‘Right, this news calls for an extra shot. I’ll bill you for it when you become a high-powered consultant.’ He gets going on my drink.
I sit on the stool and reach for the newspaper on his countertop. ‘Need help?’
‘Always.’
I tick off the first clue immediately. ‘The answer to “ghost cloud” is “gnats”. Did you know gnats or fruit flies can signify transformation, or an end to a stagnant period?’
‘I didn’t know that.’
He pushes coffee into the press and slots it into his machine while I apologise to him for my trivia brain. ‘All the important stuff sieves out, while I collect useless facts about chimney sweeps in Prague.’
‘Thank you for that random look inside your head,’ he says, as he decants the milk. ‘I try not resent you beating me at my own crosswords. Words are supposed to be my superpower.’
I remark on how neat his writing is while I quickly fill in ten down and seventeen across. ‘Are you good at Scrabble and Bananagrams? You should come to All Aboard– a grimy board game café Eva and I hang at. All the usual suspects are there, including a thousand varieties of UNO.’
He throws me a wry smile as he finishes steaming my milk and wipes down the wand. ‘Mom wanted me to be a top barrister and believed the key to entering The Temple lay in my command of the English language. She forced me to play Scrabble and enter spelling bees while my dad hoped I’d turn into a baseball or ice hockey champ.’
‘What’s a spelling bee?’
‘A schoolboy cock fight. You have to stand up and spell words out loud in a competition with other kids. They were massive in America when I was at school but I’m not sure they caught on here in the same way.’
‘You went to school in the States?’
‘Until I was ten.’
‘Hey, I just realised your mum wanted a barrister and got a barista.’
‘The irony wouldn’t have been lost on her. That’s I.R.O.N.Y. in case you were wondering,’ he chuckles, pouring the steamed milk into the cardboard cup. ‘And I’m fascinated to know more about chimney sweeps in Prague!’
When he hands over the coffee our fingers touch and I swear a spark jumps from him to me and back again. And then I give myself a talking-to. He’s the coffee guy not the electricity board. ‘What do you like to drink, Joe?’
‘Beer mostly. Although I don’t mind the odd vodka and lime.’
‘At this time in the morning? Shame on you.’
‘Killjoy.’ He smiles. ‘Double espresso. Half a sugar. Pretty much the same effect but without the hangover. Why?’ I don’t have a chance to answer as my phone is ringing. ‘You have a different tune this week,’ he remarks.
‘You can’t have the same ringtone two weeks in a row. That’s a law.’
‘It’s not a law.’ He slowly shakes his head.
‘It’s being voted on in the House of Lords!’ I turn away to answer the call. ‘Hello. Daisy speaking …’ Joe sniggers at my telephone voice.
‘Daisy Blane?’
I clear my throat and bring my pitch back to normal. ‘Yep, like David Blaine but without the magic.’
‘Oh, well, I was hoping for some magic to be honest.’
Wait a minute! I recognise that accent and my heart beats faster. ‘Who’s speaking please?’
‘My name is Vince Marino.’ OMG. Is this a wind-up? I step away from the coffee cart leaving Joe to close up.
‘I believe you cover my post code; Hammersmith, Shepherd’s Bush, Acton, Holland Park it says here …’ Says where? And then I remember he took my leaflet away with him. He’s reading from it. It really is Vince Marino. ‘I had a bit of a disaster. Well, quite a lot of a disaster actually,’ he continues. ‘And as I was fishing around in my pockets for some dignity, I found this flyer. I believe it’s yours and it claims you can make me happy.’
Oh, double God in triple heaven. I walk up the road a little, holding my phone under my chin. Trying to process what’s happening, I absent-mindedly flip the lid off the cup. Joe must have created the dog’s paw with a stencil and cocoa powder while distracting me with crossword chat.
I smile broadly and take a gulp of coffee. Giving this man my leaflet was a rookie fan move but could be the cheapest and best marketing I will ever do if I can close this deal today. I picture Vince and remember those eyes, that olive skin, that commanding jawline, the towering frame. ‘The whole package …’ I murmur.
