Page 10 of Steeped In Problems

By the time Rhonda’s “fifteen-minute break” rolled into its final moments, the coffee shop was nearly empty, save for one old man snoring in the corner and a pair of EMTs splitting a scone by the window. Tanner tackled inventory at the back counter, but Kristy could feel him drifting closer, like a thunderhead building behind her.

She was restocking the mini-fridge when he finally broke the silence. “You’re still shaken,” he stated, not a question.

Kristy closed the fridge. “Only about how much of your shirt I ruined. The rest of my day is a ten out of ten.”

He didn’t laugh, but she spotted the ghost of a smile. “You’re not that clumsy. Something else is up.”

She considered brushing it off, making a joke about caffeine overdoses and awkward Mondays. But she was tired, and Tanner wasn’t the type to drop a question for the sake of politeness. So she turned and leaned her back against the counter with a sigh. “You ever get the feeling that no matter how far you run from something, it just...follows you?”

He considered this, mouth set in a line. “Yeah. All the time.”

Kristy looked at the row of syrups; their cheerful colors lined up like toy soldiers. “I used to be good at my job. Like, really good. But I saw my old ER crew today, and all I could think was that I quit. I left them behind. I keep trying to tell myself I’m happier, but—” She shrugged. “Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice. I’m still helping people, but not in the way I used to.”

Tanner set his rag on the counter and leaned in, arms crossed, posture all cop. But his voice was softer than she expected. “After my accident, I thought I was done for. Couldn’t work Search and Rescue. Couldn’t run calls. Every time I looked in the mirror, all I saw was the guy who used to be useful.” He gestured around the shop. “This? It wasn’t Plan A or even B. But it’s something. Feels like a second chance, most days.”

Kristy’s eyes snapped up to his, startled by the honesty. “You really think this place matters? That it counts?”

He nodded. “A lot of guys who come in here have seen things they don’t talk about. Sometimes a cup of coffee and a dry place to sit is what keeps them going.” He paused, searching her face. “You bring something to this place no one else does. I’ve seen it. Customers leave happier than when they came in.”

A flush crept up her cheeks, half embarrassment, half gratitude. “That’s just because you make me clean the pastry case every half hour,” she teased.

He snorted, and for a second, the tension broke. “You can drop a latte on me any time if it means you’ll stop beating yourself up.”

They both reached for the same rag to wipe down the counter, and their hands collided. Not a gentle brush—more like a static shock. For a beat, neither moved. Kristy felt the heat climb from her palm all the way to her scalp.

Tanner didn’t jerk away. He held her gaze, green eyes steady and unblinking. “You’re not alone, Kristy.”

It wasn’t lost on her that it was the first time he used her given name, and that made it even more intimate somehow. She didn’t have an answer, though, not really, so she just smiled, genuine this time, and let her fingers linger a second longer than necessary.

The front door opened: a new customer. They broke apart, falling back into their roles, but something had shifted. The heaviness from earlier had lightened, replaced with something tentative and bright.

As she took the next order, Kristy felt steadier. The doubts would still be there, humming in the background, but she wasn’t drowning in them anymore. If anything, she felt more herself, stripped of the need to pretend.

She glanced at Tanner, who was already in motion—pouring, cleaning, checking the register with his usual intensity. For the first time, she saw past the armor and recognized something familiar in his stubbornness. A refusal to quit. A need to make things right, even if it wasn’t the way he’d planned.

When the rush hit again, they worked in sync. Drinks flew, pastries sold out, and laughter bounced off the wood-paneled walls. Rhonda returned and complained that she’d missed allthe action, but Kristy just grinned and told her the morning had been “smooth as silk.”

The hero wall caught Kristy’s eye in the afternoon sun. She watched the faces glinting in their mismatched frames. Maybe she would never be a legend, or have a medal, or save a life with her bare hands again. But here, in this small patch of light, she belonged.

She looked at Tanner, who caught her glance and raised an eyebrow in challenge. Kristy smiled, foot tapping under the bar, ready for whatever came next.

Chapter Four

Mid-morning at Brave Badge meant the after-school crowd was hours away, and the regulars had already rotated through their morning refuel. Tanner liked it that way: less chaos, more control. He could hear every hiss and click of the espresso machine, every shuffle of boots on the pine floor. Light poured in through the south-facing windows, sharp and gold, turning the tabletops into something brighter than they'd been in their last lives as someone's barn doors. The place smelled like it always did—roasted coffee, baking scones, and just enough burnt sugar from Rhonda's latest failed experiment to give the air a lived-in, non-corporate flavor.

He was refilling the pastry case, arms deep in cellophane-wrapped lemon loaves when the front door opened. Kristy was at the register, arranging the tip jar to favor anyone short enough to see over the counter. She looked up, eyes already bright.

“Look alive, Blaze,” she called over her shoulder, “VIPs at twelve o’clock.”

Aiden O’Connell walked in like he owned the place. He didn’t, obviously, but command stuck to the man like dog hair on a white T-shirt. His wife Lindsay came in behind, a longscarf bundled up to her chin, sunglasses perched on her head even though the mountain sun was barely in the sky. She smiled the way people do when they enter a building and instantly recognize half the faces inside. It was genuine but also strategic—a cop’s wife through and through.

Tanner’s first instinct was to duck. His second was to brace for impact. Aiden wasn’t in uniform but might as well have been; he made even dad jeans and a pullover look like official gear. The couple paused near the coat rack, and just the sight of them put the entire shop on high alert. Table conversations dropped a decibel. An elderly man in the window seat straightened his posture, clearly hoping for a nod from the great Captain O’Connell.

Kristy had no such filter. She was waving like she’d spotted a long-lost sibling on a reality show. “Aiden, Lindsay, come in, come in. Table by the window just opened up.”

Aiden shot Tanner a quick two-finger salute, which Tanner answered with a grunt and a nod. Then he turned to Lindsay, ushering her forward as if she were about to accept an award. Kristy started prepping two cups before they’d even made it to the counter, fingers flying over the espresso setup, smile on full blast.

Tanner went back to his pastries. He’d restocked the scones twice, but people kept buying them, so he lined up another row, making sure the blueberry ones faced out. He kept his eyes on the tray, but ninety percent of his focus was on the conversation happening eight feet away.

---