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Ben stuffed the towel in his apron and sipped from his straw. “Yeah, an Americano.”
Ben was intriguing and a great character study: a beautiful man with stellar dimples and a white smile who reminded her just a touch of a much shorter, much younger Ricky Martin. He had an easy laugh and deep sexual energy that even Mack picked up on. But Ben would have to wait. All focus was on observing Charlie.
“Does that happen a lot? These interesting customers?” Mack asked, fishing for a story she could use as a springboard. The publishing walls closed around her, and the conversation with Viviane yesterday expedited the panic.
The barstool squeaked across the floor as Charlie dragged it from under the till. She sat down and fluffed her bright mint dress—a hideous color that no human should’ve looked good in, but, somehow, she pulled off. “I’m seriously so grateful for ninety-nine percent of the customers. But some are… more unforgettable than others.” She looked at Ben. “Remember at Red Lava Café when that guy clipped his toenails in the lobby?”
“I almost caught shrapnel and freaked out.” Ben joined Charlie, who scooted over so half his butt could rest on the stool.
An unforeseen pang of jealousy ran through Mack. No one existed in her life who she had this level of obvious closeness with, and no amount of hot-yet-soulless one-night stands made up for that lack of intimacy. She was the school kid whose words formed quickly in her head but not on her tongue. She’d avoided most adolescent interactions, eating in the library instead of the cafeteria and burying her nose in a book during recess. As an adult, no matter how tight she and Viviane were, it wasn’ttouching-butt-cheeksclose.
“You guys worked at a different café together?” Mack asked.
Charlie peered over her cup at Ben. “Yep, we’ve been working together since we were what, sixteen?”
“Fifteen if you count the summer we mowed lawns.”
“Damn. Lawncare was really good money,” Charlie said. “If this coffee shop ownership doesn’t take off, I should open a landscaping company. Why did we quit that, anyway?”
“Because you hate spiders.”
“Oh yeah…”
Fear of spiders. Mack should’ve used that in her outline. Not spiders, per se, butsomething. Building Shelby and the other characters outlines took a full week: wants, goals, obstacles, and fears. But the fears were sweeping themes, like failure and disrespect. Maybe she should add something small, like mice or bees or clowns. She typed*spider*into her open document.
Mack rested her fingers on her lap. “You two have known each other a long time, huh?”
“Since we were in junior high,” Ben said.
The ice clanked against the side of the plastic as Charlie shook the cream to the bottom. “But our relationship has steadily declined since senior year when we were both up for the president of the Queer Club, and Ben refused to admit defeat.”
“It was a tie,Charles.” Ben rolled his eyes. “Why should I have given up that spot?”
“A tie? How’d you settle it?” Mack’s eyes flickered between the two of them, chewing on the delicious confirmation that Charlie was queer.
“We decided on a co-presidentship.” Ben twirled the straw in his cup. “Which I’m still ticked about because if Ethan had been there on voting day, he said he would’ve voted for me.”
Charlie abandoned her drink and grabbed a paper towel and sanitizing spray. “He told me the same,Bernard.Next year’s our ten-year reunion. We’re having him settle this once and for all.”
If it weren’t illegal, Mack would record this conversation and listen to it later for tidbits. The inflections of their voices. The tightened facial expressions mixed with relaxed postures and jovial, amplified energy. Everything about their interaction was gold.
She could pull this into her thriller—hone in on her main character feeling like she has a superpower by watching micro-expressions. She opened the note section of her document:
He thinks he’s clever, doesn’t he? With his smug little smirk and his stupidly shiny shoes. I’m oddly fixated on his blinding gold watch that he probably thinks makes him look likea real player(his term, not mine) but, in reality, accentuates his skinny wrists. I swallow the overwhelming urge to point this fact out to him.
But he doesn’t realize that I’ve studied him like a dissertation these last two years. He clicked his fingernails against his cuff links twice and his ears raised when I mentioned the shipment date. He’s nervous. And now I’m in the lead.
Dammit. No more words came out. She sat back and tapped her fingers under her seat. She needed more. “Of all the years in this business, what’s the craziest experience you’ve had?”
Charlie stopped mid-spray and looked at Ben when they simultaneously said, “Browniegate.”
“Browniegate?”
Charlie set the spray bottle on the counter. “So, this guy comes in and tells us he’s gonna propose to his girlfriend and hands me his cell phone to record. Then he orders a brownie and stuffs the ring in the middle, which I thought was a terrible idea?—”
“Wethought it was a terrible idea,” Ben interjected.
“Okay,wethought it was bad. But what can you say? He was so excited, and it was super sweet.” Charlie moved closer, her voice speeding up. “The plan was that Ben would deliver the brownie, and I’d stand in the corner filming. So Ben saunters over, and without any hesitation, this woman takes a huge bite, and her boyfriend leaps out of the metal chair, which flies into another chair, knocking it over, and it was so loud when it banged on the ground. He starts yelling at her?—”
