THE COFFEE HAS YOUR SMELL

CHAPTER 20: HAVING A HARD TIME...

Two weeks have passed since Murphy went to Syria, but Alex still couldn't return to his previous life. He seemed absent all the time, thinking about something in particular and paying no attention to what happened around him but on the horizon, staying in front of the big window that faced East, as that day when he'd seen Kate for the first time. And, as it happened that first day, he had a cup of fresh coffee in his hand, as though its aroma would have made him feel better. Or, its pleasant taste would have been that homing pigeon that could have taken his thoughts to Syria and told Lucas not to be afraid because he wasn't alone in this world and that he could trust his friends.

With such thoughts in his head, another afternoon sneaked at the window of Alex's coffee shop. The man was still in front of the big window and looking at the street, at that great weather of early December that delighted his eyes with its white clothing of flakes. Even so, with all the white snow seen around, the sky was illuminated and warm, with those sun rays that were barely seen through the clouds, like those Heralds of Wealth and Peace, something that made one's soul feel so good, thinking that tomorrow would be better than today.

Yet... that wealth and peace weren't coming to Alexander Doyle's soul. They weren't coming because Alex felt that he lost a soul friend once Murphy left for Syria, even if they hadn't ever been that close. Yet, they'd been thinking about the same thing in most of the cases, and this seemed to have been enough for both of them. At the same time, both of them suffered because of love and their eyes had seen the same silhouette of longing - the silhouette of the beautiful woman, something that filled the men's hearts to the brim, making them slowly vibrate each time they thought about the muse of their soul.

Alex was thinking about her at that moment too. He was thinking about women in general and their beauty. At the same time, he thought that a woman's thinking could be something deep and difficult to understand, just as she sometimes seemed someone who couldn't be touched by others.

He didn't think such things about Kate but about women in general. Why did he think about this? Because he understood how much suffering was in this world because of HER - because of a love for a pair of blue eyes or one that smelled like coffee, as he often felt at Kate. Yes, maybe he shouldn't have thought about her so much because he understood that he didn't have too many chances with her and that he would have eventually suffered just as Murphy suffered because of his muse. Yet, once his heart was stubborn, in love with the world and with the beauty of the woman, it wanted at any cost to beat only for her and only in the rhythm of her heart. It wanted to beat only in that rhythm set by two hands that touched each other on the sly one night, feeling the pleasant warmth of the other hand, something that wouldn't have let them release it ever.

All these were simple memories though... memories about the first night when he touched the soft skin of her palm to protect her from the world. Yet, it had been enough to understand that it had been what he had waited for all his life. It had been enough for Alex to understand that from that moment he wouldn't have loved anybody else, at least not as he got to love the stranger... in time...

„A beautiful Helen of Troy who mercilessly conquered the castle of my soul with only one smile," Alex thought, smiling. Then, bowing his head and sighing, barely heard, he caught another thought crossing his mind, the thought about „Two black stiletto shoes, which were so pleasantly knocking on the autumn asphalt that night... and on the asphalt of my soul. About the pleasant melody of two heels that made me vibrate that night, like that piano or violin music that I always loved to listen to. Just as I fell for the light of her eyes, something I saw right from the start when I saw her heading toward me..."

She was also heading toward him at that moment. Yes, Kate was heading to the coffee shop at that moment too. He clearly saw her through that big window at which he looked again, smiling. And, like that first night, Kate was so beautiful... much more beautiful than he ever thought she could be: with her chestnut curls that fell over her shoulders and that black coat she was wearing at that moment, a thick coat meant to protect her from the cold winters of Westport that could cruelly bite the skin sometimes.