Mise en place / 144 Days Until Re-Opening
Jeffreylynn was working the counter at Universally Sweet Cafe when the other dimension opened right on top of hers.
Tables and chairs, people and pastries, all doubled—half in one reality, half in the other, making it impossible to tell what belonged where except by running into or through it, as many people were now doing, shooting to their feet with cries of alarm.
“Don’t panic!” Jeffreylynn called, plunging into the chaos. “It’s just a dimensional over—oof!” Jeffreylynn rubbed her shin where it banged square into her own dimension’s chair hidden in the ghostly slurry of a plant from the other dimension.
“Ow!” she griped, hopping back into the fray, waving her hands to find out what was solid and what wasn’t. “Follow me to the door! And try not to walk through anyone!”
Jeffreylynn shot an apologetic grimace to the person she did just walk through, a man wearing square glasses and a baseball cap.
Baseball Cap Man stepped alongside her, herding his customers to the door, mouth moving with words that didn’t carry across the dimensional divide.
A few chaotic minutes later, the cafe was emptied of all patrons, the crowd winking into single existence at the street where, it seemed, the overlap ended. Jeffreylynn remained inside, surveying the scene.
It looked like a tornado had ripped through, and yet nothing was broken. She took a half-hearted step forward, but stopped. Now the initial panic was over, the reality, the dual realities, were setting in.
Her cafe, her pride and joy, her source of income, was a jumbled mess. Jeffreylynn had never encountered a dimensional overlap before; they rarely happened in the city. She had no idea how long it would last; what she was supposed to do. She couldn’t even tell where her own tables were!
Jeffreylynn bent over, hands on her knees, making eye contact with the cartoon pandas on her boots, and tried to breathe around the sudden lump restricting her throat. Did dimensional overlaps cause temperature increases? Because Jeffreylynn was feeling hot. And were those sirens or her ears ringing? Had the pandas on her boots always been blurry?
Somewhere in the increasingly distant part of her brain, Jeffreylynn recognized this for a panic attack, but she had reached her quota for unfortunate circumstances for the day and could not breathe.
Jeffreylynn was just considering passing out and making all this a problem for Future Jeffreylynn when Baseball Cap Man returned, kneeling and bending his head at an awkward angle to look her in the face.
This close, Jeffreylynn could see behind his glasses he had thick, dark lashes framing bronze eyes, shining brightly even slightly desaturated from being viewed from the wrong dimension.
“You have pretty eyes,” Jeffreylynn told him, or tried to around the wheezing noises she was now making. Baseball Cap Man’s beautiful eyes widened.
He was saying something, and Jeffreylynn followed the movements of his mouth, timing her breathing to his own as familiar shapes of words began to form.
Breathe in…you’re okay….breathe out…it’ll be fine…breathe in…everything will be fine….breathe out…
Slowly, the lump in her throat disappeared, and Jeffreylynn straightened up from her crouch with a sigh.
“Thank you,” she said, offering a smile to convey the same sentiment. Baseball Cap Man nodded and raised an eyebrow in the universal sign for “now what?”
Jeffreylynn looked away at her—his—their cafe before shrugging in the universal sign for, “no idea.”
Mixing / 132 Days Until Re-Opening
One week later and one dimension over, Gabe stood in the cafe’s chaos and removed his baseball cap to run a frustrated hand through his hair for the billionth time.
It had been a long week. Once the proper authorities had been called, they had marked the cafe as uninhabitable until the overlap could be inspected. Then the scientists took over. They ran tests and took down data and gave Gabe a detailed report he, with only his knowledge of baking science, understood not one bit. In the end, he was told the overlap was “stable, minimally invasive, and unlikely to evolve into a full portal”, which Gabe was about eighty percent sure meant it was safe.
He had then been given a clearance packet detailing the findings, instructions to file new permits, and a cheerful “good luck existing on top of another dimension” goodbye from the government.
Gabe was just considering graduating to hair pulling when movement caught his eye.
A woman was coming into the cafe. Her hair was in braids interwoven with cobalt blue, and she wore a sunny yellow dress that swished down to panda-toed boots. Gabe recognized her from the day of the overlap. He was surprised to see her. After her panic attack during the overlap, he did not expect her back at the scene of the crime.
But he saw no evidence of a spiral. Instead, when she spotted him, she smiled and pointed to the top of his head, mouthing…basket…cow…moth.
Lip reading. Yet another thing Gabe wasn’t prepared for this week.
The woman made a beeline for him, swatting her messenger bag in front of her steps to avoid banging her shins into any hidden furniture. She offered a cheerful wave and tapped a “Hi, my name is” tag affixed to her shirt that read:
Jeffreylynn, a.k.a. your new co-owner!
Gabe huffed a laugh. “Better than lip reading,” he muttered, pulling out his phone to type his own message.
I’m Gabe. Not sure about co-owner. Can’t see how we can re-open.
Gabe watched Jeffreylynn read his phone and then spring back, holding up her finger while she dug out a sheaf of papers from her bag. She spread the papers out on one of her tables. Schematics, charts, graphs, and one extensive color-coded pro/con list. Confused, Gabe watched as she pulled out a notebook and pen to write,
we can re-open I have a Plan!!!
Jeffreylynn had clearly done a lot more than hair-wringing this past week! Impressed, Gabe gestured for Jeffreylynn to explain.
She again held up a finger and approached one of her tables, shoving it across the floor. It passed through the chairs in his dimension and then into a table. Gabe watched as Jeffreylynn pushed it this way and that until it sat almost right atop his table. Jeffreylynn turned to Gabe, hands out in a check it out gesture.
Gabe frowned. Check what out? Objects from different dimensions could pass through each other. They already knew that; that was how they met! What was she—
It clicked. The tables were of comparable size, the only evidence of there being two tables in that space the blurred edges where one table peeked out from the other. His dimension and hers, seamless. People could sit there from either dimension and wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
Gabe’s mind started racing, and he looked again at the papers Jeffreylynn had brought. The cafes had the same layout for floor, registers, and kitchens. If they rearranged, made sure workspaces and registers were divided and labeled, employees and patrons could, in theory, exist side by side without disturbing each other.
They could re-open.
“You’re genius!” Gabe said. “Or, wait…” He typed the same message on his phone, all caps, and was rewarded with the most dazzling smile he had ever seen.
Kneading / 90 Days Until Re-Opening
Jeffreylynn waved to Gabe as she entered the cafe for one of their grand-reopening co-working sessions.
Of all the dimensions out there, she was grateful hers collided with one that had a sensible owner of its Universally Sweet. Gabe was thoughtful and intelligent, patient with her need for extreme detail, a master of simple solutions that were no less brilliant, and yet always game to try something new to circumvent the many problems of co-owning an inter-dimensional cafe.
With his help, they now had the cafe rearranged with new, identical furniture; the kitchen and stockrooms divided; signs hung; and tonight, for the first time since the overlap, the cafe looked almost normal.
“I’m here,” she announced, tossing her arms up and striking a pose.
Gabe gave her a patient, amused look and reached for his phone. The two had communicated via notes (or wild charades) in the beginning. After a week, Gabe had downloaded a language learning app for American Sign Language, showing Jeffreylynn so she could get it, too, but while she was up for learning the language, Gabe had proven annoyingly much more adept at it than Jeffreylynn, leaving her dependent on his typed notes for complex communication.
Jeffreylynn stepped closer to Gabe, fingerspelling “OK” and raising her eyebrows. Gabe bobbed his right fist and turned his phone around to show her his message.
I have a surprise for you.
Jeffreylynn watched with undisguised excitement as Gabe pulled something out from his bag and set it on a table.
It was a tablet, on and open to a blank screen. She looked quizzically at Gabe, becoming even more confused when his mouth started moving as he spoke out loud. She raised a hand to stop him, but he pointed at the tablet where—Jeffreylynn gasped in delight—words were appearing.
One tablet per dimension per table and two more behind the counter and in the kitchen for staff.
Thirteen tablets total.
There is a store on sixth that sells them at a bulk discount.
Customers and staff can use speech-to-text.
Like this.
To talk to each other.
And ASL.
Don’t worry you’ll get the hang of it.
For quicker communication.
What do you think?
“Wow,” Jeffreylynn breathed, turning to look at Gabe in awe. While her own thought processes spilled out into spreadsheets and charts, Gabe’s remained firmly secured in his noggin. Jeffreylynn thought she’d explode if she kept every idea locked up, and she found Gabe’s ability to do just that insane, but if it produced such ideas as this…
She hadn’t realized she’d been staring until Gabe waved his hands loosely, palms up and brows scrunched. He frowned, one hand rubbing at his head (a clear sign of distress), the other at his chest, middle finger and thumb briefly pinching before flicking open and eyebrows shooting up.
Jeffreylynn’s heart plummeted at the idea he believed she saw his suggestion as anything less than amazing. Jeffreylynn had spearheaded the majority of the work to re-open, and she knew Gabe was always searching for more ways to contribute despite lacking business savvy.
As far as Jeffreylynn was concerned, these tablets were the greatest contribution yet, and she pinched her first two fingers and thumb together before yanking out her own phone to type:
its gr8!!! genius! ur genius! ignore me im dumb :p
Gabe shot her a stern look, thumb flicking out from under his chin before his pointer finger moved from his chin out. He then pointed quite forcibly at Jeffreylynn and tapped his forehead with his middle finger before he flicked it up sky high.
Jeffreylynn preened at the compliment, tossing her braids to distract from the bright blush spreading across her cheeks, surely visible even with the dimensional desaturation. She always blushed whenever Gabe complimented her, which, she realized, was quite a lot. In fact, if she were to track it out…but then Gabe’s mouth started moving, distracting her from flattery statistics.
But seriously, the tablet read.
Is something wrong with the tablet idea?
Jeffreylynn made two Os with her hands, spreading them apart from each other and shaking her head.
“But…”
y 13? tables + counter = 12
u making a baker’s dozen joke? XD
Gabe smiled, but shook his head, glancing away as he said,
Co-owner’s tablet.
Just for us.
“Oh.” That made sense. More professional than personal phones, less public than staff tablets, and something to use while they—she—learned ASL. It was completely logical.
So, Jeffreylynn really didn’t know why her heart fluttered at the words just for us.
Rising / 16 Days Until Re-Opening
Gabe watched Jeffreylynn tap her palm flat against her chest twice and then make grabby hands around (and through) the ube cake currently in Gabe’s dimension.
He affected a deeply hurt expression that made Jeffreylynn laugh. He wished he could hear what her laugh sounded like. She had a full body laugh, head tilted back, hands grasping at her stomach. His own lips twitched as Jeffreylynn settled down, mouth moving. Gabe turned to her tablet in front of him:
The jam is on a great sale in my dimension.
It’ll be cheaper if I sell it here opening week.
Gabe finger-spelled “OK” but then held up a hand, “I will graciously allow this,” he said, his words appearing across the tablet in front of Jeffreylynn, “if you add lime to the frosting.”
Jeffreylynn’s eyes widened.
Lime.
“Yeah! It’s one of my signatures. You’ve never had it?”
Braids, now purple, swished side to side in a negative, and Jeffreylynn shrugged.
If it’s your signature.
I guess you can sell it for the opening.
“No,” Gabe said. “We agreed to have different menus to showcase the full range, and this was your round to pick. The ube cake is yours.”
Jeffreylynn beamed and nodded, holding her hand flat up to her chin and then moving it forward. But then she wrinkled her nose.
But really.
Lime.
“It’s fantastic,” Gabe insisted. “Seriously, try it out. If you hate it—I mean you’d be wrong, but you don’t have to serve it. In fact…”
Gabe stood and headed to the kitchen, not even bothering to pick up his tablet, boldness and impish delight overcoming him as Jeffreylynn caught on and scrambled to follow. She danced in front of him and gave a mock salute, awaiting his instructions for reproducing lime frosting.
Gabe directed her. While he usually defaulted to the tablets in the kitchen, leaving his hands free to plunge into dough, he signed now, giving Jeffreylynn ingredients, measurements, and settings from across the room, no dancing back and forth from a tablet, taking enjoyment in being still and watching her work.
Both of them knew Jeffreylynn didn’t need his help to make a simple frosting. But neither stopped, and, despite the goofy attitude and exaggerated playacting, Gabe found himself enjoying working in tandem with Jeffreylynn. He hadn’t been able to do much baking since the overlap incident, spending most of his time revamping the cafe and attending to the business side of Universally Sweet, a side he normally dreaded transformed into easy fun when done alongside his new co-owner. It stood to reason baking, something he already loved, would only be heightened in her presence.
Jeffreylynn finished the frosting. Gabe expected her to grab a spoon, but instead she dipped her finger right in, licking a large dollop into her mouth. Gabe laughed, lifting his hands to admonish her, but then paused.
Jeffreylynn had her eyes closed, finger in her mouth, and Gabe could almost hear the sound of pleasure she was making. He swore the desaturation from the dimensional divide lifted, and she seemed brighter and more present than ever before. Gabe found himself taking a couple steps closer to her, his mind supplying the delicate pop of her lips smacking together as she removed her finger, tongue flicking out to lick the stray frosting left behind.
She opened her eyes, and Gabe saw surprise in them at his closeness, but she didn’t move away or break eye contact, watching him expectantly. He traced down from her eyes to her lips. There were flecks of frosting at the corners of her mouth.
He reached out a hand, fingers curling to touch her lips.
His hand passed right through her.
The sight shocked Gabe like a splash of cold water. He gasped, jumping back so fast Jeffreylynn startled, dropping the bowl and spraying her panda boots with frosting.
“Sorry, sorry!” Gabe said, swirling his fist on his chest and backing out of the kitchen.
He thought he saw Jeffreylynn’s lips move, her hand coming up in a frantic wave, but he turned away, exiting the kitchen and stumbling back to the counter. He stared down at the ube cake slice, saw Jeffreylynn’s frosting covered lips again in his mind.
Gabe planted his forehead against the counter top and groaned.
Shaping / 1 Day Until Re-Opening
Jeffreylynn should’ve been in bed. She had been when she’d suddenly woken from an intense dream where she’d forgotten to put the jellies in the refrigerator, and they hadn’t set, and the entire city came out to the grand re-opening and wanted to order desserts with jellies.
A ridiculous notion. Jeffreylynn had a clear to-do list she went through the night before, and when she checked, leave jellies to set in fridge was marked off with a bold penstroke. None-the-less, she tossed and turned for another thirty minutes, uncertain and anxious, before finally shoving herself into boots and coat and marching down to the cafe to see for herself her jellies were safe.
Instead, she found Gabe, alone in the kitchen, baking.
The sight of him shocked her. She hadn’t seen more than a passing glimpse of him for nearly two weeks, always coming when she was going or vice versa, always too busy with something very important time sensitive so sorry gotta go to chat.
Gabe hadn’t seen Jeffreylynn come in, and she quickly sidled behind the crates by the door, taking a moment to just watch him.
Gabe was making some sort of mini tarts. A lot of them. Pastry shells were lined up on the counter, a custard cooling next to waiting piping bags, and Gabe himself was furiously slicing berries and kiwis and oranges.
Jeffreylynn wondered what the tarts were for. They weren’t listed on the menu they’d planned. Then again, they never finished planning the menu.
A flush went up her neck at the thought of that night. When Gabe’s hand passed through her, she swore she could almost feel it. The two of them accidentally walked through each other multiple times before. It was impossible not to have such slip ups when working side by side for so long. And it wasn’t even the touch, or lack of it, that sent a sharp jolt of desire through her. His proximity to her in that moment, even incorporeal, affected her.
Jeffreylynn watched Gabe delicately supreme oranges, watched the small muscles of his wrists flex when his grip on the knife shifted, the way his beard curved around his jaw when he turned to add to the stack of finished fruit beside him, and her breath hitched, arms coming up to wrap around herself, hold herself together because she quite suddenly was coming undone.
Jeffreylynn didn’t need Gabe to touch her or not touch her. She just needed him there. She’d missed him these last two weeks. She missed his smile, his stillness when contemplating a decision, the way he used proper grammar with his notes. She even missed his baseball cap and thinning hair! For months, Gabe had been a fixture of her everyday, and his absence was like a physical ache.
“I need you to come back,” she whispered to his back. “I need you because…because…” And the answer came to her, so quickly, so obviously, Jeffreylynn didn’t even pause to wonder.
“I love you,” she said. But Gabe didn’t hear, just started assembling his tarts.
Jeffreylynn left the kitchen, left the cafe, and plopped herself down onto the bench just outside the dimensional overlap, letting out a long, slow breath.
Proofing / 5 Hours Until Re-Opening
Forty-two tarts. Gabe had made forty-two fruit tarts in the middle of the night. The cafe’s fridge was overcrowded, they were out of fresh fruit, and the menu was off for opening day because Gabe had made forty-two tarts.
That was probably a sign of madness.
He needed to go home and sleep, but Gabe stood outside the cafe and couldn’t make his feet move.
“What is wrong with you?” he groaned aloud, but he wasn’t referring to the tarts. The tarts weren’t the problem. The problem was Gabe had tossed and turned in bed for hours before practically running across town to make said tarts because all he wanted, more than anything, was to go back in time to the night of the menu planning, be in the kitchen, and make a different choice.
The problem wasn’t that Gabe now had to sell forty-two tarts tomorrow. The problem was he was in love with Jeffreylynn.
Gabe groaned again and made his way over to the bench outside the cafe, throwing himself down on it and bending over his knees, hands in his hair, glasses in danger of falling off.
He couldn’t love Jeffreylynn. They were co-owners! Yes, they spent a lot of time together, a lot of time alone together, and it was honestly the best months of Gabe’s life, but it was all in a professional capacity. It was downright inappropriate of Gabe to fall in love with Jeffreylynn, a violation of the job parameters.
But Gabe really wanted to violate those parameters. He wanted to go back in time and stop himself from sprinting out of that kitchen like a fool! He should have said he loved her, wanted to say he loved her, was about sixty percent sure Jeffreylynn wanted him to say so as well.
But Gabe once again recalled how his hand passed right through Jeffreylynn, thought of everything that implied for a relationship, and didn’t know what to do.
He found himself wishing for one of Jeffreylynn’s color-coded pro/con lists. He imagined it:
Should Gabe tell Jeffreylynn he loves her?
Pros: Jeffreylynn is an intelligent, creative, ridiculously gorgeous woman with a great fashion sense and Gabe does, in fact, love her.
Cons: Gabe cannot kiss Jeffreylynn…or touch her…or speak to her vocally…or see her outside of the walls of Universally Sweet, and who in their right mind would sign up for that?
Gabe would.
Gabe let his hands drop and stared morosely at the pavement. His glasses slid farther down his nose, and he tilted his head to the side to prevent them from falling, and saw a pair of cartoon pandas staring back at him.
He sat up so abruptly his glasses did fly off, and he made a mad scramble to catch them and shove them back onto his face, glancing between the empty bench and the cafe and the half-visible panda boots.
The bench was right on the edge of the overlap. Jeffreylynn must be sitting there, next to him, in her dimension, feet extended just far enough to be seen from his dimension. Gabe checked his watch. It was two in the morning! What was she doing there?
Worry fluttered in Gabe’s chest, but he reasoned she was probably just checking over everything one last time. Gabe had caught a glimpse of her to-do list the other day and been floored by the length. He doubted she missed anything with how meticulous she was, but he also knew she’d doubt herself given the chance, and that was probably what drove her here tonight.
A rush of affection swept over Gabe.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You did it. Everything’s ready, and tomorrow is going to be spectacular.” He slid his foot side by side with a panda toe.
“I love you,” he whispered, just once, just so he could.
Gabe sat there and didn’t move until long after the panda boots disappeared.
Baking / The Grand Re-Opening
Everything was going spectacularly. Jeffreylynn could hardly believe it. All the effort to bring the two dimensions together, to make this accident work, was paying off. Customers from both dimensions were coming and going, staff were following the color-coded lines drawn to keep their stations separate, and people were even using the tablets to communicate across the dimensions.
In fact, the couple at table four appeared to be on a date.
Jeffreylynn watched them both lean closer, ostensibly to read the tablets, but she was pretty sure they had other motives. It was adorable, and Jeffreylynn turned to tell Gabe only to find her co-owner gone from behind the counter, instead out on the floor wiping crumbs off a table with fierce concentration. She waved at him (signing, she’d learned with delight, meant they could gossip from across the room) but Gabe didn’t look up.
Jeffreylynn frowned. He was still avoiding her, then. A clear sign he didn’t feel the same way about Jeffreylynn as she did about him, despite the kitchen incident. But something was nagging at Jeffreylynn, telling her that wasn’t true.
She had stayed on the bench outside the cafe last night for hours. She’d seen Gabe exit, done with the tarts (which were selling, thank goodness). She thought he had left, gone home to bed like any sane human would do, but then she had looked down and seen the barest shadow of…something right next to her foot.
It could’ve been a trick of the streetlights.
Or it could’ve been the tips of some well-worn, sensible loafers currently on the feet of a certain co-owner taking way too long to clean a single table.
But if it had been Gabe, and he had known she was there, then what did that mean?
There was only one way to find out.
Jeffreylynn took a breath and stepped out from behind the counter, making her way to the table Gabe was cleaning. She plopped herself down in the chair and flicked on the table tablet.
“Hi,” she said brightly.
Gabe, who had frozen the second she’d shown up, slowly straightened, offering a small smile and an even smaller wave. Was he blushing?
Jeffreylynn glanced pointedly at the chair opposite her. Gabe hesitated, but lowered himself down to sit with her, turning on his own tablet.
“I think table four is on a date,” Jeffreylynn said. She watched Gabe’s eyes flick to the couple in question. He raised his hand, made a fist and an O in rapid succession.
“Sooo,” Jeffreylynn drawled, “what do you think? People from different dimensions dating?”
Gabe shrugged, and yep, he was definitely blushing.
I don’t know, Jeffreylynn read on the tablet. Seems complicated.
Jeffreylynn nodded. “Definitely in need of a pro/con list.”
Ah, there was a real smile. Jeffreylynn’s heart skipped in delight seeing the brief flash of joy. It emboldened her, and she pressed forward.
“Pro,” she said, giving the couple a furtive glance, “well, they’re obviously enjoying each other’s company.”
Gabe shook his head. Con. He pinched the fingers of both hands and tapped the tips together before letting his hands fall with a pointed shrug.
“True,” Jeffreylynn said, her heart beating faster. “But…maybe kissing’s not important to them. Maybe they think there’s enough there besides the physical that’s, you know…worth it.”
Gabe stared at her, face unreadable, but going still in the way he only did when there was something really big, really important on his mind. Jeffreylynn wished she could see his thoughts like a flowchart, follow them to see if they were going the same way hers were.
Con. Gabe’s tablet finally read. They can only see each other at dimensional overlaps. What’re there, three in the whole city?
“Well, lucky for them, Universally Sweet is a great date spot,” Jeffreylynn joked, but Gabe didn’t laugh this time. He took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, and at the sight Jeffreylynn imagined Gabe’s thought flowchart launching right off a cliff.
She flushed in embarrassment. She shouldn’t have done this. This clearly wasn’t what Gabe wanted, and her pushing was making it weird. She rubbed her fist in a circle on her chest, already shoving back her chair to leave, but then words started making their way across the tablet.
Con.
What if they can’t make it work? And now they’re both heartbroken, sad, and unable to run Universally Sweet?
Con.
What if they can make it work, but that means this smart, amazing woman is now stuck in a limited relationship that can’t give her half of what a normal, intra-dimensional relationship could?
Con.
What if the idea of holding her back in any way makes him want to tear out what little hair he has left because.
Con.
She deserves the best in this world and how can that possibly be him because.
Con.
This is the furthest thing from a traditional relationship, like, ever, and.
Con.
“Pro!” Jeffreylynn interrupted, leaning across the table, into the tablet, hands out, fingers intermingling with the ghosts of Gabe’s.
“Pro,” she said again, watching Gabe’s eye flick between her and the tablet screen. “She doesn’t care about any of that because—pro—she believes they can make it work, and—pro—she’s willing to do what it takes to make it work because—pro—she wants him, exactly as he is, because she thinks he is the best thing to ever happen to her, and—pro—she’s the co-owner of an inter-dimensional cafe; if she wanted traditional, she’d go to a Starbucks!”
Jeffreylynn took a deep breath and sat back. “Pro,” she said, made two fists, crossed her arms over her chest, and pointed at Gabe.
Gabe went still, eyes off the tablet and on her. Jeffreylynn matched his gaze, heart pounding, a blurry, resurrected flowchart at the back of her mind. Gabe’s lips twitched, the smallest movement, and she looked down at the tablet so fast her neck cracked.
I changed my mind.
I want to sell ube cake in my dimension, too.
I’ll have to make some tonight.
Want to join me?
Jeffreylynn’s heart settled, thoughts of flowcharts lost in happy haze.
“Will there be lime frosting?” she asked, scooting her chair around, just to keep both tablets in view.
Gabe leaned toward her, probably to better read her tablet.
Of course.
Jeffreylynn slid one boot over, under the table, side by side with Gabe’s.
“It’s a date.”
Catherine Tavares is a speculative fiction author and member of both SFWA and Codex. Her work has been featured on the Nebula Recommended Reading List and in magazines such as Apex, Nature Futures, Flash Point SF, and more. Read her work and learn more about her at catherinetavares.com.
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