《The Coffee Shop》Chapter 1 - part 1
Advertisement
The sun had bathed my shop in its warm light before I realized what time it was.
I hadn’t planned a day off that day, but as I blinked at my door, I knew I had another decision to make. I should have had the first pots brewed already and the doors unlocked.
My eyes traveled from the shimmering glass back to Lawrence, sitting across from me.
“A day off? I can get some rest and you can come back tomorrow and fill me in on anything I missed.” The second the words came out of my mouth I felt weight shift. A weight released from my shoulders, reminding me that I had spent a night negotiating for immortality, and another piled into my mind.
I had been awake for 24 hours, and every moment made the situation feel more surreal.
He let out a laughed and leaned further back in his chair. His legs stretched out in front of him, one ankle sitting atop the other. His arms crossed against his chest, he let his lips fade into that half smirk, half smile he had worn so much the night before.
“A day off,” he said, glancing at the sun behind me. “I’m not a slave driver, Samantha. The shop is still yours. Your life is still yours.”
I couldn’t help myself. My lips curled upwards, showing off the teeth I needed to brush after too much coffee. “I’m still my boss.”
A short chuckle left his chest that time. “Of course.”
After a few minutes of odd silence, he reached his hand out one more time. Our deal had been struck already, it was time to say goodbye. My eyes looked at the smooth skin of his hand and lost a train of thought on the time he had spent in my coffee shop.
Advertisement
Sleep-deprived and reminiscent, I tried to recall the day I had first seen him. I had a hundred memories of him holding a mug, slim body nestled in a lounge chair. It was easy to recall a thousand nameless books, bright colors and odd pictures resting on the front and back covers of them. I could picture his unassuming yet sauntering walk, but I couldn’t pinpoint the very first time I had seen him.
“Samantha?” he asked, in an apparent effort to get my attention.
I shook my head at my name and reached my hand out into his. In a day we had gone from employee and customer to…this.
“Monday.” Looking up as he stood, I made eye contact to confirm the arrangement.
I looked ahead at the wall as he walked away from the table. The door opened, ringing the small bell at the top, and then it closed, doubling the sound.
Silence sat in the coffee shop. For whatever it was worth, no other customers had come knocking at the door. The doors would need to be locked, and I hadn’t done a single thing to clean. Shaking my head once again to clear my thoughts I pushed my palms against the table to scoot the chair out and stood.
Within a few moments, I had grabbed my purse from the break room. No one would be hurt by the chairs sitting on the floor for a few hours. My other regulars would never notice that the floor hadn’t been swept today, and no one but me would ever know that I didn’t make it to the bank tonight.
With a deep breath, I taped a piece of paper over the open/closed sign and locked the door behind me.
All those little facts nestled in my thoughts as I drove home. My purse landed somewhere on the table, and thankful that I didn’t have even a goldfish to take care of at that moment, I crawled into bed. I lie in-between the cotton sheets with the un-swept floors running in-between every thought I had.
Advertisement
My shop had been my life-blood for longer than I cared to admit. I pour my savings, life, and energy into it. I brought it from an empty box to a success. As the lids closed around my eyes blocking out the morning sun, I thought about retirement again.
The cafe was sell-able. Yet instead, a deal had been brokered.
I took a deep breath in and pictured Lawrence's face the moment he made his offer to me. The first night of many that I picture his deep-set eyes.
As the breath left my mouth, I can say with some certainty I was asleep. I slept faster and harder than I had any other night of my life. The mental toll had zapped my insomnia for 8 straight hours, something I would later be increasingly thankful for.
Groaning from a lack of real movement, my eyes opened well after my usual lunchtime. Hungry, stiff, and confused about the time of day, I forced my body upright. I swung my feet over the edge of my bed and noticed my socks were still on from the day before.
Pulling both arms above my head I looked across the room toward the dresser. The holder of my clothes, my alarm clock, and the only picture of my mother, it was the centering point of my mornings and my nights.
A whimpering sound left my throat as I locked eyes; not with my clock but with a woman standing next to the wooden dresser, a smile on her face
Advertisement
- In Serial425 Chapters
Rise
Su Xue, a woman in her mid 20s, is struggling both in paying rent and finding her path in life. Her latest stint has her trying to become a popular League of Legends streamer, though to poor results. One day, she is interrupted in the middle of a livestream by a surprise visit from her landlady. She is informed that she will be having a new roommate. The landlady’s nephew, Lin Feng, a 18 year old boy who has just transferred over to Shanghai for his last year of high school.Though initially opposed to it, Su Xue reluctantly agrees to the arrangement. She learns that the two share a common interest—League of Legends—and that he’s really amazing at the game. Lin Feng also reveals to her he wishes to become the best professional League of Legends player in the world.The next day. Lin Feng attends his first day of school as a transfer student at High School 13. He meets Ouyang and Yang Fan, and the trio find a common passion in League of Legends. Lin Feng is then introduced to Ren Rou, the president of the esports club with a fiery personality, and Tang Bingyao, a quiet bookworm with a love for money and a surprising talent for the game.A little about Lin Feng’s past is revealed. He was a once pro player, the youngest in history and a contender for the best player in the world. Until the finals of the Season 1 World Championship. There, he lost to his arch-rival, an equally brilliant Korean youth. That was the peak of his career, and also the turning point in his life. He stepped down from his team and disappeared from competitive play altogether. Now, after a four year long hiatus, he aims to make a comebackOver the next couple of weeks, Lin Feng learns about the upcoming Shanghai 16 School Tournament, and that his school’s esports club had performed especially poorly the previous year. He agrees to coach the club’s team and help them win the first place trophy this year. And so, he starts the members of the club out on an intense training bootcamp.Meanwhile, the Season 5 League of Legends World Championship is taking place at around the same time. Tian Tian, one of Lin Feng’s former teammates and best friend, is on one of the Chinese teams playing at Worlds. After a poor showing, he is on the verge of a mental breakdown. Lin Feng witnesses everything in a viewing party with the esports club members and becomes worried.On the day of the Shanghai 16 School tournament, Lin Feng reunites with Tian Tian on the phone. He tells Tian Tian he’s going to return to the professional scene, that he’s making a new team and plans to invite him. But Tian Tian has to vow not to give up at Worlds and keep winning. Tian Tian agrees, and Lin Feng promises he’ll fight alongside him. Lin Feng then heads into his match with renewed resolve, to climb from the bottom all the way back to the top, and overcome the rival that defeated him so many years ago.
8 1136 - In Serial479 Chapters
Phoenix's Requiem
Painfully shy and conflict-averse, Yun Ruoyan is a scion to a noble house only in name, a puppet embroiled in political machinations beyond her ken. At the tender age of eighteen, poisoned and at death’s door, she finds herself thrown out into the streets. Her relatives have all been executed, betrayed by her dear husband and her cousin. With her dying breath, she curses her own weakness and swears revenge.When Yun Ruoyan awakens once more, she is thirteen, transported five years into the past by the will of the heavens. Her death-defying experience has changed her: no longer is she the malleable creature she once was. But more questions await at every corner—what is the truth behind the birthmark that disfigures her appearance? What are the circumstances surrounding her mother’s mysterious death?Will the phoenix rise from the ashes, or will she fall once more in thrall to fate?
8 646 - End489 Chapters
Poison Physician Consort
Follow Bai Luochu on a journey back to the peak as she reincarnates into the body of an orphaned daughter of the former great general of the Cloud Water Nation.With the Three Great Immortal Sects in front of her, her mortal enemies who caused her death, how would she rise to the top again?With her astounding medical skills and ability to create heaven defying poison, Bai Luochu heals the crippled meridians of her new body and attracts the attention of all three princes of the Cloud Water Nation!
8 1749 - End413 Chapters
Rebirth of a Fashionista: This Life Is Soo Last Season
Cinderella went from rags to riches, but when you are already at the top, fate is more than happy to kick you down. A car accident kicks off Sheng Jiaoyang's reverse Cinderella story by trapping her soul in the body of a poor girl, leaving her to succumb to fate and wait for her Prince Charming to come to her rescue -- obviously not!Like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, Sheng Jiaoyang forges her own way back up to the upper echelons of society, clearing obstacles, taking revenges, and bagging her handsome and rich childhood friend on the way.If you are tired of reading about poor damsel in distress waiting for a man to rescue her, and wants a female lead that can carry herself to the top, Rebirth of A Fashionista is the novel for you!
8 274 - End448 Chapters
The Attack of the Wastrel
Her rebirth gave her a second chance at life. She was back with a vengeance and wanted to make those that had harmed her pay. But to those that helped her, she wanted to repay them. Her evil stepmother? She would slowly pull out her claws, one by one. Her evil stepsister? She would crush her pride. She thought that by getting her revenge for her past life, she would be happy in this life. However, she never would have thought that danger would chance upon her time and time again. The hatred from her clan and whether their bloodline would continue to exist, lay solely on her shoulders. Luckily, on this thorny path, someone had always been protecting her. "Third Prince, have you ever regretted being with me?" That person laughed lightly and peered at her with a loving yet weary look, "As long as I am together with you, I have no regrets."
8 1461 - End401 Chapters
Demoness's Art of Vengeance
Jun Xiaomo, notoriously known as “Lady Demoness”, finds herself chained and bound in a dungeon. Her hard-earned cultivation has been completely crippled, and she has no means of escape. Qin Shanshan, a lady she used to called her “close friend”, mocks Jun Xiaomo, revealing that Jun Xiaomo had been used by the people around her. Even her lover, Qin Lingyu was one of the masterminds scheming against her. Jun Xiaomo watches her life flash before her eyes and realizes that she had indeed blindly placed her trust in people. Her naivety had led to her current predicament. Jun Xiaomo wanted to end it all. However, she is determined to deliver a swan song. Over the hundreds of days tormented in that very dungeon, Jun Xiaomo had painstakingly painted a complicated formation array with her own blood. With a determined look, Jun Xiaomo burns her life force to activate the array. Her sole intent? To bring with her as many schemers to the gates of hell as she could. The bright red light from thearray intensified, and the end was nigh.…or was it? Jun Xiaomo opens her eyes and finds herself alive again; time had rewound right back to when she was sixteen years of age, albeit only at the eighth level of Qi Cultivation. Armed with the knowledge and memories of her previous lifetime, Jun Xiaomo is determined to learn from her mistakes and bring retribution to those who so deserve…
8 368