4

      EVA CHECKED HER WATCH. Again. Could this day go any slower? NYEspresso closed at six on Saturdays. They’d been fairly busy midmorning—opposite from weekdays, when the crowds showed up around the business commute—but since five it had been dead, and by now time had slowed nearly to stopping. Especially since the woman she’d scheduled to work the register, Rebecca, an MFA graduate student at nearby Hunter College, never stopped talking in spite of the fact that she had nothing to say. Eva had important things to do. Involving Ames.

      It was tempting to close early, but Tom, a clockwork afternoon regular, was tapping away at his laptop as usual, earphones on, Mets hat on the table next to him, a frown of concentration on his face. He was one of those sexy geeks Eva always had a soft spot for. Another couple sat nearby holding hands across the table, each texting someone else.

      Eva checked her watch again. It had barely moved.

      Rebecca launched into a detailed new story about her latest project, featuring photographs of severed heads interspersed with painted images of cupcakes and hundreds of boxes of thumbtacks. Blessedly, Tom approached the counter, laptop packed up, and interrupted her. “Hey, Rebecca. Can I have a coffee to go?”

      “Sure. Room at the top?”

      “No.” Eva answered for him. Rebecca needed to pay more attention to customers and less to herself. Tom always ordered the same thing. “Anything to go with that, Tom? Maybe a pain au chocolat?”

      He hesitated, gazing at the burnished pastries under the counter. “We-e-e-ell. Okay.”

      “How did your work go today?” Eva let Rebecca ring him up while she got his coffee and pastry. “What are you working on? A novel?”

      “Oh, no.” He stood there sheepishly, unshaven, wearing his trademark black-framed glasses, shaggy head of dark curls, oversized Columbia sweatshirt, jeans and beat-up running shoes. “Nothing like that.”

      She waited for him to tell her, but apparently he didn’t want to, so she changed the subject. “Do you live around here?”

      “Nah. I live in New Jersey. In my parents’ basement.”

      Eva reacted with a shocked look, then caught his sly grin and burst out laughing. “You bum. You almost got me.”

      He was even cuter when he was grinning.

      “Sorry. It’s a dumb joke. I live around the corner on Forty-Fourth.”

      “What do you do?” She was only more curious now.

      “I’m a frustrated composer.” His expression turned sheepish again. “Right now I’m working on a musical.”

      “How cool!” She let her mouth drop open in case he hadn’t gotten how impressed she was. “Like for Broadway? What’s it about?”