Spiced Chais and Secret Spies (The Coffee Loft Series: Fall Collection)
1. Pumpkin Spice and Everything Daisy
CHAPTER 1
PUMPKIN SPICE AND EVERYTHING DAISY
OLLIE
W hen my alarm goes off, I’m lying in bed on my back, and before I can even open my eyes, a paw lands on my forehead. It’s my cat, Roi , of course, like it is every morning. I like to think that she really wants to be the one to wake me up in the morning but respects me enough to wait for my alarm, and not that she’s preparing for her inevitable world domination, starting with my forehead.
She keeps her paw there as I blindly reach for my phone to silence the alarm. It isn’t until I look at her and say, “ Good morning, Roi ,” that she removes her paw. I used to think that she had an impressive internal clock and just knew when to get out of her bed that’s on the floor near mine and jump up onto my bed to do her morning forehead lockdown, but no. I randomly woke up forty minutes early once, and she was already on my bed, sitting up next to me, staring at my face like she was calculating how many more mornings it would take to fully control me.
I turn my attention to Roi . I’ve always wanted a cat like her, so I got her three years ago as a reward to myself when I finished college. I named her Roi , like the accounting acronym “ Return on Investment ,” because she was expensive, and I hoped I was making a good choice.
For the record: she’s been an excellent choice. I say to her, “ Hi , Roi !” often because it makes me chuckle to feel like I’m saying “ High return on investment.” Hey , no one said accountants aren’t dorks. Or that we aren’t funny.
I pet her for a bit, making sure to rub right at her jaw line and under her chin since that’s her favorite. Clearly , she already does control me. I pet her until my Get out of bed alarm sounds five minutes later. Then I hop out of bed and Roi promptly curls up right where I was laying. It’s likely the real reason behind her putting a paw on my forehead is her way of saying, “ Leave now. This warm spot is mine for the next twenty-five minutes.”
I take my phone with me into the bathroom so I can listen to my favorite daily news briefing podcast, not because I need alarms or even a clock. Atomic clocks could set their time based on me. I take two minutes to go to the bathroom, four to shave, two to brush my teeth, nine to shower, two to towel off, and I emerge from the bathroom exactly nineteen minutes later. I dress and comb my hair and glance down at my watch—it’s exactly twenty-five minutes since I got out of bed. There is nothing like the feeling of being perfectly in sync with your schedule.
Roi knows it, too, because she stands, takes two steps with her front legs, stretches out, and then hops down and waits for me by the door as I make my bed. After we both eat breakfast and I clean up, I spend a few minutes with Roi , practicing the tricks she’s learned. I make a “hoop” with my arms, and she jumps through it a few times, we give each other high-fives, and I think again about how cats are the ultimate pets. You can teach them anything. They may not always agree to do it on command, but they could if they wanted to.
I glance around my apartment. This one-bedroom place has always been the perfect-size for Roi and me. So why has it been feeling lately like someone is missing?
I turn my attention back to Roi . “ Okay , I’ve got to head to work. Remember : no darting through the plants and across the counter, okay? When I get home, I’ll take you for a walk.” For the most part, Roi likes her schedule as predictable as I do. When I check my cat cam at my 10:30 a.m. break, she’s always snoozing on the floor in the square of morning sun shining in. When I check during my lunch hour just before 1:00, she’s sitting on the window sill, looking out at traffic and people walking past.
But at 3:00, all bets are off. She goes crazy and chases imaginary bugs, leaps across furniture like she’s demonstrating her parkour abilities, attacks her own tail in an epic battle, or does something completely random like playing hide-and-seek with herself.
I pull into a parking spot at work, get out of my car, and tuck my laptop under my arm, then I walk a block past the historical theater that they’re in the middle of renovating to the Coffee Loft , and I go inside. I’ve been coming here since I started working at Pacioli & Blackwell Accounting three years ago. I became a fan of the place even before Daisy started working here. Now I’m a bit more of a fan.
The Coffee Loft building is inside the historic train station, which makes me love the place even more. It has the original brick walls and a large, arched window at the front. There’s plenty of natural light, high ceilings with exposed wooden beams, and soft, hanging lights. The long barista counter is a polished dark wood that looks like it might’ve been around since this building was first made.
The shelves behind the counter have coffee beans, teas, and pastries, and in the middle, the round Coffee Loft logo perfectly mirrors the size and shape of the giant clock on the wall behind me that’s leftover from its train station days. There are antique station memorabilia, like old train tickets, vintage suitcases, and original bench seating along the walls. It all gives it a cool vibe.
A woman named Nora is taking orders and Daisy is filling them. Three people are in front of me today, so I get a good chance to watch Daisy at work. She is beautiful. She’s always smiling and chatting with every customer. The world could’ve ended, and we all got in line today to get our apocalyptic coffees, and I bet she’d still be smiling.
I can tell she’s the spontaneous type by her hair alone. It’s chestnut-colored and looks like it’s naturally curly. She always has it pulled into a bun on top, but not a neat bun—she kind of has curls going everywhere like she doesn’t care whether everything is perfect or not. I admire that about her. I wish I could be more like that, actually. I like my consistency, but I often feel as if it hinders me. Like if I could find a way to be a bit more spontaneous, life would be fuller. I just don’t know how to do that.
Then I start to imagine how much fuller my life would be with Daisy in it. I’m imagining that life so much that I don’t notice when the person in front of me has finished ordering and moved to the side until the person behind me taps me on the shoulder. I hurry and step forward and tell Nora , “ One medium chai latte, please.”
Nora picks up one of the to-go cups and writes my name on it, sets it to the side for Daisy to fill, and then rings me up. I pay, add a dollar to the tip jar, scoot down the counter a bit, and wait. As soon as Daisy hands coffee to the person who had been in front of me in line, she picks up my cup and draws a smiley face in the O of Ollie , like she always does, whether she’s the one who takes my order or the one who prepares it.
Then she meets my eyes and asks, “ What do you think about making it a pumpkin-spiced chai today?”
“ Pumpkin spiced?” I parrot. This is not my normal. I’ve never had it before and I don’t even know if it would taste good.
I’m fumbling for an answer when Daisy says, “ I think you’ll like it.”
So , I nod. Daisy’s the expert here. Maybe she has some kind of barista sense that tells her what customers would like. If Daisy thinks I’ll like it, then I trust her.
As Daisy works at making my drink behind the machine, she glances over at me and says, “ Wow . Don’t you look nice today. Do you have an interview? Or a meeting with a client or something?”
I look down at my light blue short-sleeved button-down and gray slacks. The range of colors and variety in my outfits for work is small, so this isn’t much different from every other day I come in here. “ No . But I was thinking about applying… I look nice?”
“ Well , I mean you always look nice. But yes—you have an extra spiffiness about you today. ”
A spiffiness ? And she thinks I always look nice? I stand a little taller.
Daisy hands me my latte. “ I hope you enjoy it!”
I take the to-go cup and my laptop and head to my favorite table that has a view of the counter that Daisy works behind. Usually , I bring a book to read while I’m drinking my chai latte. If I know it’s going to be a particularly busy day, I might get a jump start on emails before going to work. But Daisy thinking I might be going to an interview has made me ready to look at the pros and cons list I made for the position at my firm I’m thinking of applying for. Right now, I’m in the General Accounting department but I have my eye on a job in the Risk Management department.
I bring up the list I’ve been adding to and looking over for the past several days. In one column, I have reasons why I want the job. Things like how much more I’d enjoy identifying and coming up with plans to mitigate credit risks, operational risks, and compliance risks for clients. And how it’s a growing field that could open up many future opportunities. It would also allow me to utilize my Certified Risk Manager designation.
But this job has its cons, too. And so many unknowns. I hate unknowns.
My chai has probably cooled enough to drink. I smile back at the smiley face that Daisy drew in the O of my name. Today , it is wearing glasses in the shape of stars and a big grin. I push my own glasses up and take a sip.
My eyebrows raise in surprise. I don’t know what I was expecting when she said “pumpkin spiced chai”—something that tasted like an actual pumpkin, maybe?—but this is nothing like that. I take another sip. I taste cinnamon and nutmeg along with ginger, clove, and cardamom, I think? And is that black pepper? Whatever it is, it’s really good.
I immediately glance at the counter. Daisy is working on someone’s drink, but her eyes are on me. So I smile and give her a thumbs up to let her know that trying the pumpkin spiced chai was a good thing, and she grins back. I like that she witnessed me liking my first sip of it. She’s so lively and happy, and it makes me feel more lively and happy just being near her. I think for the millionth time about how much I would like to take her on a date.
I haven’t ever seen her outside of this building, but we still know quite a bit about each other by chit-chatting while she makes my drink over the past probably year and a half since she’s worked here. She knows that I work for Pacioli & Blackwell as an accountant. I know that she moved to Cipher Springs from Richmond a year and a half ago when she started working at Coffee Loft . She knows I like things predictable, what types of books I like to read, and what times of the month we tend to be busiest at work, which changes what I work on as I drink my chai. I know she is creative and fun just by the creative earrings she wears, that she actually makes many of those earrings, and that she wants to travel. She knows I’m a little shy, and I know she’s about as opposite of shy as someone could be.
Like right now. She’s chatting with the customer who she’s making a drink for. I’m not close enough to hear what they are saying but she’s smiling and chatting with him and he’s smiling at her and chatting back. Not so different from how she interacted with me while she was making my drink. So she’s not that way with me because she thinks I’m special. She’s just that way.
So , clearly, I can’t ask her on a date. I’m just another customer to her, and there’s too big of a chance that she will say no.
I look back down at the list on my laptop that is titled Pros and Cons of Applying for Risk Management Position . It’s ironic that the guy who’s afraid to take a risk—on asking Daisy out or on applying for this position—wants to work on the Risk Management team. I don’t know if that would likely make me better at the job or worse at it.
The quiet beep-beep of my alarm tells me it’s time to head to work. I close my laptop and pick up both it and my cup as I stand. Daisy must have a pretty impressive internal clock, too, because she always seems to know when my alarm goes off—even though she can’t hear it from where she is—and turns from whatever it is she’s doing to call out, “ Bye , Ollie !”
I’ve got a spring in my step as I walk around the pallets of bricks and wood in front of the old theater on my way to work, head into my building, take the elevator to the third floor, and head toward my department. Before I even step foot into my team’s area, I spot Tad Riggins jauntily strutting down the hall that meets up with mine, whistling, and I steel myself. Tad may look like he’d be a nice guy, but he always gets in underhanded jabs every time he passes by me.
We merge hallways at about the same time and he pauses, mid-step, as if he just remembered something. “ Oh , hey, I guess I should break the news to you. Do you know how you wanted to be assigned the Sheridan account? Well , the company asked for yours truly,” he says as he puts his hand on his chest. “ By name.”
Then he fakes a frown as if this news makes him feel very bad for me. It doesn’t. In case I didn’t manage to interpret it from his expression, he adds out loud, not even trying to make the words sound genuine, “ I feel bad it didn’t work out for you.”
I open my mouth as if I have a retort ready to go when we probably both know that the most perfect retort won’t come until I’m lying in bed tonight. Before I would’ve been able to get a word out, anyway, he says, “ Oh , hey, you’ve got a little something—” and reaches a finger out like he’s trying to brush something off the middle of my shirt. As I look down, he raises his finger to bop my nose. “ Got you!” he says and then laughs in a way that always makes me picture him sprouting donkey ears before he heads into our team’s area.
I close my eyes for a moment, telling myself that I’m not going to let Tad bring me down from my Daisy -thinks- I -look-spiffy high. I need to add to the “ Pros ” side of my list of applying for the Risk Management team, Won’t have to work with Tad .
I sit down at my desk, turn on my computer, and pull out my favorite pen, highlighters, pencil, erasers, and calculator, getting all of it—along with the papers I need to get started on my first task—organized how I like it. I’m logging into my computer when my boss, Rickard , walks in.
Yes , his name was Richard at birth. Yes , growing up, people called him Rick . We called him Rick here at Pacioli & Blackwell . When he got a job as a team lead, he felt his name needed to sound more “professional.” But since everyone was used to calling him “ Rick ,” he didn’t want people to get confused, so he went for the winning name he makes us call him now. Rickard .
He stops at Tad’s desk, and the two of them joke around, do some multi-step fist-bump thing that takes me back to junior high, and laugh. Lots of laughing. They’re like two stains on the same shirt.
The jovial expression on my boss’s face drops as he turns in my direction and walks over to my desk. “ Hello , Ollie ,” Rickard says, then half sits on the edge of my desk, crinkling up the edges of some of my papers and sending my highlighters in all directions.
“ You’re not going to like this, but there’s something I think you should hear from me. I know that you’re considering applying for the job opening in the Risk Management team. Tad applied for the position, and I’ve decided to endorse him for the job. He may not have your qualifications, but there’s just a…” he moves his hand around like he’s trying to capture exactly what he’s thinking, “ confidence quality he has that you lack.”
He pats me on the shoulder twice, much more forcefully than what could be considered comforting. “ I’m sure you’re disappointed, but them’s the breaks.”
I don’t lack in my confidence that I would be better at the job than Tad would be. I just lack the social confidence it takes to do things like complicated fist bumps/handshakes/dance moves with my boss that Tad has. But I don’t think that’s exactly needed for the job in Risk Management .
As he walks away, I have to wonder: is it even worth applying for the position if my boss isn’t going to back me? The Risk Management team leader will surely ask him about both of us. Rickard doesn’t have to “endorse” either one of us. He could simply talk about each of our strengths objectively.
Sure , I’m more qualified and better at my job than Tad is, but I can’t count on that coming through and negating what my boss says.
Plus , there are lots of other people who are good at their jobs here. And lots of people outside our company who are probably applying. What makes me think I can get it? Even if I am the most qualified, will I be able to convey that to the interviewer? Like Rickard said, I lack a “confidence quality.” I am not super suave or smooth, so I’m not super confident in my ability to convince someone about the areas I am super competent in.
And would I even like the job better? It would be doing the parts of accounting that I like best, so there’s a really good chance I would. But there’s no guarantee.
The thing about numbers that I love so much is that there’s exactly one answer to every problem. Only one number is right. There isn’t such a thing as subjective opinions, likes or dislikes, or emotions. None of that factors in. You work the problem and get the exact right answer. No uncertainty at all.
I wish life was more like math.