It doesn't need to be pressured. She stepped aside graciously with a mock flourish of her hand, and he came to the stove and rescued what he could of the situation. He turned the heat down, found his proper coffee grounds, started fresh in the smaller pot, and worked quietly while she leaned against the counter beside him. I'm sorry, she said, for invading your morning. You didn't invade anything.
You slept on my couch and tried to make coffee. That's not an invasion. That's just a Thursday. It was Thursday last night. It's Friday now.
Then it's just a Friday. She was quiet for a moment. I don't do this. She said, "I want you to know that this I don't go home with strangers. I don't fall asleep in people's apartments.
I don't wake up in someone else's kitchen. This isn't." She stopped. Normal for you? Normal at all for me?
Me neither, he said honestly. So, we're even. She considered that. My assistant is going to be hysterical when I check my phone. Your phone's probably got 17 missed calls by now.
Probably 30. She didn't move to check it. What time do you have to be at work? I'm off today. He found two clean mugs.
You hungry? I've got eggs. I've got cereal. I've got half a box of the kind of granola bars a 9-year-old picks out, which means they're shaped like dinosaurs. Dinosaur granola bars, she said.
And there was something in her voice he couldn't quite name. When's the last time someone offered me dinosaur granola bars? I'm guessing never. You'd be right. She was quiet again.
Then eggs would be wonderful. If you don't mind, I don't mind. He made eggs. She sat at the kitchen table and drank her coffee properly brewed now. And they had what?
What? By any reasonable measure, a deeply ordinary Friday morning breakfast. He told her about Amara. She asked good questions, careful and genuinely curious ones, the kind that told him she was actually listening rather than waiting for her turn to speak. He told her about the burst pipe from the night before.