Gathered Up. Annabeth Albert

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СКАЧАТЬ fabric. A fancifully wrapped scarf over a close-fitting, long-sleeved shirt would probably get noticed by the Knit Night ladies, which was exactly what I did not want to have happen.

      Our eyes met as I drew the latte art with a stirring stick, and he grinned widely at me. Gorgeous rose-pink lips and perfect white teeth straight out of a dental ad, and—

      Frak me. I flubbed the smiley face, distracted by my efforts to memorize the handsome stranger. Rather than hand over a squiggly mess, I chucked the cup and started over. The girl didn’t seem to care as she was deep in conversation with her friend at the end of the bar.

      “Sorry about the wait,” I said to the guy when it was finally his turn and he moved up to order. His intent gaze coupled with his polished appearance made me more conscious of my untrimmed beard and scruffy ponytail and made me wish I was wearing something a bit nicer than a faded People’s Cup T-shirt.

      “It is no problem,” the guy said. He had a gorgeous voice—deep and polished, like a shiny piece of ebony. He had the fast speech and clipped consonants of an East Coast accent, but there was a lilt of something more exotic there, too. “I am happy to wait. Very peaceful in here.”

      Ha. I checked the clock as I tried to think of some flirty reply. The heavy glass door that led to Alberta Street swung open. It was 6:58 and Violet was first as usual, holding the door open for the herd of knitters. Not the steady trickle of a breakfast or lunch rush but twenty-plus women, all obsessed with punctuality and festooned with hats, scarves, and knit vests. Each ordered drinks for here with the sort of lengthy deliberation of someone who only ordered one coffee a week.

      An older woman with the look and demeanor of a no-nonsense teacher, Violet made it her business to keep her fellow knitters in line. Knit Night was the brainchild of Iplik, the yarn store just down the street from us on Alberta, but Violet was the weekly event’s unofficial hostess. As usual, she started giving her comrades orders about table rearrangement.

      The People’s Cup wasn’t huge by any means, and Knit Night tended to fill the joint up. The space was longer than it was wide, with couches in front of the plate glass window, the coffee bar running along one wall, tables in the middle of the room, and a long wooden farmhouse bench and table for communal seating in the back of the room. The Knit Night ladies liked to turn the couches around and group the center tables together, creating a setup conducive to conversation but a tripping hazard for the rest of the patrons. And the arrangement resulted in an unholy din really, especially on nights when their ranks swelled to thirty or more.

      “Remember to keep the aisle clear,” I said to Violet and her minions. I’d warned them about creating tripping hazards with their knitting gear, but it was as futile as telling the twins and Jonas to keep their Legos in one area. Like my siblings, the ladies loved to spread out their projects.

      “What’ll it be?” I swung back to the register, no closer to having the right banter for the stranger, but no longer in a position to care. However, he’d stepped aside for Violet and her herbal tea order.

      “I’ll be back when the line clears,” he said with a wink. He had a leather messenger bag, the sort meant to look like something Indiana Jones would haul around, for which one paid for every crinkle in the distressed finish. He’d probably come in wanting a quiet place to work.

      He had the look and accent of a displaced New Yorker—working some cushy freelance job, no doubt. I liked thinking up little stories about my customers, but I didn’t bother coming up with a lengthy one for him. He wouldn’t be back once he saw how loud Knit Night got. And the ladies were likely to pester him about his intricately knit scarf with its pattern of interwoven cables. One time, I’d made the mistake of wearing a wool beanie I’d found for a buck at the thrift store. Every single knitter needed to remark on its construction. Dude was so going to be beating feet once Knit Night got underway.

      Without a coworker, I was slammed, having to work both the register and the machine. While it kept me hopping, I didn’t lose my rhythm until the triplets showed up.

      They weren’t really triplets. That’s what I called them in my head—three middle-aged women who apparently texted each other every week to coordinate their outfits. This week it was cardigans—one yellow, one pink, one green—all in a similarly complex knit pattern. Each woman had long, grayish-brown hair, all carried identical hemp knitting bags, and they all were incapable of making a decision.

      “Now, ladies, what are we ordering this week?” the first asked the other two. “I was thinking mochas?”

      “Oh, I was thinking chai,” said the second.

      “Don’t we want lattes?” the third asked. They couldn’t each order to their own preference. No, they had to agree on that week’s beverage, something they couldn’t seem to do prior to holding up the line.

      “Oh, yes,” the first said. “We want some of Brady’s art.”

      I immediately started thinking of what bit of whimsy would make the triplets happy. The smiley faces were better suited for the teen girls, but I could come up with something special just for the ladies. I was good at that, and the detail-oriented work itself always soothed me, even when the shop was busy. But what drove me batty was how the triplets were prone to changing their order as soon as I had it straight in my head.

      Yellow gets skim.

      Pink gets half caf.

      Green gets picky.

      Brady gets distracted by the sexy stranger texting on his shiny smartphone in the rear of the store…No time for that. I moved quicker, trying to ignore the fact that my eyeballs wanted to track his every movement.

      “No, wait.” Yellow cardigan stopped me in midpour. “Did I remember to say decaf?”

      “Nope.” I dumped the cup, ready to start over.

      “And mine is sugar-free, too,” Pink added.

      Buzz. My apron vibrated against my thigh again. Behind the triplets, the line was at least ten deep. Damn it, Renee. Just handle the kids. Please.

      Finally I had the three of them set. Green took a sip, then held out the cup. “Is this coconut?”

      “You said nondairy, nonsoy?” I took the cup back.

      “I meant almond breve.” She sighed, like I should have gotten that at first, and if I wasn’t distracted by what was going on back home, I would have remembered to ask her which nondairy, nonsoy option she wanted.

      “Here, let me try again.” I had just finished her new drink, complete with a leaf design in the foam, when a loud crash rattled the whole shop.

      A two-seat table had tipped over, sending two coffees flying and leaving two women in tears.

      “My Fair Isle sweater!” The younger of the two, a pixie with platinum hair and a hook nose, held up a dripping garment with half a dozen colors of yarn, still on long needles connected by a cable. “I’ve worked six months on this!”

      “I’m sorry!” The rainbow-haired young woman in a roller derby T-shirt had tears streaming down her face.

      “You never look!” The first wasn’t having any apology.

      “Hey, my hat got ruined, too!”

      “Ladies.” I stepped СКАЧАТЬ