Coffee & Criminals

1. Love is a Mutual Thing

"If you could have any superpower in the world-" Leaning over the counter, I had to stand on tiptoes to wipe the edge with my rag. It was my favourite rag because it had little cartoon kittens on the front. Wow, what a weird thing to say. Never mind. It was also my favourite place to wipe because it was my best friend and partner in crime (and the future getaway driver to the many bank heists to come) Ade Sinclair's favourite place to sit.

Ade took a sip of his latte, choked, coughed, sputtered, wiped his mouth, and frowned at me. Even after three years of drinking coffee, he never remembered that liquid can be hot and burn tongues. And yet, Ade always did. Kind of sad, really, but also hilarious. Hilarious for me, that is. I don't think a scorched tongue was very fun for him. "You know what? I actually thought about that before." He pushed up his glasses and grinned.

Ade Sinclair was the undeclared love of my life and the biggest animal lover in the world. No, seriously. He was. Once, I watched him accidentally step on the tail of a cat and spend the next hour singing ballads and apologizing to it, like it could understand him. He was studying to be a veterinarian at NYU at the moment.

Ade wiped his mouth again. "Let's see....if I could have any superpower in the world, it would be reality warping. For example, this latte." He looked down at his cup half filled with his drink. The pretty swan design I had made was gone by now. "I could make it the perfect temperature to drink so I wouldn't burn my tongue. Or that guy over there." He gestured to a man sitting with another man, slurping coffee like it was a Slurpee. "I could freeze that coffee in his hands. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"Definitely." I agreed.

"Anyways, what about you?" Ade peered at me from over his glasses. His light brown eyes rested on my necklace for a moment before travelling up to meet my own eyes. "What superpower would you pick?"

"Flying." I said without hesitation. "Retractable wings, to be specific. New York nights and Disney World mornings. Also, a bird crapped on my window this morning and I just want to one-up those little bitches, like, bam, I can fly too, what's good? What if I crapped on your  window, bird? Oh. Well, I guess birds don't have windows, do they? Huh-"

"Nerd."

My mouth dropped open. "How dare you! We're best friends with Matt LeBlanc, you can't speak to me that way." I smiled, looking over my shoulder to the photograph hanging over the espresso machine. It was a picture of the famous actor and my father shaking hands. He came by once when he was in New York. In other words...best day of my life. I mean, I wasn't there to see him, but the picture made me assume it would have been the best day of my life. I was a sucker for celebrities. My hope of running into Adam Levine one day still stands strong.

Ade smirked, but said nothing on the subject. I wiped down the rest of the counter with my rag.

Espresso House was my life. I grew up in this place. My father bought this old place and turned it into a coffee shop. It's where he met my mother. Together, they ran this place until I was old enough to join. I was eighteen now. Only a couple more months of high school and then I could join Ade at NYU.

I was content with taking a year off to help around the coffee shop, but my parents were completely against it. They wanted me to go straight to college after graduation. We hadn't been pulling the biggest amounts of money lately. As a small business in the heart of New York City, in between designer shops and huge corporations, the coffee shop didn't bring in as much as my parents would have liked. But still, I was not complaining. We had enough to put me through college and live comfortably in our apartment complex across the street. Rent was never late and that was enough for the time being.