Coffee and Cafés - Book Two of the Café Latte Trilogy

Coffee Withdrawals

Hello my loves! I had a major fatigue flare-up this week, so I've been in bed resting with my cats, who are called Liquorice and Jellybean. (If you want to see cute photos of my cats btw my instagram is camcamcamembert).

I appreciate your patience with the uploads this week. And thank you to all your kind messages and comments about the mental health related note I put a couple chapters ago. You're very wonderful people, and I'm very thankful to have you read my work.

Love, Cam

♡

Coffee Withdrawals

Finally, the re-construction of my office had begun. It only needed a small team to remove the part of the ceiling and the wall that had been affected by the water leak, replace some pipes and insulation, and re-plaster everything. Somehow, though, they had already managed to fuck it up.

Angelo crossed his arms and looked at the lift, which was partially open, with Barbie trapped inside it. He turned to the contractor. "See, when you said there may be mild issues with some electrics, I didn't realise you meant you would cut off the electrics for the whole building."

The contractor shrugged. "Blame whoever built this place, we found a ton of wiring where it wasn't supposed to be. If the leak had been worse, it could have started a massive fire."

Barbie snorted. "Yes, and of course you couldn't give us a heads-up before I got stuck in a lift."

"We'll have it back on as soon as we can," the contractor replied, looking a little irritated. Before I could turn to find Misa, she slipped past Angelo and smiled at the contractor, offering him a mug filled with coffee. His mood lifted a little, taking the coffee, and he said, "We'll focus on the lift first - we should be able to manually open the doors, though, if you want out immediately. It might mean we have to fix the lift even when the electrics are back on."

Barbie sighed. "No, it's fine, I'll wait in here. Can someone bring me my laptop?"

Chris left to grab it, and I said, "Barbie, just call if you need anything else, okay?"

"Got it."

We all walked back into the office, trying to ignore the sounds of drills in the other office. Angelo sighed. "Never a dull moment, I suppose."

I smiled, and then remembered my phone call with Fliss earlier that morning. "Oh, Angelo - Fliss called me this morning. I know she probably left a note for Cinzia or something, but I thought I'd just make sure you knew."

Angelo looked surprised, but then his warm, lazy smile spread across his face. "She called you? That's nice to hear. Fliss takes ages to warm up to people."

I was even more flattered upon hearing that. "Well, she's pretty cool," I told him. "I think it went well."

"Good!" Angelo beamed, clapping me lightly on the shoulder. I was surprised by the casual touch; Angelo usually maintained a strict personal space policy. Then I realised that he probably kept people at arm's reach before they knew about Cinzia's disorder, to protect her and himself.

Taking his lead, I said, "The benefit was really nice on Friday, I didn't get to say so yesterday. It was such a great event."

"Tell Ian, he's the one that pulled it off," Angelo laughed, and gestured for me to follow him into his office. "I'm just sorry it's taken so long to get your office started, and even more sorry that the coffee machine won't be working now."

Oh God no.

"The coffee machines aren't working?" I managed to ask in a small voice.

Angelo looked at me in alarm. "Yeah, they're electric. So is the kettle."