A Forbidden Blend

The first thing I smell every morning isn’t coffee. It’s the sharp, citrus tang of the sanitizer I use to wipe down the counters. It’s a clean slate. A promise of a new day, same as the last. Only after every stainless-steel surface gleams under the low, pre-dawn lights do I allow myself the real reward.

I walk to the grinder, my fingers finding the familiar bag of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe beans. The rustle of the bag is the first note in a symphony I conduct five days a week. I pour the beans into the hopper, the clatter a sound more comforting to me than any alarm clock. The air begins to fill with that scent—rich, earthy, a little bit floral. The real start to my day.

My world is measured in grams and seconds. Eighteen grams of finely ground espresso. A twenty-eight-second pull. The stream of dark, viscous liquid that flows from the portafilter is the lifeblood of this place, and I am its keeper. My hands move without thought, a dance perfected through thousands of repetitions. Grind, tamp, lock, pull. The roar of the machine is a familiar beast, one I’ve long since tamed.

The morning rush is chaos, but it’s a controlled chaos. I know the orders before they’re spoken. Mrs. Gable, a large non-fat latte, extra hot, no foam. Three construction guys who want the darkest, strongest drip coffee we have, black. A group of college students who will argue for five minutes over who pays for their four identical vanilla lattes with oat milk and caramel drizzle. I smile, I nod, I move. My hands are a blur of motion—steaming milk, pulling shots, drizzling syrup. The cash register dings, the credit card machine beeps. It’s a rhythm, a pulse. And I am at the very center of it, the calm eye of the storm.

I like it this way. My life fits neatly into the twenty-by-forty-foot space of “The Daily Grind.” I know every scratch on the floorboards, every fickle whim of the ice machine. There are no surprises here. My paycheck is predictable. My apartment is small but clean. My life is… comfortable. I’m not striving for some grand, unknowable future. I’m here, now, making something good with my hands.

There’s a quiet pride in it. In the perfect, glossy microfoam I can pour into a heart or a rosetta on top of a latte. Most customers don’t even notice, taking the lid and walking away without a second glance. But I notice. I know the difference between good and great, and I always aim for great. It’s a small act of creation in a world of consumption.

By ten a.m., the rush subsides. The frantic energy bleeds out of the room, leaving behind the low hum of the refrigerators and the soft indie music playing from the speakers. This is the second phase of my day. The quiet. The time for wiping down the milk wands, restocking the cups, and enjoying the lingering smell of roasted coffee. I lean against the counter, looking out the large front window as the city goes about its business. The interactions become more personal. A regular might ask about my weekend. I’ll ask about their dog. It’s a simple, pleasant exchange. A life built on small, predictable moments. I’ve never wanted anything else.

And then the bell above the door chimed, a familiar, cheerful sound that announced a break in the quiet. I looked up from wiping down the steam wand, a practiced, welcoming smile already forming on my lips. The smile died there.

He wasn't a regular. He wasn't anyone I had ever seen before, and I would have remembered. He was tall, and the dark grey suit he wore was tailored so perfectly it looked less like clothing and more like a second skin. It probably cost more than my car. In a sea of jeans, hoodies, and business-casual khakis, he was a shark in a koi pond. He closed the door behind him with a quiet click, his movements economical and deliberate, and the entire atmosphere of the shop shifted. The lazy indie music suddenly felt trivial. The comfortable, lived-in space felt a little shabby.

He scanned the room, his gaze passing over the worn armchairs and the local art on the walls without interest. Then his eyes landed on me. They were dark, intense, and for a second, I felt pinned. It wasn't a hostile look, not exactly. It was… evaluative. Like he was taking my measure and I had no idea what the criteria were. I became acutely aware of the small, faded coffee stain on the front of my black apron and the way my hair was probably sticking up in the back.

He walked to the counter, his expensive leather shoes making almost no sound on the wooden floor. He didn't look at the menu board cluttered with my chalk-art descriptions of seasonal drinks. He just looked at me. The silence stretched, and I realized I was just standing there, staring, my hand still holding the damp cloth.

I dropped it into the sanitizer bucket with a small splash. "Hi, what can I get for you?" My voice sounded foreign, a little too high.

His lips, which I hadn't let myself look at until now, were thin and well-defined. They parted slightly. "Cortado," he said. His voice was a low, smooth baritone that seemed to vibrate in the air between us. "Single-origin espresso, if you have one. Something from Guatemala, preferably."

The request threw me more than his presence had. It was specific. Knowledgeable. Not the usual "whatever's strongest" or "a vanilla latte." This man knew coffee. My practiced routine hiccupped. I reached for the small bag of beans we kept for pour-overs, my fingers fumbling against the foil. "Uh, yeah. Yes," I managed, clearing my throat. "We have a great washed bean from Huehuetenango. Notes of dark chocolate and orange peel. That work?"

A flicker of something—approval? surprise?—crossed his face. It was gone as quickly as it came. "Perfect." He didn't look away. Not once. His focus was absolute, and it was making my skin prickle with a strange heat.

He slid a black credit card across the polished granite. His fingernails were clean, perfectly manicured. When I reached for the card, my fingers brushed against his. It was nothing, a fraction of a second of contact, but a jolt went through me, sharp and unexpected. I pulled my hand back too quickly.

My own hands felt clumsy as I tapped the screen of the register. The simple act of processing a payment, something I did a hundred times a day, suddenly required my full concentration. I handed the card back to him. "Name for the order?" I asked, my voice still not quite my own.

"Gideon," he said.

The name suited him. It sounded old and solid. He took a step back from the counter but didn't retreat to one of the tables. He leaned against the hand-off bar, crossing his arms over his chest, and watched me. Just… watched. I could feel the weight of his stare on my back as I turned to the grinder, on my hands as I measured out the beans. Every familiar, easy motion suddenly felt like a performance. And I knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my gut, that I could not mess it up.

My hands, which knew this dance by heart, suddenly felt like they belonged to a stranger. I focused on the mechanics, breaking them down into a thousand tiny steps. Grind the beans just so. Tamp the grounds with exactly thirty pounds of pressure. Lock the portafilter into the group head with a satisfying clunk. I placed the small, Gibraltar glass underneath and pressed the button.

The dark, syrupy espresso began to stream out. Twenty-eight seconds. I counted them in my head, my jaw tight. The shot was perfect. Rich crema, tiger-striping. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Then came the milk. I steamed a small amount, just enough, creating a vortex in the steel pitcher until the milk was like liquid silk, glossy and smooth. My movements were slow, deliberate. I could feel his eyes on my hands, on my face. I poured the milk into the espresso, my wrist tilting just so, creating a simple, clean heart on the surface. It was the best one I’d made all week.

I set the glass on the counter. “Gideon,” I called out, my voice steady this time.

He pushed off the hand-off bar and picked up the cortado. He didn’t walk away. He stood there, holding the small, warm glass, and looked at the latte art. Then he looked at me. His dark eyes held mine for a beat too long before he lifted the glass to his lips. He took a small sip. He didn’t smile, didn’t nod. He just held the coffee, his expression unreadable, and then turned and walked out of the shop as quietly as he had entered. The bell chimed, signaling his departure, and the air in the room seemed to rush back into the space he’d occupied. I stood there, my pulse hammering in my ears, staring at the door he’d just walked through.

The next day, at precisely 10:15, the bell chimed again. My head snapped up. It was him. Same suit, different tie—this one a deep navy blue. He walked to the counter, and the same quiet intensity settled over the shop.

“Cortado,” he said, his voice the same low rumble. “Guatemalan.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. I just nodded, my mouth suddenly dry. I had already set the bag of beans aside, just in case.

And so it began. Every single day, Monday through Friday, at 10:15 a.m., Gideon would appear. He never seemed to be in a rush. He would order his cortado, pay with the same black card, and then stand at the hand-off bar and watch me. The ritual became the new anchor of my day. The morning rush was just the prelude. The afternoon lull was the aftermath. The ten minutes Gideon was in the shop were the main event.

I started to learn him in tiny, stolen glances. The way his left eyebrow would lift a fraction of an inch when the espresso pull was particularly good. The way he held the glass, his long fingers wrapped around it, his thumb resting just below the rim. I learned the sharp lines of his jaw, the faint shadow of stubble that would appear by Friday, the single crease that would sometimes form between his brows as he watched me steam the milk.

My obsession became granular. I focused on making every single cortado better than the last. I adjusted the grind by millimeters. I timed the shots to the tenth of a second. I practiced my latte art on other customers’ drinks, perfecting the rosettas and tulips, but for him, it was always a simple, perfect heart. It felt like a secret message that only I understood. A confession.

My comfortable world was no longer comfortable. It was charged, electric. The predictability I had once cherished now felt like a cage, and Gideon’s daily appearance was a brief, tantalizing glimpse of something else. Something wilder. I found myself dressing with more care in the mornings, making sure my apron was clean, my hair styled just right. It was ridiculous. He was a customer. A silent, intimidating, ridiculously handsome customer. But my body didn’t seem to care about the logic. My heart would start to beat faster around 10:10, a frantic, hopeful rhythm against my ribs. I’d find myself looking at the clock, then the door, waiting for the chime of that bell, for the moment my quiet, controlled world would be disrupted once more.

It was a Thursday, about three weeks into the ritual, when the world tilted on its axis. Gideon had come and gone, leaving the ghost of his presence lingering in the air and a tremor in my hands that had nothing to do with caffeine. I was wiping down the espresso machine, polishing the chrome until it gleamed, my mind replaying the way his eyes had tracked the movement of my hand as I’d passed him the cortado.

The bell chimed, but it was the wrong time. It was nearly noon, well past Gideon’s window. I looked up, expecting a tourist or a student from the nearby campus. Instead, my stomach dropped.

It was Mr. Blackwood. The owner. A man I’d seen maybe three times in the two years I’d worked here. He was older, with a severe face and silver hair combed back from his forehead with unforgiving precision. He wore a suit that was even more expensive than Gideon’s, but where Gideon’s looked sharp and modern, Mr. Blackwood’s looked like armor. He carried an aura of cold, hard money that sucked all the warmth from the room.

“Clarence,” he said. It wasn’t a greeting. It was an acknowledgement of my existence, and not a particularly pleased one.

“Mr. Blackwood. Good to see you,” I lied, my hands freezing on the cleaning cloth.

His eyes, a pale, washed-out blue, scanned the cafe. He didn't see a cozy neighborhood spot; he saw an asset, an entry on a balance sheet. His gaze lingered on a small scuff mark on the floor, and I felt a prickle of sweat on my neck. He walked behind the counter without asking, running a finger along the top of the grinder, checking for dust. I held my breath. He found none. He didn’t seem happy about it.

His phone buzzed then, a sharp, angry sound. He pulled it from his pocket, glanced at the screen, and his face tightened. “I have to take this,” he bit out, turning and striding into the small back office, the one I used for inventory and scheduling. He didn't close the door all the way, leaving it open a crack.

I tried to focus on my work, on anything other than the man in the office. I started restocking the pastry case, my movements stiff and unnatural. But his voice cut through the quiet of the shop, low and sharp. I couldn’t hear the words at first, just the clipped, furious cadence.

“That’s not an excuse and you know it,” he said, his voice rising just enough for me to catch the phrase. I kept my back to the office, pretending to arrange croissants. “He has every opportunity, every advantage, and he throws it all away to… what? Brood? He doesn't appreciate what he has. A complete waste of potential.”

My hands stilled. There was a pause, and I could imagine him listening, his jaw tight with impatience.

“I don’t care what he wants,” Mr. Blackwood snapped, his voice laced with a venom that made my blood run cold. “It’s not about what he wants. It’s about his duty.” Another pause, longer this time. I could hear the faint, muffled sound of someone speaking on the other end. Then Mr. Blackwood let out a harsh, bitter sigh. “Listen, I have to go. I don’t know what to do with that disappointing son of mine, Gideon.”

The name hit me like a physical blow.

Gideon.

My breath caught in my throat. I stood frozen, a croissant held halfway to the display tray. The floor seemed to drop out from under me. Gideon. His son. The man who owned my job, who could fire me with a single word, was Gideon’s father.

The pieces didn’t just click into place; they slammed together with the force of a car crash. The expensive suits. The quiet confidence that bordered on arrogance. The way he walked in here like he owned the place—because his family literally did.

Mr. Blackwood emerged from the office, his face a mask of thunder. He didn't even look at me as he walked past, his footsteps heavy on the wood floor. The bell chimed, and he was gone.

I was left in the sudden, ringing silence. I slowly placed the croissant on the tray, my hand shaking. The daily ritual, my private obsession, was suddenly transformed. It wasn’t just a crush on a mysterious customer anymore. It was dangerous. The power imbalance was a chasm. I was the barista, the hired help. He was the heir.

My fascination, which had felt so pure and intense, was now tainted with something else. Something illicit. Forbidden. Every silent, watchful moment we’d shared was recast in this new, harsh light. Was he just slumming it? Watching his father’s investment? Or was his stare, that unnerving focus that made my skin burn and my insides clench, something else entirely?

I leaned against the counter, my heart hammering against my ribs. My whole body felt hot. The thought of him, of his dark eyes and the low rumble of his voice, was now tangled up with the image of his cold, disapproving father. And God, that only made it worse. It made the fantasy sharper, the desire more acute. It made me want him in a way that felt reckless and utterly, terrifyingly compelling.