The day starts wrong at 6:15 AM when Betsy decides she has opinions about pressure.

Not broken-opinions. Not call-Todd opinions. Just... opinions. The shots are pulling inconsistent—eighteen seconds, then twenty-four, then nineteen—and I'm adjusting the grind between every single one like I'm negotiating with a toddler who has access to nine bars of pressure and a personal vendetta.

"We talked about this," I tell her, which is a thing I say to my espresso machine now, apparently. "Tuesdays are for consistency. Tuesdays are Walter's day."

Betsy hisses at me. Not in agreement.

By 7:30, the milk delivery hasn't arrived, which means I'm rationing oat milk like it's wartime and explaining to a college student that no, I cannot make a large oat milk latte with extra foam, but I can offer her a meditation on impermanence and a very nice drip coffee.

She does not want the meditation. She wants her latte.

I give her the drip coffee for free and she leaves looking at me like I've personally betrayed her, which is how I know we're off to a great start.

The milk truck finally appears at 9:47, two hours late, and the driver—a man named Chuck who has never once apologized for anything in the six months I've known him—shrugs and says "traffic" in a way that suggests there was no traffic and he simply doesn't care. I sign the invoice. Smile the smile of someone who is definitely keeping it together. Carry seventeen pounds of dairy products into the back room and only drop one.

Progress.

Walter comes at 10 AM because Walter always comes at 10 AM, and I pull his drip coffee with hands that are only slightly shaking, and he draws his smiley face in the residue at the bottom of his cup, and for exactly four minutes the day feels survivable.

Then Patricia walks in.

"The usual," she says, which means half-caf, oat milk, extra hot, light foam, and a silent evaluation of everything I've ever done in my life.

I make it perfectly. I know I make it perfectly because I've made Patricia's order approximately three hundred times and my hands could do it in my sleep, except apparently my hands have also absorbed Betsy's chaos energy because when I hand it to her and she takes that first sip, her face does the thing.

The thing that precedes "It's fine."

"It's fine," Patricia says.

It is not fine. The foam is too dense. I can see it from here. The foam is too dense and Patricia knows it and I know it and we're both going to pretend this isn't happening because that's what we do, that's what I do, I white-knuckle my way through the day and pretend everything is under control when clearly, clearly—

"I can remake it," I say, already reaching.

"I said it's fine." She takes her cup to the corner table. Pulls out her book. Does not look at me again.

I spend the next three hours in a state of low-grade panic that I'm fairly certain no one can see from the outside, which is its own kind of exhausting. Every shot I pull, I second-guess. Every drink I hand over, I wait for the face. The lunch rush comes and goes and I survive it, barely, and by 2:45 the shop is empty and I'm standing behind the counter with my hands flat on the wood, breathing like I've run a marathon.

The bell rings at 3:02.

Todd.

He's not carrying tools. He's not wearing the look that means something's broken and he got a call. He's just... here. Walking in. Looking around like he's never seen the place before, even though he's seen it approximately forty-seven times.

"Cortado?" I ask, because that's his drink now, because I made it his drink somewhere between the Chinese food on the back room floor and the "bring more beans" and all the things we don't say out loud.

"Yeah."

I make it. Betsy, miraculously, cooperates—nineteen seconds, perfect extraction, like she was waiting for an audience. I hand it over. Our fingers don't touch, because this isn't a movie, but there's a moment where they almost do and I'm aware of the almost in a way that makes my face do something I hope he doesn't see.

"Were you in the area?" I ask.

"Sure."

He was not in the area. His shop is a block away but "the area" implies somewhere else, implies a reason, implies he didn't just walk here specifically to—

Todd sits at the counter. Not a table. The counter, where the stools are, where people sit when they want to watch me work or talk to me or just be present in a way that tables don't allow.

He doesn't explain. Doesn't fill the silence. Just sits there with his cortado and watches me wipe down the already-clean espresso machine like it's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen.

The afternoon happens around us. A few customers. Nothing major. I drop a creamer pitcher—because of course I do, because it's 4:30 and I've been clenching my jaw for ten hours and my hands have finally decided to join the mutiny—and Todd catches it.

Just... catches it. Mid-air. Reflexes. Hands it back to me like nothing happened.

I stare at him.

He shrugs. "Saw it."

That's it. That's the whole thing. I don't know what to do with my face so I turn around and put the creamer pitcher somewhere it can't hurt anyone and I don't look at him for six full minutes.

Closing happens the way closing always happens, except Todd is still here, and at some point he's off the stool and bringing mugs to the dish bin without being asked, and I want to say you don't have to do that but I don't because apparently I've lost the ability to form sentences that aren't coffee orders.

He doesn't fix anything. That's the thing. Betsy's still temperamental—her gaskets probably need attention, and he'd know that, he'd know exactly what to do—but he doesn't offer. Doesn't look at her like a problem to solve. Just... helps me close. Wipes tables. Says nothing.

I lock the door at 6:15. Twelve hours since Betsy started having opinions. The light through the front window has gone golden, then amber, now the particular gray-pink of spring evenings that can't decide what they want to be.

"Thanks," I say, because I have to say something.

Todd nods. Heads for the door. Stops with his hand on the handle.

"Tomorrow," he says.

Not a question. Not quite a statement. Just the word, hanging there, meaning something I don't have the courage to ask about.

"Tomorrow," I agree.

The bell rings as he leaves. I stand in my empty shop with my inconsistent espresso machine and my imperfect Patricia foam and the particular exhaustion of a day that didn't go right but somehow, impossibly, ended okay.

I pull one more shot. For myself. Nineteen seconds. Perfect.

I don't understand why it works now, when I've stopped trying so hard.

Maybe that's the point.