A second later she disappeared behind a magazine.
I finished the last warm inch of coffee, unlocked the door, and went inside to bed, eager for my day off.
The next morningI stood in my kitchen and watched my coffee machine lie to me.
It hissed. It steamed. It produced a cup it insisted was a flat white.
I added caramel from the bottle in the fridge and took a sip.
It was coffee. Technically. I leaned against the counter and took another sip. Still not Dottie's.
Which was unfair. I'd been perfectly happy with my own coffee forty-eight hours ago. Then Caleb had appeared on my porch at dawn with my coffee and ruined me for all future mornings.
I carried the mug out to the porch and sat on the top step.
The magnolia was in bloom. Cicadas buzzed in the trees. The street was quiet.
I wrapped both hands around the mug and watched the sun creep over the rooftops.
I'd had about four minutes of peace when his front door opened.
He came out, lifted a hand at me — not a wave, more an acknowledgement that we’d both clocked each other and there was no need to make it a thing — got in his truck, and drove off down the cul-de-sac toward the county road.
I drank my bad coffee and told myself I wasn’t disappointed.
He was back in ten minutes, across the road with two cups from Dottie’s, up my path, up my steps, holding one out.
“You didn’t have to,” I said, even though I was already taking it.
“I know.” He sat down beside me. “Yours is going cold and lying to you. I can smell it from here.”
“It’s a process I’ve made peace with.”
“It’s a tragedy you’ve made peace with.” He drank. “Drink the real one.”
I drank the real one.
We sat in the morning quiet.
Caleb held his coffee in both hands, elbows on his knees. The mug looked small between his fingers.
Grease lived in the creases of his knuckles. No amount of scrubbing seemed able to shift it. His forearms were tannedfrom long days outside and marked with the pale scars that come from making things with your hands for a living.
I was a nurse.
I told myself I noticed hands professionally.
I was lying to myself on my own porch before seven in the morning.
I knew it.
I kept looking anyway.
“How’s the house?” I asked — mostly to give my eyes somewhere to be that wasn’t his hands.
“Standing.”
“High praise.”
