Heartless

8

We sat quietly as the sun rose in front of us. "Thank you for telling me that." I said quietly as I looked over to see the sun start to illuminate his features. "Thank you for listening." He said and nodded once. He stood up and offered his hand to help me up. "We should get going. Everyone's going to start waking up." He said as I grabbed his hand. The drive back to his place was silent. I wish I could have slept last night because I had to work in just 2 short hours. I closed my eyes for just a second leaning my head on the window. "Cora" Colby said in a husky tone. I could tell he was tired too.

The car stopped causing me to open my eyes. We weren't back to the house yet which confused me, "yes Colby?" I said looking over at him. "You're really special." He simply said. "Why do you say that?" I said quizzically. "I don't know, but I thought you needed to hear it." He said with a smile and just continued to drive. The two of us had a connection, not necessarily a romantic one, but it was obviously there.

Once we arrived at the house I went up to wake Kat, we had to go to work in just over an hour. She gave Sam a quick kiss and turned to me. "Are you wearing Colby's hoodie?" I looked down, forgetting I was wearing it. "Oh...yeah we went for a walk last night..to clear our heads" I said honestly, I took it off and folded it placing it in front of Colby's door.

We got to Kat's place and we quickly got ready for work, I already had my stuff at her house from the night of the party. "What if we just quit our jobs" Kat said as a joke once we got to the car to leave. "Then we would be poor" I said with a laugh and a shrug. Kat paused for a while. "Alright I have to get this off my chest..do you like Colby?" She blurted out as I began the drive to work. "As a person? Yeah" I said making her laugh, "no Cora! As more than a friend." I didn't know how to answer that. We had a connection, that was undeniable but was it romantic in any way? Not really. Could it be? Possibly. But he would never like someone as damaged as me. "No Kat" I said with a laugh, "we are just friends" I said simply as we pulled in. "Whatever you sayyyy" she sang.

Work dragged on because I was simply exhausted, but I was practicing a new technique with my latte art, I was trying to master the swan. I tilted the cup with full concentration and began to pour in a circular motion slowly bringing the milk pitcher closer to the surface of the espresso. Milk foam cascaded on top, I shook my hand creating a pattern of white on the brown espresso. Once I finished the pour I looked at it mildly disappointed. It looked more like a messy goose, or maybe a pinecone. I huffed and gave the drink to the awaiting customer. "That was gorgeous." I heard a deep voice say causing me to turn.

"Hi Colby" I said as I looked around to see if Sam was here visiting Kat like he would do sometimes. But it was just Colby here. "I wanted to see you and your lattes in action. I'll take one to go" he said and pulled his wallet out. I rang him up and got to work, Kat struck up a conversation with Colby as I began to steam the milk for his latte. Doing latte art in to go cups was harder than doing them for here. I took a deep breath and began my pour. I watched as the design spilled out onto the latte. A beautiful flower. I smiled and handed it to him. "Thanks Cora, it's beautiful. I'll see you around" He said with a smile and walked out.

"He must really like you." Kat said and giggled. "What makes you say that?" I said and raised my eyebrow.

"Because Colby hates coffee."