The guy walking toward me is good-looking in an obnoxious way, like he’d play the hot jerk in a TV movie about why drunk driving is bad or how it doesn’t pay to cheat on the SATs. He’s got these big wrap-around sunglasses on and a shiny black short-sleeved button-up shirt filled out with the kind of insanely sculpted arm muscles a person only gets when they spend most of their time lifting weights in the mirror and grunting at themselves.

“Hi,” I say. “What can I get for you?” I’ve been working here for a year but I still find it funny when I hear myself ask that, its like I’m a kid playing a game about working at a Coffee Bar, instead of a sixteen-year-old person who actually works at one.

The guy stares at the chalkboard behind me, “Can I haaaaaaaaave”—“a sugar-free skim iced chai.”

“A sugar free skim iced chai,” I say. And I try not to look over at Brad, who I can feel watching us through the glass pastry case he’s washing.

“Hey Ellie!” Brad calls out. He’s using his best “casual” voice, which is about an octave higher than his regular one. “Isn’t this such a coincidence? How we were just talking about sugar-free skim iced chais and how good they are? And now this customer is ordering a chai? What was that funny thing you were saying about them? About sugar-free skim iced chais?”

I feel my face turning red. The thing that’s fun about Brad is that he’ll say pretty much anything to anyone; this is also the thing that makes me want to throw a muffin at his head sometimes, one of those dangerously giant ones that we sell here for five twenty-five.

I turn back to the guy and make an exaggerated shrug, like, “Who is this nut? And why is he cleaning the pastry case?” But the guy who is now busy checking out his reflection isn’t paying attention to any of this, anyway—he’s too in the back of the espresso machine seems rather oblivious to all of this.

I make his drink and hand it to him.

“That’ll be three fifty please.”

He watches the muscles in his forearm as he pays me, and then turns around to walk out. He’s almost at the door, but then turns back and marches toward the counter. He’s holding his clear plastic cup up to his face. “This doesn’t taste like skim milk.” He jiggles the cup around. He stares at me, then down at the cup, then back at me. “You gave me a different kind of milk, didn’t you?”

He’s taken his sunglasses off. His face is too tan. And weirdly wrinkly. He makes this intense eye contact for a second, like I’ve been lying to him, but now that his glasses are off, I’ll finally have to ‘fess up.

“Nope,” I say. That was definitely skim.”

“You’re positive about that?” He keeps the eye contact a second too long and then holds the cup up above his head, looks at the bottom of it, as if that’s where all the fat has deposited itself.

“I’m positive,” I say. “I can make you another one if you want.”

The guy just stands there. “No,” he says. And then he raises his eyebrows like he thinks I’m trying to trick him but wants me to know I haven’t entirely gotten away with it. “But I think we both know what you’re trying to do here.” He stands there one second longer, staring, and then finally turns and walks out the door.

I wait two beats after the doors close, then I turn toward Brad. The moment our eyes meet we burst out laughing. “Oh. My,” Brad says. He’s standing up, holding the spray bottle and rag to his hip. “I thought he looked kinda cute when he first came in, but I should have known his big shiny glasses were hiding a face fullo insaneness.” Brad shakes his head slowly. “Arms like that do not come without a price.”

"Um, speaking of insaneness?" I cross my arms and raise my eyebrows.

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