Cafe Latte

Chapter Six

One of Meara's favorite things about living attached to his place of work, alone, in a business district where nobody was around until 6:00 at the earliest, was being able to blast any music he wanted in the kitchens early in the morning while he worked. He pulled his cinnamon roll dough out of the fridge -- he always made it in the evening and let it rise overnight -- and plopped it out on his workspace to roll out as he bounced around the kitchen. Meara's music taste was wide and varied, and today he was listening to a local ska band he and some friends had played a few shows with back in his early 20s. Once upon a time he'd played guitar in a ska band, while he was studying under baristas and bakers in the mornings and Danny took night classes in a more academic setting.

Soon the kitchen was warm with the heat of the ovens and smelled of cinnamon rolls and vanilla cupcakes and blueberry scones. Meara shuffled around the trays on his cooling racks and pushed the cupcakes to the back, since they had to be fully cool to hold the frosting. When the cinnamon rolls were just warm, but not hot, he poured over the cream cheese vanilla glaze made by the recipe Josephine had brought with her when they hired her on. She'd been loathe to give it up, but Danny had made it worth her while and paid her a hefty sum for it.

Hopefully they'd be able to offer her more hours and bring her back at least part time in the afternoons so Meara didn't have to be there all day.

Meara didn't let himself dwell on the negative thoughts and went back to work.

He'd just finished putting out the cookies and had gone to work on the scones when Danny unlocked the front door. As it closed behind him, he flipped the business sign to 'open,' and they were officially ready to start their day.

Danny rushed by the counter with barely a hello. Meara popped his head up and asked, "What's going on?"

Danny didn't take Josselin's seat this time, instead sitting at the table in front of it, closer to the door. He flipped his laptop open and said, "I need to schedule some meetings for this week. If it's in the afternoon when it's slower can you hold down the fort by yourself?"

"Probably," Meara said. "I can call Josephine if you need to be there in the morning?"

Danny shrugged, but didn't look up from where he was tapping furiously at his laptop. "Most of the people I want to see don't open until 10:00 or so anyway. Afternoon's no problem."

"That should be fine." Meara unwrapped the cupcakes he'd stored overnight and slid them into the bake case. "What's going on? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Danny said. "I'm just going to schedule some meetings with a few potential advertisers." He looked up at his friend and continued, "We're so close, Meara. We just have to get to the end of October. Then the construction will be done and business should go back to normal."

Meara brushed his hair away from his glasses and nodded. "Yeah. I know."

"We can do this."

"I know."

"You don't sound like you know."

"I'm just scared," Meara said. He glanced over at the door, the floor to ceiling windows, to make sure nobody was about to come in. His watch read 6:07. In the past they'd always had a line. "You said yourself, we haven't even broke even for the month yet --"

"I'll pull from my personal funds if I have to," Danny said. Meara's head snapped up. "I'll refinance my mortgage. We are going to make it, Meara, if I have to pull from every fund and savings account I have."

Meara's shoulders relaxed a little. "Thank you, Danny," he said.

"I have just as much invested as you do," Danny reminded him. He held up a fist in solidarity. "We're in this for the long haul."