Stolen Yearn

CHAPTER ONE

Every morning I open the café at six twenty-seven.

Not six thirty. Never six thirty. Three minutes is power, not just a sense of impending defeat, always running toward something instead of from it. The street is still half-asleep, the sort of quiet that belongs to early mornings and those who have no other choice.

Its bell above cries once with a soft, weary jingle as I step inside and lock it behind me.

It smells like yesterday in the café — grounds and citrus cleaner and something warm that has soaked into the walls over time. It’s familiar.

Safe.

Predictable.

I press my forehead on the window for a beat too long and let out a slow breath.

Another day.

The lights snap one by one to life as I start along the counter, shrugging out of my jacket and hanging it up on its hook beside the storage door. It was little by design. Eight tables. Two booths. A waxed-wood counter worn smooth by elbows and idle fingers over the years. When people come here, it’s because they don’t want to be seen, because they want to have conversations that won’t echo.

Lawyers from the annex down the street. Assistants. Noisy witnesses with expensive watches who don’t know their real names.

I don’t ask questions. I pour coffee.

I knot my apron, scrub my hands and then I start the machines. Espresso grinder whirring to life, loud in the silence. I line up the cups, wipe the counter, inspect the pastries brought in with dawn. Everything in its place.Everything where I can see it.

Order helps. Order prevents my thoughts from going where I don’t have time for them to go.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

I already know who it’s from.

I dry my hands and look at the screen.

Unknown Number:

Good morning. Visiting hours begin at 9 a.m today. His vitals were stable overnight.

Relief eases something tight in my chest. Just a little. Enough to keep me standing.

Thank you, I type back. I’ll be there later.

I pocket the phone and look at the counter for a while, crooked fingers wrapped to its far side. Stable doesn’t mean healed. It doesn’t mean better. It just means not worse.

Not today.

I’ll take it.

By 7 in the evening the first regulars show up.

A gray-suited man who takes black coffee and never sits.

A woman with hair pressed to perfection and case files who are the gospel.

They nod at me.

I nod back.

That is our association — polite, at arm’s length, free of complications.

“Morning,” I mumble out of habit, the words issuing forth from some dark recess of muscle memory.

I move, pour, clean, repeat. Steam hisses. Cups clink. The register makes a soft, metallic groan as it is opened and closed. Money in. Money out. None of it stays around long enough to feel true.

At eight thirty or so, the café’s light fills in enough to make it feel alive. Low voices. Chairs scraping. There’s a soft laugh from someone in the corner, as if they’re afraid to be overheard.

I keep my head down.

I’m good at that.

When there’s a bit of a lull, I go and wipe down the counter again, even though it is already clean. My hands require an occupation. My thoughts start slipping if I quit moving.

Your hospital bills don’t wait for you to get prepared. Neither do collection notices. Or the silent way your chest contracts when you consider what is going to happen if you fall behind yet again.

My brother’s face flashes through my mind — too pale against white sheets, dark circles under his eyes that weren’t there a month ago. I push the image aside and concentrate on the espresso machine.

One day at a time. That’s what the nurse said.

I don’t talk about him to anyone. Not customers. Not coworkers. Sympathy makes things heavy. I don’t need heavy.

By ten, my shift partner comes in full of apologies and energy, hair still wet and matted from his shower rush.

I grin and say, “It’s OK. It always is.

I go on break at eleven, sit in the back with some lukewarm coffee I don’t even want. I check my bank app, though I know the numbers haven’t changed.

They stare back at me anyway.

I’ve closed the app, and I press my thumb over it until it’s dark.

At noon, the café hums again. More suits. More quiet conversations. “Do you have oat milk?” someone queries upon us; I say we do. Someone else wants to know the Wi-Fi

password; I say it’s on the receipt.

My body is on automatic pilot, but my mind drifts — hospital room, beeping machines, my brother attempting to joke even when it hurts.

Me, nodding along as if I’m assuming he’s not lying.

I don’t even notice how tired I am until my shoulders start to shake.

The light in the afternoon changes, slanting through the windows and dusting everything gold on the counter. It’s the most beautiful time of day here. The stillness before the pendulum of the evening begins to swing. I allowed myself to revel in it for half a second.

That’s when it happens.

I turn too fast.

A body is where I don’t expect it to be. A solid presence at the counter where no one had been a moment before. Mid-pour, my elbow snags the cup, and suddenly it all goes to hell.

Steamy black coffee splashes over the side.

“Oh—!”

The cup tips. Liquid arcs. Time stretches, cruel and slow.

It lands on a dark coat and splatters.

Silence slams into the café.

My stomach drops.

“I’m so sorry,” I gush before reaching for napkins, hands just shaky enough to irritate me. “I didn’t see you, I’m — are you all right?

I look up.

And in that moment, I forget how to breathe.

He’s tall. Not in an obvious way, but the kind of space-filling that occurs without trying too hard. Dark hair, neatly cut. Sharp jaw. Expensive coat quite unhappy with me.

But it’s his eyes that halt me.

Not angry. Not startled.

Focused.

Like he’s measuring something.

“I’m so sorry,” I say again, and then slightly more quickly. “I can bring towels — dry cleaning — whatever you need, I —”

“It’s fine.”

His voice is calm. Controlled. Too serene for someone who’s just been christened in coffee.

He removes the napkins from my hands and dabs the spill himself. Our fingers graze for half a second and I reflexively roll away.

“I’ll get a new drink,” I say. “On the house.”

He eyes me again, and this time it feels … calculated.

“Thank you,” he says.

No irritation. No raised voice. No performance.

That makes me more unsettled than anger would have.

I remake the coffee, with steadier hands this time. I don’t make eye contact with him when I put the phone down.

“Again, I’m really sorry.”

He pauses, then adds, “You work morning every day?”

The question lands wrong.

“Yes,” I reply in any case, polite to a fault.

He nods once, as if he’s storing the information. “You’re very attentive.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so instead I smile like a professional. “Enjoy your drink.”

He does something unexpected then.

He smiles back.

Not wide. Not charming.

Private.

Something in my chest contracts — not necessarily fear, not necessarily attraction. Awareness. As if I’ve walked into a room and then just realized someone’s shut the door behind me.

He is given the coffee and walks to a corner table, his back straight, his movements meticulous. He doesn’t open a laptop. Doesn’t take out a phone. Just watching the room like it’s where he spends his days.

I shake myself, and go back to work.

It was just a spill. An accident. People come and people go.

Still, when my shift is over and I untie my apron, the memory of his steady eyes stays with me longer than it ought.

I step back into the street, my phone buzzing with yet another update from the hospital, and push the thought aside.

I don’t have the space left in my life for distractions.

Especially ones that seem to stare at me as if they know my name.