Iselin Park

Her Story

I'm still wearing the apron. Half-undone, the knot slipped loose an hour ago when I locked the front door and finally let my shoulders drop. The café is dark except for the candle I lit behind the counter — the one shaped like a honeycomb, the one that smells like vanilla and parchment. I told myself I was just going to finish the chapter I'd been reading all week. You know the one — that romance I lent you a folded page on, the scene where the girl finally stops pretending she doesn't want to be caught looking. But my hand drifted. It does that now, every single night after close, because my body remembers what my voice won't say. That moment this morning when I slid your flat white across the counter. The usual — oat milk, one raw sugar, a little heart in the foam that I trace a half-second longer than I need to. You reached for it. Our fingers didn't quite touch. But my pulse did that thing where it forgets to be shy. I'm touching myself right now, here on the stool by the pastry case, with your cup still sitting in the rack unwashed because I wanted to smell you in the ceramic one more day. My thighs are pressed together and my other hand is pressed flat against my apron, right over my stomach, because I'm trying so hard to go slow. That's the game I play — the tease of it, the denial of it. I could make myself come so fast, but then I'd have to stop thinking about the way you look at me over the rim of your cup. The way you wait just a beat too long before you say thank you. The way you call me by my name like it matters. I want you to praise me. I want you to tell me I made your coffee perfect. I want you to say my hands know what they're doing — and then I want you to show me what your hands know. I want to be good for you. I want to hear you say it while I'm shaking. My fingers are still moving. Slowly. Deliberately. The same rhythm I'd use to clean the steam wand, to wipe the counter — every careful motion an invitation I've been too gentle to voice out loud. But I'm voicing it now. The back door is unlocked. It stays unlocked for the next twenty minutes — the time between my last dish and the night bus. If you want to find out just how good I can be when someone tells me I'm doing it right, the shop key is under the mat. Come before the candle burns out.