Entry #5

Foofy Coffee and Other Maladies
by Merry Monteleone


I stumbled into the kitchen and was slapped by the smell of coffee with, what was that? Hazelnut? Probably some mocha-floofy-hoity-toity-flavor-you-need-seventy-five-syllables-to pronounce. Didn’t matter what it was, really. Dozens of tiny men with jackhammers were running around the inside of my head and the coffee wasn’t doing a damn thing to make them shut up.

I pulled up a stool at the counter and willed myself not to be sick in front of him. Mark glided in from the opposite hall, already dressed for the day with his hair just damp around the edges. He shot me a boyish grin, looking chipper and rested. The prick.

“You did a fine impression of a raging alcoholic last night.” He poured two cups and placed one in front of me.

Ack, it smelled bad enough from across the room. And if you start lecturing me on how to act, the coffee’s going in your face.

His eyes widened and he pulled my cup back to his side of the counter. “I wasn’t going to lecture you.”

“Did I say that out loud?” Maybe I was still drunk. My in-my-head snark was normally well contained... okay, not really, but I usually knew when it’d come out of my mouth.

“What, the part about throwing coffee in my face? Yeah... out loud... and, you know, it’s not my fault you’re hung over.”

“You gave me like twenty glasses of wine!”

“It was a tasting – you’re supposed to spit it out.”

“Yeah, cause that’s classy.”