Grounds 4 Love isn’t going to be just a play on words legally, but it’ll also play on coffee grounds and my love for them. My passion. My purpose—using my coffee shop to provide a safe space for anyone in need of an escape. In need of fuel. In need of inspiration.
I want students to come here and feel recharged.
I want working people to come here and be able to escape.
I want them to feel my love and be inspired by it.
I want them to spend their days, their lives, doing what they are most passionate about.
Life is too short for anything but!
Xoxo, Z.
My tears pouring this time weren’t out of sadness. They came from pride. From inspiration. From happiness. My sister spent the last years of her life doing what she loved, and that made me happy. She loved what she’d created with her coffee shop, and I wouldn’t let that die with her. I had just under six weeks before Ihad to go back to work, and now, I was determined to spend that time saving my sister’s dream.
6
Haji
The Next Day
I couldn’t get Zoe out of my mind. Seeing her snapped something I’d kept delicately wrapped over the years wide open. Yes, she looked like her sister, but she also looked like herself. She had Zina’s color and head shape, but their eyes and lips were so vastly different. The first time I saw Zoe, my grief made me only see Zina. Yesterday, I saw a woman uniquely herself. A woman I was insanely attracted to, and I hadn’t been attracted to a woman in seven years.
My body reacted to her, and more than anything,that’swhat pissed me off.
It didn’t help that she’d left me.
It didn’t help that I hadn’t seen her in a decade.
It didn’t help that she came in here talking about selling the place I’d been working like crazy to keep.
My pride had me lashing out more than I would have in my right mind. Too many feelings were consuming me. I should have asked her to leave to give me time to process her presencebefore we talked about anything, but there was a part of me that didn’t want her to go.
Rubbing my eyes, I leaned back in my seat. Between my ongoing search for insurance and thinking about her, I was starting to get a headache. As I put my glasses back on, there was a light knock on my office door.
“Yes,” I said, sitting up in my seat.
My team lead, Pam, poked her head inside. “Hey, Haji. A woman named Zoe is here to see you. Is it okay if she comes in?”
“Yeah, that’s cool,” I said, rubbing my chest as my heart skipped a beat.
Pam opened the door wider before Zoe stepped in. She looked even more beautiful than she did yesterday. Her slim-thick frame was covered in a white sundress that showed off every curve she had. She had a milk chocolate hued baby face. If I remembered correctly, she was around five years younger than me and Zina, which was why they were so close. At thirty-three, she could have passed for early twenties.
Slanted eyes were wrapped in long, curly lashes. Her lips were juicy and shaped like a heart. The shoulder-length bob framed her pretty ass face perfectly. The woman was beautiful, I’d give her that. But beyond her beauty, there was an innocence that called for me to protect and cherish her now just as much as it did ten years ago.
Then, she looked like my baby, even with me being a married man.
Now, she looked like my baby too.
I felt so guilty when my mind was consumed with care and thoughts of her back in the day. I convinced myself that it was our shared trauma. Now, I couldn’t say what it was as I stared at her. She still looked delicate. Still looked precious. Still looked like mine. Still looked like something, someone, that I didn’t want to let go.
“Peace offering,” she said softly, drawing my attention to her hand that held a bouquet of red roses. “I don’t know you well enough to know what you like, but roses always make me happy.”
Putting that detail in my memory, I walked around the desk and slowly headed in her direction.
“Thank you,” I grumbled, accepting the flowers. “I think this is the first time in my life anyone has ever gotten me flowers.”
That truth made her smile as her eyes lit up. “Ooh, not me being the first. Love that for me.”
