Chapter 5 #8
I laugh despite myself, a startled sound that sadly ends with a half-snort. “Go make someone a coffee,” I tell him, nodding toward the customer waiting by the pastry case. “Preferably someone who isn’t standing right next to you.”
He goes, but not without one last look at the window seat, his expression suggesting he’s already planning what kind of cake to serve at our hypothetical wedding.
I shake my head, focus on the drink in front of me, and try very hard not to notice that Noah is reading with his full attention, not checking his phone between paragraphs, not looking restless when the queue backs up and the café gets loud.
Five minutes later, as I’m carrying his flat white to the window seat, Noah glances up from his book with the quiet attention of a person who’s simply been daydreaming about being somewhere else and has now returned.
He moves his chair a few inches without looking up so a woman with a pram can get past more easily, no eye contact sought, no acknowledgment expected.
He says “thank you” when I set his coffee down, just a simple acknowledgement with a smile.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” I say, the standard line I’ve delivered a hundred times this morning, and he smiles again before returning to his book, already absorbed again.
None of this is romantic. It’s just noticeable. In weeks where I’ve been cataloguing Daniel’s betrayals with the careful attention of someone planning a hostile takeover, there’s something almost jarring about watching someone who simply takes up the exact amount of space they need and no more.
Harper arrives just before ten, the bell above the door announcing her presence before she’s even fully inside.
She’s carrying Leo’s abandoned school jumper in one hand, her laptop bag in the other, and the energy around her seems to form chaotic swirls that are almost visible to the eye.
Her hair is pulled into a messy bun, a few strands escaping to frame her face, and she’s wearing an outfit to make a statement without making it impossible to chase a six-year-old, that I’ve come to recognize as her “I’m working but also might need to sprint across a playground at any moment” uniform.
She drops into the café like she belongs there, because she does, walks directly to the counter, kisses Luca’s cheek without breaking stride, and calls “Large, strong, make it count!” over her shoulder before heading for the corner table where the outlet is.
“I found it!” she announces, holding up the jumper as she passes where I am standing. “In the bloody freezer. Apparently, it was a ‘secret mission’ involving ice dragons and an ‘important rescue situation’ that absolutely could not wait until after we’d left the house.”
I laugh, the sound coming more easily than it has in days. “That sounds urgent.”
“Extremely,” she agrees, already unpacking her laptop. “I’m pretty sure I promised at least three times that I wouldn’t tell the ice dragons where he’d hidden it, so I’d appreciate it if you'd all act surprised when I eventually have to admit he left it at home.”
Across the café, Luca is talking to a customer by the display table, the one he rearranged yesterday during a particularly intense bout of creative energy and is gesturing emphatically at the books.
“I organized it emotionally instead of alphabetically,” he’s explaining to a customer who looks both confused and slightly concerned. “It’s a system based entirely on vibes. Very intuitive.”
“It’s anarchy,” Harper calls from her table, not looking up from her laptop. “Complete bloody chaos. My book is next to a gardening memoir and what I think is a taxidermy guide.”
“It’s thematic,” Luca counters, already heading for her table. “They’re all about transformation! Growth! The journey from one state of being to another!”
“That’s literally every story ever written,” Harper says, finally looking up. “That’s like saying all food is connected because you eat it. It’s technically true but completely useless as an organizing principle.”
“The taxidermy guide is next to your book because both feature people who are very invested in making things look natural when they’re absolutely not,” Luca says, his face arranged in the expression of someone delivering an irrefutable argument.
“It’s symbolism, Bennett. Very high-level literary analysis. ”
“Rubbish,” she says, but she’s smiling, the warm, open smile that appears when she’s genuinely amused rather than just playing along. “You just wanted to put the pretty covers together.”
“I’m a visual artist,” Luca says, placing one hand dramatically across his chest. “You can’t cage my creative spirit with your rigid alphabetical constraints.”
“You can’t alphabetize,” Harper says, the statement delivered with the easy confidence of someone stating an obvious fact. “You once filed ‘Wuthering Heights’ under ‘H’ because you thought the author’s last name was Heights.”
“It should have been,” Luca says. “Emily Heights has a nice ring to it. Very grounded.”
While Harper and him argue, I detach from her side and begin a solo tour of the café, a routine so familiar it’s practically choreographed. I stop first at the table near the door, where a man in a suit is checking email on his phone.
Behind the counter, Milo’s whimper grows louder, slipping into that urgent wail that means a meltdown is imminent. I set aside my frustration and move to the bassinet, lifting him gently into my arms. His little fists curl against my shirt.
“You're upset?” I ask softly, rocking him. “Probably hungry.”
Harper sighs, concern softening her features. “Maybe a song will help until it’s ready.”
I nod and cradle Milo against my hip, then begin the familiar lullaby, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star…” My voice is steady as I watch his face. He pauses mid-whine, confusion flickering in his eyes, and then his mouth curves into a bright, relieved smile.
I finish the song and whisper, “There you go.” Milo settles, content in my arms. We share a quiet moment, any lingering tension melting away in the warmth of his grin, and in the soft lull of a simple melody.
Across the room, Harper has settled into her corner table with her laptop and the large coffee Luca delivered without being asked.
She’s typing with the focus of someone who’s wrestling with a particularly stubborn passage, her forehead creased in concentration, one hand occasionally reaching for her coffee without looking away from the screen.
As I pass with Milo balanced on my hip, she glances up. “Ethan brought me dinner last night,” she says, her voice casual. “While I was writing. Homemade lasagna and garlic bread.”
“Very thoughtful,” I say, already reaching for the bottle I prepared earlier.
She rolls her eyes, but there’s affection in it, the particular warm exasperation that comes with knowing someone’s flaws and loving them anyway.
“He folded the laundry wrong again,” she says.
“Put all the socks in the tea towel drawer and the tea towels with the underwear. I spent twenty minutes looking for a clean pair before I realized what had happened.”
I laugh, the sound is genuine. “At least he tried.”
“That’s what I said,” she agrees, already turning back to her laptop. “Right before I made him refold everything while I ate.”
I watch her for a moment, the easy way she slips back into her work, the comfortable set of her shoulders, the relaxed focus of someone who knows where they belong.
Harper and Ethan look easy together in a way I used to think Daniel and I looked easy, like two people who have found their place with each other, who know each other’s patterns and preferences and particular ways of being difficult.
They fight, they make up, they tease each other about laundry and burnt dinners and the way Ethan pronounces “quinoa” (somewhere between “queen-oh-ah” and a sound that has no business coming out of a grown adult’s mouth).
But underneath it, the foundation that makes it all possible, is the unshakable knowledge that they’re on the same side.
That they’ve chosen each other, again and again, and will keep choosing each other even when it’s hard.
The thought passes through me quickly, a brief pang of pain that I acknowledge and then deliberately set aside.
I file it away with the other things I’m not ready to examine too closely and go back to work, Milo’s bottle warm in my hand, the café humming with comfortable chaos that happens when people who belong together occupy the same space.
Liv arrives at midday carrying an iced coffee in a reusable cup with “THIS IS PROPERTY OF A VERY TIRED PERSON DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT“ printed in block letters, her laptop bag slung across her body, and an expression of mild inconvenience at the general fact of being alive.
She pauses just inside the door, scans the room with a single sweeping glance, and announces to no one in particular: “The concept of paying four dollars for ice is a moral failing.”
Luca, who’s midway through explaining to a customer why oat milk foam is “literally impossible, it’s like asking water to be dry,” doesn’t even look up.
“Hello to you too,” he calls. “You forgot your personalized mug yesterday, it is behind the counter. The one that says, ‘I’m not rude, I’m Australian. ’”
“I’m not Australian,” Liv says, already moving toward the back of the café.
“No, but you’re definitely rude,” Luca counters, his voice carrying easily over the mid-morning chatter. “It’s close enough to be accurate.”
Liv ignores this, stopping briefly to examine the playlist with a critical expression.
“This sounds like a waiting room for people who gave up,” she announces, loud enough to be heard at the farthest table.
“Is there a reason we’re punishing everyone who walks through that door, or is it just general misanthropy? ”