Chapter 5 #9
“It’s Fleetwood Mac,” I tell her, handing a customer their change. “It’s literally the opposite of giving up.”
“It’s the musical equivalent of beige paint,” she says, already moving again. “Inoffensive. Forgettable. The sort of thing you put on when you want to make sure no one remembers your taste in music.”
She pauses at the specials board, where Luca’s handwriting, looping and dramatic, with extra flourishes on the capital letters, spells out the day’s offerings in three different colours of chalk.
“Is this a font or a cry for help?” she asks, tilting her head slightly. “Because I’m genuinely concerned. This looks like what happens when someone discovers calligraphy while having a nervous breakdown.”
“It’s artistic,” Luca calls from behind the counter. “Something you wouldn’t understand because your idea of self-expression is wearing slightly different shades of black.”
“It’s called a cohesive aesthetic,” Liv says, already heading for her usual table in the corner. “Something you wouldn’t understand because your idea of a cohesive aesthetic is ‘clown threw up in a craft store.’“
She drops into a chair with the dedication of someone who has absolutely no intention of moving for the next several hours, spreads her laptop bag, notebook, and a collection of pens across the table in what appears to be a deliberately chaotic arrangement, and then, apparently as an afterthought, reaches for her coffee without looking up from her phone.
“Jesus, how many customers do you have?” she asks, squinting at the line forming by the counter. “Is there some kind of poetry reading I wasn’t told about? A cult meeting? Has the apocalypse started and this is literally the last coffee shop open?”
“Some of us have actual jobs,” Luca says, already heading for the espresso machine. “Not all of us can work from literally anywhere with Wi-Fi.”
“Says the man whose entire business model is ‘hot bean juice and books,’” Liv counters, opening her laptop. “Very demanding. Extremely complex. I’m surprised you find time to sleep with all that corporate strategy.”
She settles into work typing rapidly, one hand reaching occasionally for her coffee without looking away from the screen.
Around her, the café continues its midday rhythm, customers arriving and departing, orders being taken and filled, conversations overlapping in the comfortable chaos that happens when people share space without demanding constant attention.
I’m halfway through the lunch rush, making avocado toast for a woman in a green coat, fielding questions about dairy alternatives from a man with a complicated coffee order, and simultaneously keeping an eye on Milo, who has decided that the best use of his newly discovered voice is to conduct experiments on its upper volume limit, when I notice that Liv has somehow acquired Maisie.
I didn’t hand her over or ask her to hold her.
I didn’t even register Liv moving from her table to the counter.
But there she is, my daughter balanced against Liv’s shoulder with the practiced ease of someone who has held babies before, Liv’s hand supporting Maisie’s back.
She’s still typing with her other hand, her eyes on her laptop screen, her conversation with the person on the other side of the table continuing without interruption.
“…so I told him if he wanted ‘approachable but still premium,’ he could either pay for the logo that achieves that or go back to business school and invent a time machine so he can stop me from taking this job in the first place,” she’s saying, bouncing Maisie slightly as she speaks.
“He chose the logo. Smart man. It would've been cheaper to build the time machine.”
The woman she’s talking to, a regular I recognize but don’t know by name, laughs, the sound bright in the crowded café. “What did you end up doing?”
“Exactly what he asked for,” Liv says, reaching for her coffee.
“Approachable but premium. Which is not actually a thing, but I made something that makes it look like it is.” She sets the mug down, adjusts Maisie against her shoulder, and continues typing.
“The trick is making them think you’ve solved an impossible problem while actually just giving them what they wanted in the first place. ”
Twenty minutes later, when the lunch rush has peaked and is just beginning to ease, Liv is bouncing Milo on her knee with one hand while redoing a typography layout with the other.
She’s moved from her corner table to the larger one near the window, Noah having glanced up, registered her laptop and materials with a single careful look, and then immediately offered to move, and she has somehow commandeered half the café’s surface area with mock-ups, colour swatches, and at least three different versions of what appears to be a book cover.
“Your Instagram caption for the new arrivals post is aggressively boring,” she tells Luca, who’s wiping down tables on the other side of the room. “It’s like you’re trying to make sure no one remembers your business exists.”
“It’s descriptive,” Luca counters, not looking up from the table he’s cleaning. “I’m describing the books. That’s what captions are for.”
“Captions are for making people want to buy things,” Liv says, already typing.
“Not for listing the names of books they could literally read on the shelf behind you.” Her fingers move across her keyboard with efficiency, her expression focused.
“You need something that makes people feel something. Not just ‘new books arrived today.’”
“Not everyone communicates in emojis and dramatic declarations,” Luca says, but he’s smiling, the warm, open smile that he shares so willingly. “Some of us use complete sentences.”
“Complete sentences can still be interesting,” Liv says, still typing. “It’s not mutually exclusive.” She hits send with a decisive tap, then turns back to her laptop. “I’ve fixed it. You’re welcome.”
Luca’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He checks it, his expression changing from scepticism to grudging approval. “That’s actually not terrible,” he admits.
“High praise,” Liv says dryly. “I’ll add it to my resume. ‘Not terrible’ according to Luca Reyes, who once tried to convince me that Comic Sans was ‘misunderstood‘ and ‘actually very sincere.’”
“I stand by that,” Luca says. “It’s the most honest font. No pretences. Just pure, unapologetic Comic Sans energy.”
“You stand by a lot of things that would get you committed in a more just world,” Liv tells him, but there’s no heat in it, just the easy back-and-forth of people who know how far they can push each other.
The lunch rush is in full swing when Adrian arrives, slipping through the door quietly. He’s carrying a leather folder in one hand and a phone charger in the other, his expression neutral in a way that seems to be his default setting.
“Apparently I’m now a delivery driver,” he announces, setting the charger on the counter beside the register. “You texted me seven times about forgetting this and that ‘you might be having feelings.’”
Luca’s face transforms, the immediate expression that happens whenever Adrian appears, his whole body leaning slightly toward him without apparently being aware of it.
“I’m not having feelings,” he says, already moving toward Adrian.
“I’m having a perfectly normal reaction to the fact that Barry rearranged the entire fiction section while I was on my break and now nothing is where it’s supposed to be. ”
“Of course,” Adrian says, his voice dry. “Completely reasonable.”
“Completely,” Luca agrees, already reaching to put the coffee for Adrian on the counter, a flat white with the right amount of foam, made without being asked.
“And also, Barry is a demon wearing a human suit, which is not a feeling, it’s an objective fact supported by extensive observational evidence. ”
“I’m sure,” Adrian says, but he’s smiling, a soft, private smile that appears only when he’s looking at Luca. “Good thing you only have to deal with him twice a week.”
They continue like this, Luca talking, Adrian listening while the lunch rush continues around them.
At one point, Luca leans against Adrian’s shoulder while talking to a customer, the gesture so automatic and comfortable that neither of them seems to notice it’s happening, just a brief moment of contact, Adrian’s body adjusting slightly to accommodate Luca’s weight before they separate again, still talking.
I watch this from behind the counter with a feeling I don’t examine too closely, something between grief and envy.
Not for Adrian specifically, I’ve never thought of him or Luca that way, but for what he and Luca have together.
For the lives that two people share who have built something real from the careful work of knowing and choosing each other, again and again.
When the rush finally eases, the queue shortening, the tables gradually emptying as people return to work or class or whatever lives they have outside this corner of the world, Adrian finds a quiet moment to approach the counter, his expression careful.
“How are you holding up?” he asks, his voice low enough that only I can hear.
It’s such a normal question, just a simple acknowledgment that things have been difficult, and for a moment, I don’t know how to answer. Then I shrug, one hand still moving through the motions of wiping down the counters.
“I’m okay,” I say, the words practiced. “It’s...it’s a process.”
He nods, accepting this without pushing for details. “Clara called me yesterday,” he says, his voice matter of fact. “The documentation is progressing well. She’s impressed with how thorough you’ve been.”
Relief washes through me, a feeling of a weight being lifted slightly. “That’s good,” I say. “I’ve been trying to...I don’t want to miss anything.”