The Terms Between Us

1. Karissa

Chapter one

Karissa

"Can I help you?"

He doesn't answer right away. He's looking at my café the way people look at a property listing.

"I have a meeting," he says.

"This is a bakery café."

"I'm aware." His gaze drops to the menu board. "The woman I'm meeting suggested it."

"Then she has excellent taste." I say it to the man in front of me.

The man in front of me has not moved out of the way. The line is out the door, and he is standing in the middle of it like weather.

"Where's the back seating area?"

"Through there." I nod toward the archway. "But you'll need to order first."

He looks at me then. Really looks, the way people do when they're deciding if you're worth the effort of a response.

Tall. Dark suit, no tie, collar open exactly one button. The kind of build that suggests a gym isn't optional, it's compulsive. A jaw that appears to have been installed to deliver bad news attractively.

"I don't need coffee."

"Then I don't need you taking up a table."

The café goes quiet enough that I hear Marcus, my morning help, put down a portafilter behind me.

His expression doesn't change. But something in his posture shifts. Like he wasn't expecting resistance and he's recalibrating what kind of morning this is.

I smile at the woman behind him who's been waiting for thirty seconds too long.

"Americano," he says. "Black."

"Name?"

"Easton."

"We'll call you when it's ready, Easton."

He steps aside. The line closes over the space where he was standing.

"Good for you," the woman murmurs, already grinning.

I don't say anything. I just take her order.

The watch is the tell. Not flashy. No logo I'd recognize from a billboard. The kind of thing that costs more than my walk-in cooler and doesn't need anyone to know it.

Through the window, a black car sits in the loading zone with its hazards on. I assume it's his. No ticket on the windshield, and Delia from parking enforcement came through twenty minutes ago.

So, he's the kind of man who doesn't get ticketed. Good for him.

I ring up a cortado and stop thinking about it.

Except he hasn't gone through to the back. He's standing at the archway with his coffee, watching me route Marcus, the line, and the machine without breaking stride. Watching the way he'd watch a trade. Like he's decided the outcome and is only confirming it.

Then he's gone through the archway, and I have three problems left and none of them are him.

Behind me the espresso machine is screaming. Not literally. But the pressure gauge is sitting at a number it should not be sitting at. I get to the machine and bleed the pressure by hand before someone's oat milk latte becomes a projectile. It settles.

Crisis one, handled.

My phone buzzes against my hip. I pull it out while I'm still walking.

Theo: Field trip next Friday. $45. Can you Venmo me?

I type back one-handed: Yes. Stop texting me during school.

He sends back a thumbs up. Sixteen years old and texting me at 7:43 a.m. like I'm not currently trying to keep my business from imploding.

I love him. I could also strangle him with my apron strings.

Forty-five dollars. I know exactly which line it comes out of. I know what's already sitting on that line, too.

Linford's gets like this between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. every weekday. Controlled chaos. I've learned to read it the way other people read traffic: where it's moving, where it's about to snarl, what needs intervention before it becomes a problem.

Four things need intervention this morning. Three of them are mine.

The fourth is drinking an Americano in my back room.

"Karissa." Marcus leans back from the register. "Rivera Supply's on hold. Third time this week."

Crisis two.

Diego Rivera doesn't want to talk to me. He wants me flustered and grateful for the privilege of continuing to owe him money. I've met men like him my whole life. I know exactly what they're doing.

I duck into the strip of space by the storage room I generously call an office. A stool, a monitor, a pegboard of invoices I'm losing sleep over. I pick up the landline.

"Diego."

"Miss Linford. We've got a problem."

"We've got a difference of opinion about payment timelines."

"My drivers have a difference of opinion about showing up somewhere that hasn't paid its account."

He's not bluffing. Small operation, same as me. He can't carry my balance forever.

"Half by Friday, the rest by the thirtieth," I say. Flat. Not apologetic. Apologetic invites mercy, and I don't need mercy. I need terms.

A pause. He knows finding another supplier at my volume takes six weeks.

"Miss either date, I pull deliveries." He hangs up.

I stare at the wall for three seconds. The bakery is not failing. It's tight. There's a difference.

I keep telling myself there's a difference.

He's still there an hour later.

His meeting ended. The woman he met with left. He did not.

He's sitting in the back corner with a laptop, an empty coffee cup, and the posture of someone who does not question whether a space is available to him.

He's been there long enough that I've had to send Marcus back twice to clear adjacent tables, and each time Marcus comes back wearing the face of a man who'd rather have cleaned bathrooms.

The rush finally breaks around 9:15 a.m. In the merciful quiet that follows, I walk back there myself.

"We stop serving at 10:00 a.m.," I say. "But if you want anything else before then—"

"Your back seating area has poor acoustics." He doesn't look up from the laptop. "The layout is inefficient. You're losing capacity by—"

"I didn't ask."

He looks up now.

"This is my business," I say. "Not a consulting opportunity."

"I wasn't consulting." His voice is flat. "I was observing."

"Unsolicited observations about my layout are consulting. You want to tell me how to run my café, I charge for that."

The corner of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. More like the concept of one, briefly entertained and dismissed.

"You're the owner."

"That surprises you?"

He considers that. "You're younger than I expected."

"And you're more opinionated than I needed this morning." I pick up his empty cup. "Can I get you anything else, or are you set?"

He watches me for a beat too long.

"I'm set," he says.

I take the cup. He speaks before I've turned.

"What does a table cost."

It isn't a question. It's a man reaching for a checkbook.

"The table's free. The coffee's four-fifty." I stack his saucer on top of the cup. "You already bought one. You're fine."

"That isn't what I asked."

"I know." I hold his eyes for exactly as long as it takes to make the point. "You can't buy a table here. You can order from a menu like everyone else, or you can leave. That's the entire list."

That registers. Not annoyance. Closer to interest.

I don't stay to see what he does with it.

The afternoon is invoices, inventory, and a call with my accountant that leaves me with the particular brand of headache that only spreadsheets can cause.

I'm at my desk when Marcus knocks on the doorframe.

"Gala coordinator called."

Right. The charity gala I'm catering. It's at some venue in Midtown, a corporate space available through a private foundation. Good exposure. I said yes before I had time to talk myself out of it.

"What'd they say?"

"Final headcount is up. Four-twenty instead of three-eighty." Marcus pauses. "And they emailed over the venue contact information. For parking and load-in."

He holds out his phone.

I take it, scan the email. Load-in time, service entrance address, contact protocol.

And then, at the bottom, the property management line.

For all venue inquiries, please contact Easton Capital. Noah Easton, Principal.

I read it twice.

Easton.

I set Marcus's phone on the desk. I stare at the pegboard. Back at the phone.

The man from this morning owns the building where I'm catering the gala. The one I told to order something or get out. The one I watched get quietly furious at being handled like everyone else.

I go back to my email.

The last one I open has the subject line: Gala Catering — Direct Inquiry.

The sender is N. Easton.