2. Cillian #2
She looks like someone who is asleep and not actively making my life worse, which is the best she’s been all day.
I get up without making noise and pull clothes on in the dark before leaving, quietly shutting the door behind me.
I need coffee.
The kitchen is huge and something you’d find in a magazine spread, but I don’t give a fuck about that right now.
Right now, my singular focus is caffeine.
“Thank fuck,” I mutter as I find the espresso machine.
Rifling through the cabinets, I find a mug, and, after a few moments of deliberation, figure out how to work this goddamn thing.
Whatever happened to a regular coffee pot?
Who the fuck needs to drink cappuccinos or lattes or whatever the fuck else they’re called.
My phone buzzes with a message and I don’t even bother looking because I know it’s Connor.
The man does not sleep, or if he does it’s the light, watchful sleep of someone with a lot of enemies, which he has, because he’s spent forty years accumulating them.
Once I get my coffee, I glance at my phone.
Report at noon. We need to discuss Queens.
I type back a confirmation and put my phone face-down on the counter because I have maybe three hours before I need to be anywhere and I’m going to drink my damn coffee in peace.
I’m on my second cup when I hear the bedroom door.
Valentina appears in a silk robe over her pajamas, her dark hair tangled around her shoulders.
She stops when she sees me like she forgot I was going to be here, which is fair.
I forgot I was going to be here too, in the cosmic sense.
We stare at each other across the kitchen.
“Coffee?” I ask, because I can be civil when it serves no particular purpose to be otherwise.
“I can make my own coffee, thank you,” she says stiffly.
I shrug, settling myself in to watch the show. “Suit yourself.”
Valentina approaches the espresso machine, and I notice pretty quickly that she has absolutely no idea how to use this machine.
And I don’t mean unfamiliar-with-the-model no idea.
I mean never-stood-in-front-of-a-coffee-machine-in-her-life no idea, because it’s clear there’s always been someone else to handle it.
She’s staring at the machine like it’s a puzzle she has to figure out. Her face is perfectly composed because it’s obvious she would rather chew glass than let me see her struggle.
But I’ve been reading people for decades and it’s clear as day to me that she doesn’t know which button does what.
She closes her eyes briefly before she heads to the fridge and opens it.
Looking for milk, I assume.
She stands there for a moment staring into its depths, but then her mouth twitches.
It’s not quite a frown, but from her scrunched up nose she’s clearly found something beneath her princess standards.
“There’s no almond milk,” she announces to no one in particular.
I raise a brow. “Sorry?”
“Almond milk.” She turns to look at me like this is somehow my fault. “There’s none. There’s just—” She gestures at the fridge and shudders. “Regular milk.”
“Shocking,” I say sarcastically. “Regular milk, in a refrigerator. Someone should look into that.”
She closes the fridge. “I don’t drink cow’s milk.”
Why does this not surprise me? “Of course you don’t.”
Valentina whips around toward me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” I muse, picking up my coffee, “that I’m very unsurprised that Valentina Santoro requires a specific type of milk that comes from a nut.” I pause. “A very expensive nut, presumably.”
Her eyes narrow by a fraction. “It’s better for you.”
“Right.” I take a sip. “I’ll add it to the shopping list, princess. Right after the gold-plated toilet paper.”
“I don’t use—” She stops and seems to decide this particular battle isn’t worth fighting. She turns back to the espresso machine. “I’ll have it delivered.”
I bite back a laugh. “Naturally.”
She touches a button. A grinder noise starts and she blinks very quickly, before her face goes smooth again.
I say nothing.
She touches another button and the grinder stops, but a different light comes on.
There is a pause and she definitely has a what the fuck did I just do look before she tries a third button.
The machine makes a sound like it’s just as confused as she is.
I set my cup down quietly and bite my lip. If I don’t get myself together, I’m going to laugh and she’ll never forgive me for it.
She tilts her head at the machine.
The look on her face is funny, as if she can’t tell if she should be furious at the machine or herself.
She pulls out her phone, and I watch with interest as her fingers fly across the screen, typing something.
I really wish I knew what she wrote.
Is it: how to work a coffee machine? Oh, please tell me it is.
Her eyes dart across the screen as she reads the result, chewing on her bottom lip, before she puts the phone face down on the counter.
“Everything alright over there?” I ask cheerily. This is the most fun I’ve had in twenty-four hours.
“Fine,” she mumbles to the machine.
She tries whatever she just looked up. She gets further this time, then she stops. She stares at the milk compartment then at the fridge. Then back at the machine.
I’m biting my lip so hard to stop myself from laughing.
Valentina clearly wants to make some type of coffee drink with milk but since she doesn’t drink cow’s milk she’s in a dilemma. Does she drink the cow’s milk or suffer through black coffee?
She opens the fridge and picks up the milk before opening the compartment and pouring in the requisite amount of milk. Frustration is radiating off her and I know if I say anything she will attack me.
I press my lips together, then decide to have some fun.
“I thought you didn’t—” I start.
“I’m making an exception,” she says in a clipped voice, without turning around.
“Of course,” I say, nodding my head. God it hurts to keep myself from laughing. “Very flexible of you.”
“One more word,” she says, still not turning around, “and I will pour this entire machine over your head.”
I say nothing because I do believe she is serious even though I so, so badly want to make a quip.
She frowns at the froth when it comes out. The regular milk behaves differently than almond, clearly, and the texture isn’t what she wanted. Valentina stiffens for a moment.
“I can show you how to—” I try.
“I have it,” she snaps.
She does not have it.
What she produces is a cappuccino in name only but certainly not in appearance.
I know it.
She definitely knows it, but she’s doing her best to not let me know that.
She brings the mug to her lips and hesitates.
A strangled noise nearly escapes my lips before I cover it with a cough, unable to keep my eyes off her.
She takes a sip and I wait for the revulsion to show.
But her expression does not change.
I have to hand it to her.
Her poker face is incredible considering whatever she’s drinking is probably horrific.
“There’s a barista mode,” I say pleasantly. “First button on the left. It does the whole thing automatically and takes about forty seconds. Its almond milk compatible, before you ask.”
She turns and looks at me with such a withering expression that a less experienced man would probably apologize.
“Good to know,” she says, in a tone that means the exact opposite.
I shrug. “Just trying to be helpful.”