Fraser Mountain - Living the snow life

Chapter Twenty Five

It’s still dark outside and Jenn is busy baking in the kitchen so I write up the muffin special (raspberry and white chocolate) on the chalkboard and flick the ‘Open’ sign. The dark street is deserted, probably due to the depressing mixture of sleet and snow that’s falling in a steady drizzle. If only it was a few degrees colder there would be some nice, white fluffy flakes falling instead.

I look down my watch and head back to the kitchen, yawning broadly while 7.06am blinks back at me.

‘Jenn, I don’t know how you do this every morning.’ I sigh, trying to stifle another yawn. I very rarely work the early shift, but Terry had to go out of town for a few days, so here I am.

‘It’s not that bad!’ Jenn smiles, giving me a gentle nudge. ‘You’re not telling me you used to get up early back in London?’

‘Yeah.’ I shrug. ‘But I’ve got a raging hangover. Remind me not to drink vodka again. I’m out of practice.’

She laughs as the cowbells jingle on the door. It’s probably Hank, the new vet. He’s been coming in every morning for coffee and a muffin ever since we started running the Monday promotion and although he’s pleasant enough, he put a bloody sack, quite literally bloody, on the counter yesterday while he looked at the menu and decided what to have. I was so freaked out I had to get the disinfectant out and scrub the entire place down, Turns out it was a dead racoon he’d scraped off the highway. Yuck. If he does that again this morning, I may throw up.

‘Mornin’’

Oh great. Maybe a bit of road-kill might have been a better option.

‘Alright?’ I mutter. ‘Americano?’

‘Sure.’ Aaron smiles. ‘Great game last night, eh?’

How can anyone be so perky at this hour? Oh yes, he gets up at the crack of bird-shit every day. He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a tattered black leather wallet.

I put my hand up. ‘You can put that back where it came from.’

‘You sure?’

I nod without smiling. ‘To go?’

Yeah. Thanks, Lex.’ He hands me his thermal mug. There’s an awkward silence as I rinse it out under the tap.

‘Gotta hate this rain, eh?’ he says, trying to make conversation.

‘Sure. It’s a bummer.’ I shrug, not really feeling like a chat. ‘Does Lisa want anything?’

He shakes his head. ‘She’s got her flask in the truck, trying to wake up. She hates working with the dynamite so I said we’d check on one of the weather stations by Snake Glades. The rainfall’s making the snow-pack pretty unstable so we’re bombing a couple of danger spots.’

I listen as I dose one of the metal filters with ground coffee and tamp the grains down firmly. Terry’s been getting a bit obsessive about the coffee machine now that it’s fully functional. He cleans it lovingly every night and gave me a long lecture about the importance of correct tamping - apparently it improves the quality of the espresso. I didn’t like to remind him that the only reason the coffee sucked so much when I first got here was that he hadn’t been taking proper care of his beautiful Italian machinery.

‘Can I get some warm milk with it?’ He adds, watching me work.

‘Sure. Muffin?’

‘No… I’m good.’ He smiles, patting his perfectly flat stomach underneath his Patrol fleece. He turns around and the steam almost burns my hand as I think about how nice his arse looks in his uniform, rather than concentrating on the job I should be doing. Christ knows why I’m being so grumpy with him. Must’ve got out of bed on the wrong side.