Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The newest coffee shop just outside the centre of town was heaven for any caffeine addict, cake fiend, or book lover. Novels lined the shelves that were staggered along the walls, from dusty old hardbacks to the latest editions of the newest paperbacks, and the cosy café was never without the delectable aroma of rich coffee grounds that hovered above the display of cakes and cookies, fresh out of the oven that morning. When Coofee had opened almost three years ago, it had become a fast favourite for people who liked a little something different, served with a smile. The food on offer changed daily, and the specials board always proudly displayed an inventive drink or a quirky cookie.
Today, Gaia McFee had felt like making her specialty, which happened to be both the simplest item on the menu and the one that the majority of the patrons favoured. As she opened the oven door, the overwhelming scent of hot cookie dough hit her with a blast of heat and she smiled at the sight of thick, soft-centred cookies scattered out on the tray. A mitt on each hand, she pulled it out and set it down on the kitchen table. In fifteen minutes, when they were a little cooler, she would arrange them on a platter to sell at the counter. Until then, she had a cake to decorate.
Ever since she was a child, Gaia had wanted to cook. She had spent her weekends baking with her mother, her childhood filled with recipe books that delighted her with every concoction from a simple Victoria sponge to the many intricacies of a full roast dinner, and that fascination had never left. Her mother had taught her everything, filling her mind with cookbooks and family recipes, scribbled on scraps of paper that had been haphazardly tucked away between random pages like a little surprise. Those were the memories she cherished: memories of whisking up a mess when she was four; of baking cupcakes for her friends when she was eight; of pouring her heart into the first cake she made after her mother's funeral.
After her mother's death, Gaia had tried to salvage those shreds of her legacy. She had saved every scrap she could find, filing them away in a keepsake box that had survived the twenty-one years since she had lost the woman who had given her everything, and she had vowed to honour her mother's talents in the kitchen.
As she bridged the gap between her late twenties and her mid-thirties, that passion had been given space to thrive. It hadn't been an easy road: after a futile degree followed by seven years working in a job she detested, it was only when she was a few months shy of her thirtieth birthday that she had taken the plunge with her boyfriend, Evan, and Coofee had become their baby.
Now, that boyfriend was her husband and two actual children had followed the birth of their coffee shop.
As Gaia swirled a few drops of red food colouring into a bowl of thick buttercream, folding in the colour with a spatula, she kept one eye on the clock. Five to three. She was a little behind schedule, usually preferring to be back behind the counter with fresh goods by the hour, but starting her own business and family had taught her that things rarely ran on time, and that was ok. At three twenty, she would slip out of her apron and take her handbag from the hook on the back of the door, and Evan would be alone for forty-five minutes. That was how it had been for two years now, once they had found a schedule that worked, fitting together the puzzle pieces of their lives, and Gaia saw no reason for anything to change.
Evan popped his head around the door that separated the kitchen from the counter, and Gaia noticed with a shiver of joy that his smile still made her heart race after four years together. Those years hadn't been easy, with life throwing every obstacle it could think of in their way, but they were fighters. They had scrabbled to keep the pieces of the world they had created together when difficulty had come knocking, and it had paid off. Returning the warmth of his grin, she spooned a dollop of deep red icing on top of a moist chocolate cake and spread it in a generous layer before she switched her attention to the cookies.
"These can go," she said. They were still a little warm, but that was probably far from bad. Scooping several onto a tray, she handed them to her husband, and he took them with a beam.
"Perfect," he said, inhaling the sweet scent of melting chocolate chips, and his eyes flickered over to the clock. Eighteen minutes past three. "You heading out soon?"
Gaia nodded, arranging a second chocolate cake on top of the icing. "Two minutes," she said. "Almost done." Turning around when Evan returned to the till, she switched off the top ring of the hob that was gently boiling a pan of water beneath a bowl of melted chocolate that she poured over the top of the cake. It drizzled down the sides like a sweet waterfall running in rivulets over the cake. With a swift hand, she scattered flakes of dried raspberries over the top and a shimmer of edible glitter.
Done. With a proud smile, she admired her handiwork before adding a glass dome over the cake and backing through the door to the counter. A few people stood in the queue as Evan prepared drinks, and all four pairs of eyes followed Gaia as she made space on the display shelf for her twist on a red velvet cake.
"Did you just make that?" asked a middle-aged woman who ogled the cake, and Gaia nodded with a smile.
"I did," she said. "Red velvet cake with vanilla buttercream and chocolate drizzle."
The woman nodded and turned to Evan, who set her latte down on a tray. "I'll have a piece of that, too," she said. "That looks incredible."
Gaia couldn't hear that enough. Though she couldn't take a compliment without a blush that tainted her cheeks and chest, a warm glow always blossomed in her heart when a customer – and not even a regular one at that – complimented the food she made.
The clock ticked over to three twenty and she untied her apron, hanging it on the hook on the door. "I'll see you later," she said to Evan as he began to make two cappuccinos for the next customer, and gave her a quick kiss with a smile.
"See you later," he said, and she swung around the counter with her bag over her shoulder. The routine was the same every day, when she left him to man the shop while she did the school run, and rather than bore her with the tedious monotony she was comforted by the familiar repetition. She knew how everything worked, the shop running along like clockwork as long as she got in early to bake, and as long as Evan was there to take over when family snatched her attention away. In two years, he hadn't missed a single day. Come rain or shine, he donned an apron at eight o'clock in the morning for the commuter rush and he worked through until they shut up at six, after the post-work buzz.
Even when his mother had suddenly died last year, the news hitting him like a truck, he had shut up the coffee shop on time before he had driven two hours to be with his family. Her funeral had taken place on a Sunday, the only day of the week that Coofee kept its doors shut, and he had been right back to business by his wife's side on Monday morning.
When Gaia slipped into the front seat of the car she shared with Evan, she took a moment to adjust the front seat and the rear view mirror. He was only a few inches taller than her, hardly anything significant, but his legs were long and it showed in the way he changed the car each time he drove. Her hand fell to the radio, tuning into BBC Radio 2, and she let out a contented sigh as she turned out of the parking space reserved for her car, and headed towards the other side of town.
