffee for which was provided by Denver’s newest micro-roaster, the Solid Grounds Coffee Company, owned by our very own Bryan Shaw.”

  Bryan’s gaze shot to Ana, who just grinned at him. So that was why she�
��d asked if she could take the remnants of the sample beans. He took his first experimental bite of the beef, wondering if he could recognize his own beans in the rub. He couldn’t, but it was delicious all the same.

  When that course was finished, Ana excused herself from the table to start the drip behind the bar. Bryan paused for a minute and joined her.

  “I should have told you,” Ana said, “but I wanted to surprise you.”

  “It was good, wasn’t it?”

  “It was. And this is going to be good too, so relax.” Ana took the glass jar of beans, weighed out the proper amount, and poured them into the newly cleaned grinder.

  “Not too fine. I’m finding that they overextract if . . .”

  Ana shot him a look. “Bryan, I’d venture to say I’ve done this a lot more than you have. Relax.”

  He grinned and backed off. Whatever might be going on between them, it didn’t make a dent in her assertiveness. He just leaned against the back counter and watched her grind the beans, put them in the coffee machine, and start the drip going into the huge insulated dispenser. The way she moved around the bar said she hadn’t been exaggerating about her work experience; however long ago it had been, she definitely knew what she was doing. What a surprise to find that the polished, high-powered professional could do something as . . . normal . . . as make coffee on a commercial machine.

  Or maybe it was just because everything she did was fascinating to him and always had been.

  He had it bad.

  “If you pour, I’ll serve,” he said in a low voice, leaning over to check that the cups were warm on top of the espresso machine.

  “Deal.” She didn’t look at him, just checked the progress of the coffee and then started pulling cups from the stack to fill, neatly and precisely, all to the same level. He put them on saucers and took the first two out to the table before he thought to grab a tray from under the counter and take out the next six together.

  And then he held his breath, waiting for their responses. He shouldn’t have been surprised when Ana fished cards out of her purse and began passing them around. “I know this is unusual for a supper club, but this is also our very first focus group. If you wouldn’t mind filling out the cards while you drink your coffee and eat your dessert, we would really appreciate it.”