I was relieved to find my co-worker Chelsea already on the register when I arrived.

“You’re early,” she sang, giving me a bright smile.

“I thought I was late.”

“No. Ten minutes early. It’s been really quiet so far.” She pulled her long, thick, blue-tinted braid over her shoulder.

I fastened my apron and took stock of our milk supply. “If today is anything like last Sunday, we can expect a mad rush with all the Christmas shoppers.”

“That means Christmas carol requests. You’ll have to sing with me.” Chelsea gave me a wink and a smile.

I gave her a smile that likely looked more like a grimace. “Oh…yay.”

She laughed, then turned her attention to the front of the store where two early morning customers had just entered.

I kind of loved Chelsea…from a distance. I think everyone loved Chelsea from a distance. She was charming, incredibly talented, clever, and crazy fun. As well, she had one of the most beautiful soprano voices I’d ever heard. She was also thrice divorced at the age of twenty-eight. Given the Marilyn Monroe resemblance of both her face and body, men loved her. They loved her a whole lot.

But I suspected Chelsea loved the stage and the thrill of admiration. When she wasn’t singing for wages at the local community theater, she was singing for tips at the Bluesy Bean, flirting with her legion of admirers. I was grateful that she craved the spotlight; her willingness to be the center of attention allowed me to settle into a comfortable zone.

And speaking of zones, since starting at the coffee shop three weeks ago, I found it was easy to zone out while making lattes and cappuccinos. Cooking in general, and making coffee specifically, was a lot like chemistry lab. Thus, as I set to work, I was able to meditate on the carousel of pros and cons circling around my brain.

Pro - if I read Martin’s interview, then I could stop obsessing about whether or not I should read the interview.

Con - if I read Martin’s interview, I might start obsessing about the content of the interview.

And so the day proceeded in this way and all was well. More precisely, all was relatively normal until just after the mid-afternoon rush died down. I was cleaning up the mess associated with coffee grounds and drippings accumulating over time on a tile floor when I heard Chelsea say under her breath, “We’ve got a Chris Pine at twelve o’clock.”

Chelsea had a labeling system for men.

She told me she was looking for a Brad Pitt (older version) or a Chris Pine (younger version). Someone charismatic, beautiful, smart, wealthy, and dedicated to a cause other than himself. I asked her if she’d ever considered looking for a Neil deGrasse Tyson or a Francis Collins. Someone who wasn’t necessarily physically stunning, but whose brain and goodness more than made up for any external lack of overt attractiveness.

She’d snorted at me, rolled her eyes, and said, “If I have to have sex with the guy, I don’t want to have to do it in the dark all the time.”

It was an interesting perspective…one which I found disturbing. On one hand I understood why attraction was an essential element of chemistry between two people. But her inability or unwillingness to appreciate attractiveness beyond the skin and see the person as a whole made me feel a little sorry for her.

Presently, curious about her Chris Pine, I straightened from my task and tried to nonchalantly glance over the coffee makers. That’s when I spotted Martin walking into the café.

My eyes widened in surprise and I ducked back behind the espresso machine, shock and a strange panic keeping me motionless for several seconds while I had a silent argument with myself:

What in the name of the cosmos is he doing here?

Perhaps it’s a coincidence.

What am I supposed to do???

…just act normal.

What’s normal?

I briefly considered staying hidden for as long as possible, but then I realized it would be weirder to suddenly appear once he ordered his drink than to gradually straighten now.

Maybe I could pretend I was cleaning the floor…which is what I was doing just moments ago, before he walked in.

Or maybe I could actually finish cleaning the floor.

This idea seemed to make the most sense, so that’s what I did.

Unfortunately, cleaning the floor only took me five more seconds. So when I straightened, I struggled to act normal. I didn’t know what to do or where to look and had abruptly forgotten how to breathe and stand with my arms at my sides. Yet even as a fierce blush lifted to my cheeks, I was determined to make the imminent encounter as benign as possible.

“Welcome to the Bluesy Bean. What can I get you?” I heard Chelsea say using her husky voice.

I decided I just needed to go through the motions of normalcy, do what I would normally do. So I picked up the towel I’d been using to mop the floor. I turned and deposited it in the bucket under the sink, then moved to wash my hands.

“I’ll have a large Americano.” Martin’s voice caused a shiver of awareness to race down my spine. I endeavored to ignore it.

“Room for cream?”

“No.”

I finished washing my hands and turned back to my machine, refilled the espresso grounds, and set the dial. In less than ten seconds I was going to have to reach over and grab his cup and I would be fine. I didn’t know why my heart and brain were freaking out so much.

“Really? How about sugar?” In my peripheral vision I saw Chelsea leaning on the counter. She often did this to take full advantage of her low-cut top.

“What? No. No sugar.”

“Oh. I was just curious how you take your coffee. I like mine sweet and creamy.”

There was a distinct pause, a thick silence difficult to ignore. It lengthened, grew, then suddenly felt untenable. So I glanced up and found Chelsea watching me, her eyes narrowed in confusion. Then I glanced at Martin. He was watching me, too.

His stare was pointed, like he’d been watching me for longer than a few seconds and was waiting for me to look at him.

All at once I felt caught.

“Oh… Hi, Martin.” My acting skills were pathetic, but I tried my best at genuine surprise. It might have helped that I was feeling a little out of breath.

“I was hoping you’d be working today.” Still looking at me, he passed Chelsea a twenty.

Her eyes bounced between us, narrowing more.

“That’s right, I forgot. I told you I worked here.”

“Are you going to make my coffee?” He grinned, leaving his twenty on the counter for Chelsea to pick up, and floated closer to where I was mostly hidden by the machines. But I wasn’t really hidden from him because he was so tall. He could easily see over the row of contraptions. Realizing this, I stopped twisting my fingers and reached for a large cup.

“Yes. I am your barista at this fine establishment. It is my pleasure to make you coffee.” I lamented the fact that, due to my uneasiness, I sounded like an android.

He must’ve noticed my odd speech pattern too, because he asked, “Do you always talk like that?”

“Like what? Like Mr. Roboto?”

“No, like awesome.”

My lips parted and I blinked at him, his comment catching me completely off guard. When his eyes began to dance and his grin widened, I realized he was using our past to tease me. This might have pissed me off two weeks ago, Martin thinking he had the right to tease me about anything, but the fact that he’d given me his gloves when I was cold and read The Lord of the Rings somehow made his teasing not…bad.

“You’re weird,” I blabbered unthinkingly and shook my head at him and his bizarre teasing. But I had to twist my lips to the side to keep from returning his contagious smile. “Why are you here, weirdo?”

He seemed pleased with my name-calling and drifted closer until he was directly in front of me, only the machines between us. “I want to talk to you. Do you have a break soon?”

“Umm…” I stalled by commencing coffee creation; I flipped the brew switch and moved two doppio cups under the dual espresso dispenser.

I was way overdue for a break. Chelsea had taken three, and I’d taken one. I glanced at Chelsea, found her watching us with a frown. It wasn’t an angry frown or a sinister frown; rather, it was a the world has ceased making sense frown. Her brain was obviously working overtime trying to figure out how I knew her Chris Pine, aka my Martin Sandeke.

“S-s-s-sure. Let me finish your Americano and I’ll make myself some tea. Go grab a table.” I tilted my chin to the one by the window, in the center of the café.

“Good. Will you please bring me a muffin? I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

I could only nod and stare at him, again caught off guard by his conversational tone—like we were old friends—as well as the use of the word please. The smile he gave me before he departed was softer, smaller, but somehow more devastating than his others. As I watched him ignore the spot I’d indicated in favor of a very private table in the corner, I mulled over his strange behavior.

The smiling.

The teasing.

The manners.

The lack of bluntness and demands.

It was all very disconcerting.

Disconcerting, distressing, confusing, alarming, perplexing, odd…

***

“You make good coffee.” Martin sipped his hot beverage, his eyes watching me over the rim.