Chasing the Sun

S e v e n : Black Coffee

-

Someone, somewhere, once said choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

Well, that's just capitalist propaganda – no matter how much you think you love something, it'll still feel like work if the day's long enough.

One grand big brother scheme or not, I did really like working at the coffee shop.

Sometimes when I think about it, I laugh. When I was growing up, my biggest dream was to build houses like my father.

Truth be told, I wanted to walk and talk like him too.

But I guess some dreams aren't meant to come through.

Maybe things would be easier if life came with instructions or at least a pencil and eraser, maybe if my mistakes didn't feel like tattoos written across my skin for all to see. 

I surely didn't choose the coffee shop but I like to think that the shop and the family that came with it choose me.

They must have because Sam gave me a reason to face everything life threw at me without so much as a résumé. The coffee shop was the first place I actually felt wanted much less needed.

So I give it my all, I open and close the shop, rain or snow, it doesn't matter – I like having the responsibility, I like having a job.

Then Alice walked in and liking my job had a whole new meaning to it.

-

"It's almost 2:30, where's your mystery girl?" Leo mumbles as he tosses a hard glare towards me before turning his attention back to adding a creamy foam design to a cup of coffee.

Leo may spend more time being an ass than anything else but he does make the best cup of coffee I've ever had.

The day after we had our fight about Alice, Leo shoved a Ziploc bag of homemade banana nut muffins into my chest and I threw him a replacement shirt for the one I tore.

It always seemed to work like that between us, poorly mumbled words concealed as apologies didn't make or break our friendship.

"She'll be here, don't worry about it." I turn away from the entrance, half-listening to Leo but spending more time concentrating on the bell that dinged whenever somebody walked in. 

"And, she's not such a mystery anymore."

It had been a couple weeks since we meet at the park and Alice and I had become good friends.

Well, as good as two strangers can be between sips of coffee and turning book pages.

Immediately Leo's head snaps up to me, a traitorous smirk spreading so wide it engulfs his whole face as his moss-green eyes light with trouble.

'That's my guy, hump them and dump them, fuc-"

"Leo! Leo! Would you shut the hell up? It's not like that." I shout, agitated by his every word. 

"It's so much more than that."

Leo as oblivious as ever opens his mouth to speak, the smirk still lingering against his lips.

"Cut it out, I haven't slept with her, far from it."

Instantly the smirk slips away from his lips and is replaced by his infamous scowl. I grin because an irritated Leo makes a smug Johnny.

I wasn't fazed by what Leo expected, he thinks the way to make it unscathed in life is to keep everything that could be something as a quick and un-attached good time.