Espresso

Bezel looked over the top of her demitasse cup at the handsome stranger in the coffee shop. Okay, maybe stranger was a little strong. She’d never met him, but they were on the same coffee schedule. They got there fifteen minutes apart every weekday and both always took their coffees for here.

This is silly, she thought to herself. Just go up and talk to him. She put her tiny cup down on its tiny saucer. The bus bin was in between them. She could just go and put her dishes in the bin and keep walking until she got to him. Easy peasy.

Her legs felt like jelly as she stood. Oh, no! Not the baby deer legs. Steady, breathe!

It was hard not to lock her eyes on him for the fourteen steps to reach the bus bin. She wanted this to look unprompted and spontaneous; she didn’t want him to know she’d been psyching herself to go and talk to him for ages.

She pasted a cheery smile on her face as she turned to face him. He was still sitting at his little round table for one. He smiled back, and there was a warmth to him.

Eighteen more steps and she’d be at his table.

Just breathe.

Panic flooded her as she walked past him and out the main entrance to the coffee shop. Tears pricked her eyes and threatened to roll down her cheeks as she stepped out into the bright sunshine. Bezel walked right up to her car and leaned hard against the driver side door, her forehead on the roof of the green sedan. The tears were rolling down in earnest now.

Coward! she yelled at herself.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she turned around. It was the handsome man from inside the coffee shop. He didn’t recoil, per se, when he saw her crying, but he did pause before he spoke.

“Hi.” His voice was deep and whiskied; it was the kind of voice that made promises that could only be kept in the dark of the night. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Bezel made a sound somewhere between a hiccough and a laugh. She wasn’t sure what it was supposed to communicate, but he seemed undeterred.

“I’ve seen you around a lot here,” he began. “I’ve been trying to work up the courage to say hi.”

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he said leaning closer to her. “I don’t want to come off as…” He let the sentence hang in the thick air between them before he continued. “But, I’d like to get to know you."

She smiled and nodded. “I’m Bezel, like the-”

“Like the diamond setting,” he finished for her. At her surpized look he continued, “I’m a jeweler. Funnily enough, my name is Jett, like the stone.”

“It’s good to meet you, Jett, finally.”