No amount of coffee in the world could perk up Ada that night. There was a single customer in the shop at the moment, and she'd already accomplished every single task on her list and then some. Ada's eyes remained on the clock above the door that may very well have been moving backwards. She dropped her chin to her hand as she slouched against the counter, willing time to speed the hell up.
Work normally didn't bother her. The shop had enough hustle and bustle to make time fly by. And with the shop belonging to her godmother, they treated her well. Tonight, however, the towns surrounding Ridgewood all seemed to have events going on, stealing away the attention of most of her customers and leaving Ada bored to tears.
At this point, she'd be happy if Britt and her friends showed up. And she couldn't stand most of Britt's friends, so that was saying something.
The only customer at the moment was 'Creeper', the one customer she would have been a-okay with not being there. He was a forty-year-old man child who she guessed still lived with his mom. Ada still hadn't figured out if he was a Boo Radley or a Norman Bates. Any time he came in, he spent the entire time staring at Ada. Because of this, everyone who worked there referred to him as 'Creeper'.
Although Ada didn't fear being alone with him, she wasn't a fan of it either.
When the bell chimed behind her, Ada swooped around to see Mr. Bennet, her favorite teacher and unreformed coffee addict, walk through the door.
A sigh of relief escaped her lips. "Welcome to Crystal's Coffee Shop," she sang out to him with as much energy as she could muster.
Crystal recommended they say the greeting to each customer who walked in. They did it far less with regulars, as it seemed less personal. With Mr. B, it was just amusing.
"Thank you. I feel welcome," he replied as he always did, flashing her a smile as he spoke. Mr. B rubbed at his sandy brown beard, which had the slightest tint of red to it compared to the rest of his hair.
Ada's curiosity about the beard had long since faded. He'd been clean cut throughout all of her high school career until about two months ago.
He always sat at one of two places. The back booth he used for grading papers or avoiding people. The front corner table he used for people watching when he grew bored. Mr. B became flustered when his spots had other customers at them. He'd go from chair to chair at whatever table was available, trying to find the right one, then pick it up to find the correct angle to face before settling down.
Though he had no papers with him to grade and both spots were available, he walked toward his back booth anyhow. Ada guessed it was to avoid 'Creeper', who was sitting too close to his other table.
"Would the gentleman care for his usual?" Ada called out in his direction.
"Yes, he would. Throw in an extra shot of espresso for me, would ya?"
With any other customer she'd say, 'of course' with her chipper, upbeat voice, but Mr. B consumed more caffeine in a day than her entire family and they'd known each other long enough to where she felt he would not take offense to her single word reply. "No."
He let out a soft chuckle as he sat, used to being turned down more often than not. "All right then."
She pushed herself from the counter and made his usual, a tall peppermint mocha, and moved to the acoustic music playing from the speakers above.
After Ada topped his drink with whipped cream, chocolate syrup and chocolate peppermint shavings, she took it to his corner booth in the back and set it in front of him before she sunk into the seat beside him and let out a yawn. "I'm bored."
"I'm sorry," he replied in a casual tone before he set his glasses on the table. He removed his ascot cap, one he always seemed to wear out of class, and set it next to his glasses.
"I tried replacing the batteries in the clock, but the damn hands still won't move any faster."
Mr. B attempted to keep a straight face, but a smile played at the corner of his lips. "Don't think that's how time works, Ada."
She crossed her arms and narrowed her green eyes at the terrible device. "Time's an asshole."
"You're not wrong."
Ada watched as he took his first drink and gave himself a whipped cream mustache and nose before wiping it away, taking a few extra moments to wipe every trace off his facial hair. This had somehow become their tradition, though she couldn't recall why or how it all started. But it brought a smile to her face every time.
There was a week two months ago where he was in a foul mood and attempted to break tradition, so Ada kept adding more and more whipped cream until it became unavoidable. It became known as the 'whipped cream war', not a creative title for two creative minds.
Ada wasn't sure what had driven her to challenge him on that day, as she avoided Mr. B's foul moods. Maybe it was because he'd gotten snippy with her, which he never did, and she wanted to make it clear she wouldn't stand for it. Not only had he not snapped at her since, but she'd also got him to smile that day.
"It's nice of Creeper to keep you company," he joked in a quiet voice, though Creeper was on the other side of the coffee shop and not in hearing distance.
Ada took down her blonde hair and drew it back into a tighter ponytail. "I am so ready for that guy to get a girlfriend or at least find someone else to obsess over. I even tried pawning him off on Britt, had her come in with a short skirt and everything, and it still didn't work."
"She agreed to that?"
Ada shrugged and leaned back. "She likes the challenge of getting any guy to fall for her."
"So you tried sacrificing your best friend to a guy who probably has his mom's body in a freezer in the basement? That's harsh."
"He's not that bad. Plus, If I want to be a journalist someday, I have to be more cutthroat. If that means sacrificing my loved ones, so be it," Ada said.
Mr. B was her advisor at the school newspaper, which she was editor-in-chief of. She'd been on the newspaper for three years, editor-in-chief for one.
He threw her a look that proved he knew how full of shit she was. "You don't need to be a cutthroat to be a journalist. You and I both know you're a human interest story kind of gal."
"That's because I'm so interesting," she quipped.
"I always thought so."
Ada noticed paint on his hands. It was the same paint color she chose out of the swatches he had on his desk the other day. "That's a nice paint color you have there."
He glanced down at his hands. "I figured you'd like it."
"What room are you painting?"
"All of them. This one's for the living room."
"All of them?" she asked. "That's an extensive project."
"Not really. I don't have a lot of furniture to move around yet."
She'd been to his house once last year, when he threw a party for the newspaper. The place was well furnished. The word 'yet' caused her to understand there was much more to the story.
Mr. Bennet had a stunning wife and the marriage others hoped they had. He married his childhood sweetheart, and they were perfect together. So it was tough to even imagine the marriage being less than ideal, nor less in flames. "Missus Bennet?"
"Decided that she wanted to be a miss."
It explained his behavior these days. It explained everything. His beard, his aloofness, the disinterest in the whipped cream tradition.
"What happened, or am I not supposed to ask?"
Mr. Bennet shook his head and did a slight swing of his hand. "No, it's fine. We just grew apart. She wanted different things. She wanted to take classes and learn new hobbies and do all this stuff, and I've always been the same person. I guess she was hoping I'd change with her. After a while we started being roommates.
"Then she developed feelings for someone in her class. She was honest about it and wanted to go to marriage counseling so we could work through things, but by the second session I realized working through shit was her wanting me to be this different person and I knew I had to let her go. So that was that."
There was no sufficient response Ada could provide which would make him feel better, so she went for a simple, "I'm sorry."
He shrugged before taking another drink. "It is what it is," he said, tapping his sage green fingernail against the large red mug. "I mean, I wasn't unhappy, but once she brought everything to light, I knew it was time. We had a good run. I'm relieved that we didn't hold on until we resented each other. I've seen so many couples that hated each other by the end, and I didn't want that for us."
"So, you're okay?" Ada asked. He'd helped her so many times throughout the years, being her safe haven in the hell that was her freshman year. Any time she had a problem, no matter how big or small, he was there to comfort her or give her advice.
Ada always wanted the chance to do the same for him someday.
"Yeah," he reassured, running his fingers through his disheveled hair. "I am. I'm good. It's just that now I'm at that weird stage of setting up a new life and adjusting and decorating. I mean, I have no fucking clue how to decorate." As soon as he said it, he looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "Sorry. Didn't mean to let that one slip."
She'd only heard him say the more innocent swear words before. A broad grin took over Ada's face, creating dimples on her blushing cheeks. He looked embarrassed, shy, which only heightened her amusement.
He'd let the teacher in him slip away, so she figured why not let the student in her do the same? "So where's your new fucking place then?"
He gave her a heavy, exaggerated glare, but couldn't hold it for long before a smile drifted across his lips. "Right across the fucking street."
Ada swung her body around to look outside. So he was living across from where she worked. She guessed he took a break from his painting when he noticed 'Creeper' was her only customer. She was always curious about the apartments above the downtown businesses. The one above the coffee house was full of storage and she'd never been able to see the space open. She was even more curious if Mr. B would let her glimpse into his life more than he had with his admission.
"Can I see it?"
He took several moments to consider it, causing Ada to question if she'd violated the boundaries. Both of them recognized her request was very much against the rules, and neither of them were much for breaking the rules.
After he thought about it for a while, leaving Ada in unbearable silence, Mr. B let out a sigh. "Why the fuck not?"