Page 25 of Unhinged Magic
“Hey, what can I get you?” I asked the next person waiting in line, quickly taking their order and jotting down their coffees on the pad beside me.
Skye hurried behind me, giving me a look that I read as 'thank you' as I took another order.
The distinct crash of plates on a bench sounded from the kitchen before she appeared beside me again, parking herself in front of the coffee machine.
I cleared the line in front of us, turning to her. “Short staffed?”
Skye grabbed three mugs, setting them beside her. “Yeah, Jess called in sick and Lola’s out of town.”
She set to work making the next order, filling the mugs with coffee.
“You seem to know what you’re doing,” I said, watching her closely. She moved so fluently, like she had done this before, her fingers running over the motions like a well-oiled machine.
“You’re a trained barista?”
Concentration etched in her forehead, her vision fixed on the task at hand.
“I wouldn’t say trained. More like thrown in the deep end back in the city.”
I nodded as a tradesman approached the counter.
“Hey again,” said Skye, greeting him with a smile from behind the coffee machine. “Another americano to go?”
He smiled wide, lines indenting his cheeks as he spoke to her. The ease of their interaction made my fist tighten at my side. “You know it,” he replied.
I took his payment, and he made his way to a nearby leaner.
“Who was that? Haven’t seen him around,” I commented, keeping the conversation light.
Skye darted a look at me. “Americano to go.”
I quirked a brow in question.
She nodded toward the table closest to us. “That’s mocha, espresso with cream, and the lady with the blue vest and matching blue earrings is cappuccino with chocolate and one sweetener.”
I stared at the table of women, watching one pour a dash of cream into her drink as the lady who loved blue popped a sweetener in hers. I couldn’t help but be impressed.
“You know them by their coffee orders.”
I hadn’t thought of it before. I guess this wasn’t exactly a place you introduced yourself by name, but most people would order the same thing every time. “Except you missed one thing,” I added.
Skye’s frown combined equal parts confusion and curiosity. “And what’s that?”
I moved closer to her as if revealing a big secret. “You forgot her shoes,” I whispered, for effect.
Her lips turned up at the corners as she peered around the edge of the coffee machine again. A suitably impressed nod. “So it seems. I hope I’m that cool when I get old.”
I couldn’t help the grin stretching over my face. “You will be. Though I’m not picturing you in blue.”
Skye loaded the last order onto the tray, her shoulders more relaxed now. “Oh yeah? What color?”
“Yellow,” I said on pure instinct.
Because you brighten every room you walk into.
She lifted up the tray, carefully balancing it in her hands, looking at me.
“Yellow?”
