Page 33 of Pretend You Love Me

I take a sip of my coffee, which is actually Luca’s coffee, the one he’s just made for a customer named Eric who won’t arrive for another twenty minutes, and I don’t correct him. Before, I would have launched into an elaborate explanation of the exact sleep science happening in our house, the precise ratio of sleep to awake that works for two infantile humans and one adult woman who functions primarily on coffee and grim determination. Now I just nod and say “Something like that“ with the smile I’ve perfected over the past six weeks.

Luca, who has apparently decided that silence is an unacceptable state of being, is narrating a pastry to no one in particular.

“That is genuinely the most depressing scone I have ever seen,” he tells the empty air near the pastry case. “It looks like it gave up halfway through baking. Like it had an existential crisis and just…“ He mimes collapsing. “It’s a metaphor for my entire career.”

Behind the counter, Maisie sits on her play mat watching a regular named Gerome eat his scone. Her tiny eyebrows are furrowed, her mouth a perfect line of concentration. Milo, never one to be outdone by his sister, has managed to reach a board book from the children’s corner and is currently attempting to eat it with genuine commitment, his tiny face arranged in an expression of serious determination.

I finish the coffee, grateful for the caffeine if not for the twenty minutes of sleep I lost changing a nappy that turned out to be a three-person job and return to the till just as the bell above the door chimes. A woman with a double stroller and the wild-eyed expression of someone whose day has already gone completely to hell enters.

“How can I help you today?” I ask, already reaching for a loyalty card.

“I need,” she says, already digging through her bag, “the largest coffee you have. Possibly two. And whatever pastry contains the most sugar. My children have decided that sleep is for the weak and I have a meeting in forty-three minutes that will determine whether I continue to have health insurance.”

I nod with understanding, coffee in hand, loyalty card swiped, order already being prepared by Luca without being asked, and then I notice him. Noah. In his usual window seat with a paperback and a flat white, reading with focus.

The mid-morning rush hits its peak, customers arriving and departing and I lose track of him in the organized chaos. But later, when the rush has peaked and is just beginning to ebb, leaving that perfect pocket of quiet between the morning crowd and the lunch surge, Noah approaches the counter with his empty mug and a small, polite nod.

“Another?” I ask, already reaching for the coffee pot.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” he says, his voice low enough that only I can hear it over the café’s ambient noise. “That was excellent.”

I pour the coffee, a fresh flat white, the way he’s ordered it four days in a row and watch as he reaches for his wallet. “On the house,” I say, already anticipating his protest. “Consider it an apology for the noise earlier. Luca thinks volume control is ‘emotionally oppressive’ and ‘the enemy of authentic human expression.’”

He smiles, not the performative version men usually offer women in service positions, but the real one that seems like he’s genuinely amused. “That’s what my last roommate said when I asked him to stop practicing the trumpet at two in the morning.”

“He sounds like a nightmare,” I say, already reaching for a cloth to wipe the counter. “At least Luca just plays the same three songs on repeat and calls it ‘curating a vibe.’”

“It’s a different form of torture,” Noah agrees. “But I’ve developed a strong appreciation for Taylor Swift played at approximately twice the recommended volume.”

“You know,” I say, “you could just ask him to turn it down.”

“I tried,” he says with quiet resignation. “He said the same thing. Emotionally oppressive. Enemy of authentic human expression.”

“I take it back,” I tell him. “You can still have the coffee, but only because you’re a fellow victim of his tyranny.”

The conversation continues like this, easy, unplanned, unpressured, while I work my way through general tasks: wiping down counters, straightening chairs, checking the pastry case. We talk about books, he’s reading a novel I recommended last week, I’m working my way through a mystery series he mentioned in passing,

The coffee machine is making increasingly dramatic sound effects; we talk more about Milo’s apparent personal vendetta against sleep. Through it all, I notice that Noah always listens. No interrupting me or redirecting the conversation, no waiting for his turn to talk. When I mention that Maisie has started “talking” in what appears to be an elaborate private language, he doesn’t immediately launch into a story about his sister’s baby or his friend’s kid or any of the other conversational detours people usually take. He just nods and says, “What does it sound like?” with the interest of someone who genuinely wants to know.

From behind the espresso machine, Luca has clocked this entire interaction with narrowed eyes and the expression of a man concerned for his friend. He says absolutely nothing, doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t tease me, doesn’t even make his usual dramatic facial expressions, which I find, somehow, stranger than anything he could have said out loud.

Noah returns to his window seat with a fresh coffee and a small pastry I “accidentally” included with his order.

The bell above the door chimes with the violence that means only one person, and Liv enters carrying an iced coffee in a reusable cup with “THIS IS NOT A CUP IT’S A VEHICLE FOR CAFFEINE” printed in block letters. Her laptop bag is slung across her body in what appears to be a deliberately precarious arrangement, and she’s wearing an expression of mild inconvenience at the general concept of being awake.

“This playlist,” she announces to no one in particular, “sounds like a therapy waiting room for people who gave up on joy. Is there a specific reason we’re emotionally waterboarding everyone who walks through that door, or is it just casual nihilism?”

“It’s Bon Iver,” Luca calls from behind the machine.

“Your musical choices should be classified as a crime against humanity,” Liv counters, already dropping into a chair at the largest table.

I laugh making Maisie glance up from her serious investigation of a stuffed giraffe.

Liv unpacks her laptop with care, spreads her materials across three-quarters of the table’s surface area, and then, apparently as an afterthought, glances at Milo’s bouncer.

“Your son,” she says with quiet certainty, “is plotting something.”

“He’s eight months old,” I remind her. “His entire plot is ‘eat, sleep, poop, repeat.’”