Chapter Seven
Molly
The Bella Cup cafe is one of those places that tries too hard — every detail a curated attempt at comfort, as if it’s determined to sand down the world’s sharper edges.
There’s a rack of hand-knitted cozies hugging each of the tiny flower vases on a shelf just inside the entrance.
Someone took the time to draw a chalk mural of a cappuccino with a cat’s face in the foam on a board above the counter, and the music on the speakers is so soft it almost dissolves into the cinnamon-fogged air.
The only thing missing is a fireplace and a rescue dog to curl at your feet.
It’s the manufactured warmth that makes people believe for the length of a latte that their lives are fixable.
I walk in and walk through the pretense like it’s just another weather pattern. Table in the back, near the bathrooms, but with a good line of sight to the door so I can see what’s coming. My back always to the wall, always.
There are two old men perched near the window, half-watching the street like a slow-motion stakeout, and a college couple with matching laptops and matching expressions of panic in the corner.
The rest are the kind of people who treat coffee shops like an extension of their living room or their therapist’s office.
I’m pulling out my notebook when Evan shows up with two coffees and that calm, polite face like he sleeps eight hours and never wakes up angry at the world.
“Black,” he says, setting one in front of me. “And I told the barista to surprise me with the other.”
He turns the second cup so I can read the label.
Whole milk latte, extra caramel.
It’s so basic. So normal. So unlike anything any man in an MC would even touch.
Just looking at it makes me relax.
“That’s for you?”
“I’m expanding my horizons.”
“It’s brave,” I say, popping the lid on my coffee and inhaling. The bitterness cleanses the treacle in the air. “You should get a medal.”
He doesn’t laugh, but his mouth does something close. “Is that your way of saying thank you?”
“It’s my way of saying you picked correctly in getting me black coffee,” I say, and it comes out sharper than I mean it to. Because gratitude makes me itchy.
He nods at the stack of flashcards I’ve been eyeing with dread. “Alright. Let’s do it.”
I hesitate, thinking maybe he’s just making conversation, but no — he reaches for the cards, easy as breathing, like he’s done this with me a hundred times before. I clamp down on the stack before he can take them, more reflex than intent. “I didn’t say you could touch my…”
“Notes?” he finishes, dry, a three-degree tilt of his head. “Relax. I’m not stealing your secrets. I’m helping.”
“I didn’t ask for help.”
He holds that gaze, steady. “No. You didn’t.”
And that’s the entire problem, right there: I don’t ask.
Not for help, not for time, not for a goddamn extra napkin.
He’s offering, and I said yes, which means the ground is already shifting under me.
I grind my teeth and slide the deck across the table anyway, like I’m doing it to prove a point, like I have something to prove.
“Fine,” I say. “One hour. That’s it.”
His expression softens like I just gave him permission to breathe. “Deal.”
He flips the first card. “Define assets.”
I answer automatically. “Resources owned by a business expected to provide future economic benefit.”
“Good.” He doesn’t even look impressed. Just flips the next one. “Accounts payable.”
“Short-term liabilities. Money owed to suppliers.”
“Accrual basis accounting.”
“Recognize revenue and expenses when earned or incurred, not when cash changes hands.”
He nods. No judgment, no commentary. Every time I answer, he just tosses the card onto the growing pile like it’s nothing. Like it’s easy.
For ten minutes, I am a machine. I am steel.
I am the version of myself that gets shit done.
But as the cards keep coming, the cracks start to show — they always do.
There’s nothing in the world more honest than the way your brain just blanks, flatlines, when you hit the stuff you never wanted to learn while sitting across from the man your heart never could forget.
He says, “Adjusting entry for supplies used.”
I open my mouth and nothing comes out. Not a single word. There’s a clock above the counter shaped like a melting Salvador Dali painting. I stare at it, but the answer doesn’t float down from the ceiling.
He waits. Doesn’t rescue me, doesn’t fill the silence with pity or encouragement.
My cheeks heat up. I can feel my fingers drumming on the tabletop like a Morse code SOS. I mutter, “Supplies expense…” trying to shake loose the rest.
He leans back slightly. “You know it. Slow down.”
That word — slow down — scrapes over something inside me.
I snap, reflexive. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
His gaze doesn’t flinch. “Molly.”
Don’t say my name like that. Like you get to act like we’re more familiar than we really are. You were everything to me, once, but that once was a long time ago.
I straighten. “Don’t even start.”
He holds up a hand. Not defensive. Just… calm. “Okay. I’m not here to push you.”
“Good.”
He taps the card gently. “Try again. Supplies expense is debited. What’s credited?”
I swallow the bite in my throat because he’s not wrong and I hate that I need this.
“Supplies,” I say. “Credit supplies.”
He nods, like that’s all he was waiting for. “Good. Easy.”
I glare at him, but my pulse does something stupid in my chest.
He flips the next one. “Depreciation.”
“Allocation of the cost of a tangible asset over its useful life.”
He doesn’t smile. He just keeps going. “Journal entry for wages owed at period end.”
“Debit wages expense, credit wages payable.”
He nods. “Good.”
We keep going. I get one wrong, then another. Each time, he doesn’t look smug or disappointed. He just puts the card back in the deck and makes me try again. My jaw aches from the effort of keeping my face neutral.
At some point, I answer one of the hard ones, and he says, “See? Easy.”
A laugh slips out of me, involuntary and real. Just a blur of air and sound, but it’s enough to light up his eyes. I press my lips together like I can take it back. I can't.
My stomach flips, annoyed with my own body.
He keeps quizzing me, steady as spring rain. He doesn’t flirt. Doesn’t tease. Doesn’t act like I’m cute for trying to claw my way into a future. He just helps. Which is, in its own way, more dangerous than any line or touch.
Because I can feel my shoulders dropping an inch at a time. I can feel the tension in my hands easing out. I can feel how hard it is not to lean in.
I miss another question. My mouth goes tight. “Fuck,” I mutter.
He shakes his head. “You know this.”
My spine stiffens like I’ve been slapped.
“Don’t patronize me,” I bite out.
His hand stills. His expression doesn’t change. “I’m not.”
“Sure sounded like it.”
He speaks softer. “You’re exhausted. That’s not an insult.”
I want to spit something at him — some retort about how exhaustion is for the weak, or how he’s got no idea what tired even means — but it curdles in my throat. The truth is, I am tired. I’m tired down to the cartilage. And I hate that he can see it.
“Don’t say things like that,” I force out.
He nods once, like he’s tucking the information away for later. “Okay.”
Then, back to business. He flips the card. “Try again.”
And I do. Because my body is a traitor.
I run through the rest of the stack. Every correct answer is another inch of distance I put between myself and failure.
I nail the last one—something about the straight-line method and asset salvage value, which I only remember because I once came up with a mnemonic involving a hearse and a clown car.
The victory is microscopic, but it makes me want to punch the air.
Instead, I look at the clock over the counter and see that it’s almost exactly an hour later.
My precision makes me feel better; I like it when numbers line up, when time behaves.
I snatch the flashcards back from Evan’s hand, ignoring the way our fingers brush—static, not accidental—and stack them into a perfectly squared-off block. “Time’s up,” I say.
He blinks, and for the first time tonight, he actually looks a little surprised. “Already?”
“One hour,” I repeat briskly. “That was the deal.”
He looks at the cards, then back at me. “We’re on a roll.”
“Yep.” I shove my notebook into my bag. “We’re done.”
He stands, but he doesn’t crowd me. He watches me like he’s deciding whether to fight me on it.
“You want me to leave,” he says.
I give him my sternest look—the one I’ve used to shut down three separate bar fights and a would-be mugger in a Safeway lot.
The look that says test me and you’ll regret it.
For a second, I see him flinch. Or maybe I just want to see it.
Either way, it works. There’s a flicker in his eyes.
Not fear, not resentment. Something closer to respect.
His mouth ticks up like he wants to laugh, but he clamps it down.
“Okay,” he says, without drama, without a trace of sarcasm. “I’ll go.”
He picks up his cup, swirls the dregs, and looks at it like he’s searching for a fortune in the foam. Then he sets it back down, hesitates, and says, “You staying here?”
The question hits wrong. Like hope. Like he wants me to follow him out.
I feel my chest flutter in a way that’s both infuriating and embarrassing. I clamp down on it hard.
“I’ve got studying to finish,” I say, even though we both know I’ll just sit here and stare at the table until the world rights itself again.
His gaze holds mine a beat longer than necessary.
Then he nods once and turns toward the door.
I watch him go, then sit back down without unpacking, just letting the air settle.
There’s a girl at the counter now, ordering something with double syrup and a side of emotional support from the barista.
The college couple in the corner has started holding hands under the table, their laptops forgotten, like maybe finals can’t touch them if they just hold on tight enough.
Evan disappears into the night.
I sit back down, open my notebook, and stare at the page without seeing a single word.
Because accounting isn’t the problem.
The problem is that for one dangerous hour, Evan Wilder made it feel easy to breathe.
And easy is how I get careless.