Chapter 9
The air inside Mountain Brew has shifted. It’s not the temperature or the cinnamon-rich scent wafting from the pastry case—it’s him.
Max Lawson.
Always there, always watching, always absorbing. He claims my booth with quiet arrogance, and integrates himself into my routine as though he’s stitched into the fabric of Mountain Brew.
And yet, his presence still manages to unsettle me in ways I don’t fully understand—unraveling threads I plucked from the canvas the day I chose this life.
It’s impossible to ignore how different Mountain Brew feels since Max Lawson started showing up every day.
Not that he does anything obvious. He never raises his voice, demands attention, or acts entitled to the space he’s quietly claimed. No, Max’s presence wraps itself into the shop’s routine like it belongs there, like he belongs.
Except it doesn’t feel natural.
Not really.
His presence hums under the surface, a steady, low current that makes ordinary moments—like twisting the steam wand or wiping down the counter—feel off balance.
Uneven.
Today, like every day this past week, he works in silence, his laptop casting a faint glow over his sharp features. The copper light fixtures above catch on the strong angles of his face, softening him just enough to make him seem like he belongs in the quiet chaos of my café.
He doesn’t demand attention, and yet, people still notice him. The moment someone walks through the door, their gaze flickers just slightly toward him, aware of the quiet presence in the corner booth that carries more gravity than it should.
Max Lawson radiates something I’ll never understand.
Confidence. Command. Control.
The kind of energy has always felt like too much to me, like too bright a light aimed directly at me that I need to shy away from. But with Max, it isn’t too much. It’s steady. Silent. And worst of all, it doesn’t repel me.
It draws me in.
That pull makes everything feel unsteady.
It’s not just the way his gaze lands on me when he thinks I won’t notice—sharply focused, like he’s studying my movements, calculating some answer I can’t see. It’s not even the deliberate way his attention shifts back to me every time I flit between the counter, the pour station, or the register.
It’s the way he’s chipped steadily at the veil I’ve worked so hard to keep between myself and the world.
Now the edges of it feel thin. Worn. And I can’t tell if I want to pull it tighter or just let it fall.
During a lull in customers, he breaks the soft rhythm of the café, his voice cutting through the muted hum of conversations and the hiss of steamed milk.
“Those patterns are impressive.”
I glance up to find him at the counter, leaning forward, his body relaxed but his attention sharp and singular. His arms are crossed over the breadth of his chest as those infuriating eyes settle on me.
I follow the direction of his nod to the latte art blooming beneath my steady hand. A smooth rosetta curls along the top of the foam, a quiet triumph I’ve done a thousand times before. But the way he’s looking at it—looking at me—makes it feel suddenly noticeable.
Important.
“There’s a trick to it, isn’t there?” Max keeps his voice low and steady.
For a minute, I assume he’s talking to someone else. My eyes flick to the room behind me, then back to him, and there’s a faint tilt to his mouth that tells me he knows exactly where my head is. The subtle lift of his brow feels like a private joke at my expense.
“There’s no trick.” I slide the finished latte across the counter to him. My voice is light, almost dismissive, but there’s no escaping the way Max’s focus stays locked on me, unwavering. “Latte art isn’t magic. It’s just physics and a steady hand.”
“You downplay it.” The faint curve of his lips deepens into something that feels just shy of a smirk. “But it’s not just skill, is it? It’s craft.”
I pause, wiping down the counter slowly, his words sitting between us longer than they should. He doesn’t look away, doesn’t fidget, doesn’t fill the silence with anything unnecessary. He just lets me feel the weight of him.
And damn it, it works.
“There’s nothing you couldn’t learn with practice,” I say quickly, with what I hope is a nonchalant shrug. My eyes drop to the cloth in my hand, anything to get away from the way he’s looking at me. “I could show you.”
The words are out before I have time to snatch them back. Why did I say that?
He leans back, one arm sliding easily along the counter as his fingers drum lightly at the edge. Everything about the way he moves feels deliberate, like he’s calculating how far to push.
“Call me intrigued.” His voice threads with quiet amusement. “Show me.”
Before I know it, we’re shoulder to shoulder at the latte station, the tiny workspace only intensifying the quiet current humming between us.
“We’ll start you slow,” I say, pressing a milk pitcher into his hand.
My fingers brush his in the transfer, the warmth of his skin sharp enough to snag my attention and throw me off stride for half a second.
I pull back just slightly and pretend I don’t notice. “No hearts or tulips. Just a rosetta.”
His fingers curl around the metal handle. Up close, his hands seem too large to manage the delicate precision required for latte art. Yet there’s a steadiness there I shouldn’t find as distracting as I do.
“Hold it lightly,” I say, my voice softening as I reach up to adjust his grip. My hand covers his instinctively, guiding the motion. The moment I touch him, my heart skips—not like a little flutter, but a full-on stumble, like it’s forgotten how to pump altogether.
His hand is strong beneath mine, warm, impossibly steady. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. He just waits, watching me with a focus I can feel in my jaw, my ribs, lower.
“You’ve done this before?” I ask to fill the silence, my tone lighter than I feel.
“Never,” he admits, tilting his head slightly—but not his hand. He doesn’t need to look at me to make me feel like I’m under scrutiny, like he’s cataloging every move, every breath I take.
“Okay. Well…” I clear my throat. Focus. His proximity hammers at the edges of my concentration. “Tilt the cup slightly. It gives the milk somewhere to roll into.”
His hand mirrors mine, our knuckles brushing again, barely, but enough that heat gathers low in my stomach. I press forward, trying to force the moment into something mechanical, something professional. “Don’t rush. Just a small stream, slow and steady.”
The milk glides along the surface of the espresso, tentative but smooth, spiraling out as the soft white contrasts against the dark, glossy base.
“That’s it,” I murmur, guiding his wrist just slightly. Our shoulders are almost touching now, the space between us closing even though neither of us acknowledges it. The ribbon of milk begins to settle, curling into faint petals.
“You make it look easy,” he says, his tone low, closer than I’m ready for.
I glance up instinctively, expecting to find him watching the milk. Instead, his eyes are locked on me.
The rest of the room goes quiet, fading into the background. My heart pounds against the base of my throat, fierce and raw. The air between us seems thinner now, heavier in my lungs. His gaze doesn’t waver, and my breath hitches as I try to hold steady—but there’s no moving, no looking away.
And somehow, I don’t want to.
Max Lawson has stared at me a hundred times this week—enough that I’ve stopped wondering why and started counting the way it makes me feel. Uneasy. Warm. Alive. Like every time he looks, he scrapes away some layer I didn’t know was there. Sometimes I want to yell at him to stop.
Sometimes I want him to look harder.
“What makes the pattern happen?” His question catches me off guard.
“Gravity,” I say.
“That’s a weak answer,” Max counters, his voice still calm but tinged with amusement. The faintest trace of a smirk curves his mouth. “It's not just gravity. There’s precision. Intention.”
“It’s really just physics,” I deflect, repressing the urge to let his focus disarm me. “You watch the flow, decide where to drag it. It’s not complicated.”
He tilts his head, unconvinced. “If it’s not complicated, how come nine out of ten cafés screw it up? Seems like art to me.”
“It’s about understanding the elements: how the milk folds into the espresso, how steady your hand is.” I shrug, wanting to brush it off, even though his focus sets something low in my stomach stirring. “It’s not magic.”
He exhales, low and controlled, and I swear I catch the faintest quirk of satisfaction in his expression. “You make it look easier than it is.”
“It’s just—” I turn to answer automatically, and find myself closer to him than I realized. His gaze lowers to meet mine at the same time, clear and intense and searing, pinning me there.
I forget what I’m going to say. The words evaporate completely. Heat prickles along my spine, down my arms. It’s not the kind of heat that comes with embarrassment or awkward proximity—it’s sharper than that.
Hungrier.
It’s awareness.
It’s desire.
The liquid in the cup trembles slightly, a ripple breaking across the surface, but neither of us notices.
Neither of us looks. My focus is caught somewhere else, somewhere closer.
His hand is still beneath mine, steady on the handle of the milk pitcher, but it’s not the silk of the foam or the swirl of white against brown that holds us like this.
The room narrows to the infinitesimal space between us as his body leans closer, heat radiating from his skin in invisible waves. The air seems to tilt, gravity shifting when his shoulder brushes mine—the lightest touch unraveling something tight within.
My gaze lifts, drawn to his profile like a compass finding north.
He's already watching, eyes sharp and shadowed beneath dark lashes, their weight pulling me under like an undertow. There’s a faint catch in my breathing as his attention drops to my lips.
The shift whispers through the air between us, subtle yet unmistakable.
It would be so easy.
One tilt of my chin.
One lean forward.
One inch separates the charged air between us from something more.
His lips part just slightly, like maybe he’s thinking the same thing, like perhaps he’s about to say something, or maybe not say anything at all.
My pulse pounds, wild and erratic. Every part of me leans toward him, toward whatever this is. Toward something I shouldn’t want but suddenly, desperately need.
But before I can decide—before either of us does anything, the front door flies open with a bright, cheerful ding!
The sound shatters the moment, loud and grating in the silence we've wrapped ourselves in.
The chilly mountain air spills into the café, dousing the heat between us, followed by the noise of chatter and excited voices.
A group of tourists pours inside, four or five of them, their sun-flushed faces scanning the café as they clamor loudly about pastries.
Max straightens, the glint of something unreadable slipping back behind the guarded mask of calm he always wears. A beat passes, his eyes catching mine for one last fleeting second, and my knees almost buckle under the weight of whatever that was.
And then, like it never happened, he steps back. Just one step, but it’s enough to unspool the pull dragging me closer to him.
The tourists keep talking, oblivious to what they’ve interrupted, and I fling myself into action before I can think too much about what I was about to do.
“Customer Service Lily” reactivates like a reflex—steps practiced and precise as I duck out from behind the latte station, moving toward the counter like nothing has changed.
My shoulders are stiff, my skin thrumming with heat that refuses to cool, but I keep moving. Keep busy.
To his credit, Max doesn’t press. He doesn’t call attention to my awkward, flustered retreat or the crimson I’m sure is painting my neck. He doesn’t try to pull me back into that magnetic tension that left my mind empty and my body leaning into instincts I’m not ready for.
Instead, he drifts back to his booth like we didn’t just stand at the edge of something vast and unspoken.
As for me, I’m not calm, cool, and collected like him. I’m not fine at all. Not really. My heart refuses to settle—the erratic rhythm battering against every wall I’ve built since moving here.
And just like that, another day passes.