Punch, Pastries, and Poison by Harper Lin (ebook reader for pc and android .txt) 📕

to mean she disapproved of me pouring out the coffee she’d just made—or that she understood what I was saying. It was hard to tell either way with her.

“Who am I looking for?” I asked.

“That guy.”

I followed her outstretched finger across the room to a man studying one of the paintings on the wall. It was part of a new program I was testing out where local artists could display their work for customers to see and even buy at the end of the mini-exhibit. No one had said they wanted to purchase anything so far, but the seascapes had only been up for a day.

I grinned at the sight of the familiar figure. Since he was focused on the painting of a lobster boat heading out to sea at sunrise, I went ahead and grabbed a to-go cup, filled it to the brim with the piping-hot, freshly brewed coffee, snapped a lid on it, and made my way around the counter towards Mike. I handed him the cup wordlessly. He took it, nodded, and poured what must have been a quarter of it straight down his throat. I had no idea how he did it. If I tried doing that, my throat would be so scalded, I wouldn’t be able to swallow for a week. But he did it several times a day. He must have built up a tolerance. Throat calluses or something.

As Mike headed for the door, I snuck up behind the man at the painting and wrapped my arms around his waist.

Chapter 4

Matt jumped sky-high. “Who—wha—?” He spun around with his hands up like he was getting ready to fight, but he exhaled as soon as his eyes landed on me. “Sheesh, Franny! You scared the crap out of me.”

I giggled, even though everyone in the whole café had their eyes on us now. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were so engrossed in the painting.”

His brow furrowed as his eyes moved around the café. “What painting?”

“The one you were looking at when I walked up?” When he still looked confused, I took his shoulders and turned him back around to face the painting.

He looked at it like he’d never seen it, even though he’d been staring at it moments before. “Oh. That’s cool. When did you get it?”

I sighed. “We put it up yesterday as part of the exhibition.” I waved my hand around at all the other paintings of the beach and the ocean that adorned the walls.

“Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot about that.” He raked his fingers through his thick, dark hair, making it adorably tousled.

Obviously, I needed to promote the art display more if my own boyfriend hadn’t remembered, or even noticed the art hanging right in front of his face. “Everything okay?” I asked, noticing the worry line creasing the space between his eyebrows.

He exhaled slowly and ran his fingers through his hair again. “Yeah. Work’s just been wearing me out lately. That McClusky project has been a nightmare.”

He wasn’t exaggerating. His latest project at work had been keeping him there into the wee hours for weeks now. I’d barely seen him for more than a couple hours at a time and only on the weekends—and we only lived two houses apart. Even when we had scraped out time to spend together, it had mostly been him dozing off on the couch while some sporting event I wasn’t interested in played on the TV. I hadn’t had the heart to wake him up or make him do anything more strenuous than moving a burger from the plate on his lap up to his mouth. Seeing him during daylight hours—on a weekday, no less!—felt positively luxurious at this point.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” I snaked my arm back around his waist and snuggled myself into his chest.

He pulled me toward him and brushed his lips against the top of my head—more demonstrative than I, with my New England reserve, could usually stand in public, but I felt like I hadn’t seen him in ages and couldn’t get enough of his touch. “I thought I’d come by and see my girl. And pick up a gallon or so of coffee.”

I looked up at him questioningly.

He gave me a tired smile. “They’re having the quarterly birthday party at the office, and I couldn’t get anything done, so I figured I’d work from home for the afternoon. I’ll pass out the second my butt hits the couch if I don’t have a barrel of caffeine to keep me going. You don’t have any IV bags you could load up for me, do you?”

I laughed softly, even though it hurt my heart to hear him sound so exhausted. “No, but I can definitely load up a couple of boxes of coffee for you.”

He nodded wearily and kissed the top of my head again. “That would be great, Franny. Thank you.”

Reluctantly, I let him go and walked back around the counter to where Ephy stood looking at me with an expression that seemed to be a cross between disgust and bewilderment. “We need to make up a box of coffee,” I said. “Do you know how to do that yet?”

She raised one pierced eyebrow, turned around to where the flattened boxes were stored, and pulled one out. I took that as a yes.

Sure enough, she quickly had the box assembled, filled, and sitting on the counter next to where Matt was leaning, looking dazed. “I take it this guy doesn’t pay either?”

“Not today.”

He actually did pay occasionally, mostly when he insisted on it. He’d remind me that I’d be out of business in a week if I fed everyone for free, which was an exaggeration but basically true. I still felt silly taking his money, though. It wasn’t as though his free coffee alone would bankrupt the café. Just between Sammy and me, we drank as much free coffee in a day as he did in a week. But it wasn’t worth arguing