"Coffee is not supposed to taste like dessert."
"Says who?"
"Says everyone who has ever been to Italy." She puts the cup down. "I cannot. I am sorry. I genuinely cannot."
I laugh.
It is the first real laugh I have had in I do not know how long. It comes out before I can stop it. Big enough to pull at the wound. I do not care about the wound.
She is trying not to smile. She is losing.
"Your taste is terrible."
"My taste got me through fifteen years of night shifts."
"That explains the taste."
I laugh again. She gives up on not smiling. It is a small smile. She takes it back almost immediately. But it was there. I saw it.
I drink my coffee, her way, black, which is in fact better than my way and always will be, a fact I am taking to my grave.
She watches me drink.
Doing the thing she did in the warehouse, staying very still while everything underneath the stillness does math at a rate I cannot see.
I look at her hands.
They are no longer on the coffee cup. Now they rest on the edge of the counter. Index fingers tapping once, twice. A tell.
"Your hands shake when you're not working."
"They don't shake."
"They tap."
"That's not the same thing."
"Tells aren't always the same thing as fear. You'd know that if you played poker."
"I do play poker."
"Then you know."
She stops tapping.
I drink the coffee without looking at her face. I do not need to. I can hear her recalculating.
This is the closest thing to flirting I have done in a while. It is not very good flirting. I have been told that my flirting style is approximately the same temperature as my interrogation style. The only meaningful difference is the smile.
I am not smiling right now.
"What's your name?"
"Liam Walsh."
It is the alias on the backup ID I am still wearing.
She does not respond or push. She refills her own cup, walks to the kitchen window, and looks out at whatever is past it. Trees. Light. The middle of nowhere.
