Three Days in Town, and the Barista Already Knew My Order novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Strap-On

Etienne's POV

Mémère fed Maura for two hours on Sunday and did not say one word about a cup.

She put tourtière on the plate, then more, then a slice of pie nobody had asked for.

She called Maura "ma belle" every time she passed the salt.

I sat across from them and ate with my head down.

My grandmother has never in her life been subtle, and she was being subtle at me.

After the dishes she pulled me into the pantry by the sleeve.

"Tonight you ask her for everything," she said. "Not half. Everything. Do you hear me?"

"Mémère."

"I carried a suitcase to this town and told a carpenter his nails were crooked. You can ask a woman for a thing."

So at nine o'clock that night I was sitting on the edge of my bed with my hands between my knees, listening for her on the back stair.

I had been carrying something around for six weeks.

It was small and hard, and I had not put it down once.

A Saturday in October, the Grange hall, a tray of pies in my hands, and a woman with glasses on a chain.

He's a kid, Maura had said, easily. It's nothing. I'm just passing time.

I hadn't dropped the tray.

I had set it on the table very carefully, and walked across the room with the pitcher, and filled it at the sink while my ears roared.

Then I had driven her home and told her what I think about, because a man who has just been called nothing might as well say the rest.

I knew what I was.

I was twenty-two, and I baked, and I lived over my grandmother's café.

She was thirty-one and had a degree and a job with a seal on it, and she'd be gone by April.

I had known that when I wrote the first cup.

What I hadn't known was that she'd say it in front of someone, with a smile.

And I had brought her the coffee the next morning anyway.

I'd written, Ice on the hill. Go slow.

I would have written it every day for a year.

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