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We weren’t even discussing the other thing it had going for it.
The owner.
Shale was exactly what I was looking for in a place I was hanging out. Attentive to bringing me fresh coffee and willing to share some conversation, but knowing when to do so and when to leave me to my work.
It didn’t hurt that the woman was a fucking knockout.
Tall and lean with tats up her arms, a pretty, delicate face with clever eyes so dark brown that they were almost black, and a rotation of hair colors.
When I’d first started coming to the shop, it had been a deep green. Then a pale one. Purple. Pink. You never knew which version of her you were going to come across.
It was fucking absurd how curious I was to what color she’d have going on now that I’d been gone for a while.
Just for curiosity’s sake.
Because nothing was ever going to happen with her.
It’d been hard as fuck for me to find a place in town that I liked to hang out at. I wasn’t going to screw that up because I was thinking with my dick. Even if, sometimes, when I was supposed to be working, I found myself thinking about setting her up onmy table, spreading her thighs, and getting a taste of her instead of coffee for a change.
“Fuck,” I hissed, slamming my head back on the rest, and taking a deep breath.
The last thing I needed to be doing was having thoughts like that when I was about to walk into the damn shop.
Clearly, Barry wasn’t the only one who needed to get laid.
There was no good reason to be fantasizing about a woman I hadn’t even seen in weeks, one who I’d never even gotten a hint of reciprocated interest from.
Rolling the cricks out of my neck from being in the car for too damn long, I climbed out, and made my way around the front of the mostly abandoned strip mall.
It wasn’t the first time visiting that I worried about Shale’s safety. Sure, she had cameras, and a lot of them. But they caught crime. They didn’t necessarily prevent it.
I knew she kept something under the counter. Whether it was a knife, bat, or gun was anyone’s guess. But that wouldn’t prevent someone from grabbing her in the sitting area, the back room, or when she was taking the trash out to the dumpster.
I’d worry less if any of the other storefronts were in business. Someone within earshot if she screamed. Or, you know, if the damn cafe had more of a clientele, so she wasn’t almost always alone inside.
It didn’t seem like business had improved while I’d been out of town. The seating area was empty. I could see Shale’s arm as she wiped down the top of some of her equipment.
It wasn’t until I stepped inside, though, that I finally got a view of her.
And this month, it looked like she’d gone all out on her hair.
Half of her head was pink. The other half was a lavender shade. That wasn’t it, though. On the pink side, the hair underthe pink was turquoise. On the purple side, the hair underneath was lime green.
Like she was having a multiple personality mood.
Or was trying to use up a bunch of small amounts of dye.
That wasn’t what had me watching her, though. At least not anymore than usual. She seemed off. Jittery and distracted.
I wasn’t buying the line about drinking too much coffee.
It was like she forgot that I spent a lot of time in the cafe, that I’d seen her down cup after cup of coffee, sometimes with multiple shots in them, and never seemed the least bit buzzed from it.
Something else was going on.
I didn’t know why that bothered me so much.
People had lives. They went through shit. Family crises. Financial issues. Break-ups.
