Two coffees, No sugar

Episode Two

By day 300, 6:12am wasn’t Maya’s coffee time. It was _their_ time.

David started leaving the back door unlocked. She’d slip in while he set up, steal a bar stool, and tell him about the job she did take — night shift at a radio station. “I tell insomniacs it’s okay to be awake,” she said. “Feels less lonely if someone admits it first.”

He told her he only worked mornings because his mom used to. “She said the city is honest before sunrise. No one’s pretending yet.”

On day 312, she didn’t show.

At 6:20, David put her coffee under the heat lamp. At 6:40, he drank it himself. It tasted wrong.

She came back on day 315. 6:30am. Hair wet, eyes red. “My dad,” she said. Didn’t finish. Didn’t need to.

He didn’t say sorry. He just made two coffees, no sugar, and locked the front door. Flipped the sign to _Closed_. They sat on the floor behind the counter until the 8am rush pounded on the glass.

“You’re terrible for business,” he told her.

“You’re terrible at pretending you care about business,” she shot back.

On day 400, she brought him a thermos. “For when I’m not here,” she said. “Radio station moved me to evenings.”

He looked at it. Then at her. “So 6:12am is over?”

“No,” she said. “Now 6:12am is whenever we decide. The city’s honest at midnight too.”

That night, he closed the shop at 11pm. She picked him up at 11:50. Two coffees, no sugar, on the passenger seat. They drove until Kampala went quiet, parked by the lake, and watched the water until it was 6:12am again.

He held out his coffee. She clinked hers against it.

“To the ghost,” she said.

“To the boss,” he said.

“To not drinking alone.”