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“Why do you think it’s anything specific?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Just a hunch.”
“Your hunch is correct. I have family locally.”
“You’re visiting them for the holidays?”
His lips tightened into something like a grimace before he concealed it. “Yes.”
Charlotte flicked a switch on the machine to test its readiness, but the steam was still building. “You’re not looking forward to it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“You look a bit like I feel whenever I have a dentist appointment.”
He laughed then, a short sound that filled the bar with delicious warmth. Charlotte flicked on the coffee grinder abruptly, glad for the noise to drown out the addictive sound of his voice.
“You’re very perceptive,” he said, when she stopped grinding the beans, propping his elbows on the bar top and leaning forward, so that they were closer than she realised, closer than she wanted, even when her body was throbbing with a strange and unfamiliar awareness.
“Maybe you’re just easy to read.”
“We both know that’s not the case.”
“You seem to know a lot about how I feel.”
“Youareeasy to read,” he said quietly, eyes running over her face, so her skin pricked with goosebumps and fear lurched inside of her. Was that true? She didn’t want him to be able to see her as she was. She had no business drooling over a guest in the hotel.
“When are you checking out?” She asked quickly, not meeting his eyes because the question was so obviously rude—and hopeful.
“Not for several days.”
Several days! Her insides clanged together. “You’re not staying with your family?”
“No.”
“They don’t have space for you?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not necessarily.”
“You’re welcome to go back to your room and wait for your coffee,” she reminded him with an overly sweet voice. “If you don’t like my questions, I mean.”
“I don’t dislike them. Some are not so easy to answer.”
“Really?”
“The situation with my family is complicated. I prefer not to discuss it.”
She exhaled slowly, wondering why that should pull at something in her belly.
“We can talk about you instead, if you’d like,” she suggested, surprised that she’d even thought the words, much less said them. It wasn’t in her nature to be so forthright. For a moment, Charlotte felt the pull of her old life, her old self, the woman she’d been when the world was at her feet and she had to think only of herself and her wishes and her needs, and responsibility, permanence and consequences were nowhere on her horizon. It had been liberating and emboldening. The truth was, everything felt hemmed in by consequence now. She was aware, always, of what was at stake if she were to mess up, and so shenevermessed up, which meant thinking of what she was saying before she said it, most of the time.
“I am prepared to sing for my supper, or coffee, as the case may be.”
She smiled at that. “Excellent.” The machine gave a fizzing noise as steam began to escape from the nozzle, so she quickly flicked it off and began to go through the very familiar motions—filling the basket with freshly ground coffee so the air hung with the fragrance, then gently tamping it down to flatten the top. She hooked it into the machine, placed two cups beneath, and began to run water through it as she filled a milk jug.
