Some Coffee For Your Shoes? Who: Hanna/Tasha What: Chance Meeting Where: Las Vegas, PublicUs When: Present Ratings/Warnings: Low
Hanna had few expenses despite living in a city that was founded on gambling. Sometimes she hit the quarter slots at the Circle K where she bought her gas, but she had no head for cards and didn’t see the point in standing around a craps table for hours on end. When she was still living in Chicago, she’d go with her father and brothers to the track occasionally, but that was more for quality time with her family rather than blowing a week’s salary.
What she was willing to spend money on was good coffee.
The two coffee makers she owned sat side by side on the counter in her kitchen, one for regular ground beans and the other for espresso. She’d been delighted to find a shop close to work that sold Jamaican Blue for less than she’d been able to get it in Illinois or Fort Irwin, where she’d gone through Basic. It was still an extravagance, but one she indulged in without guilt.
PublicUs opened at seven, a couple of hours before she was due to clock in, and Hanna parked her bike on the sidewalk before chaining it to the rack close to the doors. If they had sample cups, one or two of those would give her a boost for the late-morning rush.
Tasha hadn’t been to bed that night, and she was running on fumes as she entered the shop. The hunter approached the tiled counter with a tired expression and ordered a large dark roast, black, along with a warm Danish. Comfort food. She needed it.
Her mind wasn’t in the right place when the coffee was handed to her and her natural reflexes failed her. Tasha’s fingers slipped and the hot beverage fell, splashing spectacularly over her shoes once it hit the ground. “Fuck.”
Some of the splash hit Hanna’s left shoe, and she left a footprint when she shifted to the side to avoid the rest of it. The cup lay on the floor in a dark puddle, the lid having come off, and the liquid spread as the barista started to walk around to the front of the counter, headed for the mop propped in a corner next to the storage closet.
“Bad night?”
The question was lightly put. She’d slept pretty decently the night before, no murky dreams about cold rain and doglike snarls, so she was in a fair mood. There was a container of napkins on the counter, and she pulled a few out, hoping they were sturdier than the ones at Lucky’s.
“The dark color goes with the shoes, at least.”
“Long night,” Tasha answered, her gaze leaving the sad puddle on the floor to meet the other woman’s wearily. “I’m sorry,” she told the barista as the employee began mopping up. “I don’t usually…”
She trailed off, grabbing some napkins and leaning down to dab at her shoes. It was closer to the floor that she noticed the splash on the other person. “You got some of my fallout,” the musician remarked. “Shit.”
“Nah, it’s fine. They’re my oldest pair, I should have tossed them a month ago.”
It turned out to be too early for samples, but Hanna ordered a dark roast of her own, used the napkins to wipe half-heartedly at the splashes of caffeinated liquid. Made a mental note to check the thrift stores for a replacement pair of sneakers.
“You okay? You look wiped.”
The barista had finished cleaning up while another had gotten a refill for Tasha. She thanked the worker profusely and made sure to keep a good hold on this cup. Turning to the taller woman beside her, she answered, “I’ll recover. Coffee helps.” What she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say out loud is she had spent the whole night doing recon, trying to find any info about the complicated Summer situation.
It didn’t help that Tasha was completely rusty. She’d also need to hit a gym again, but that could wait until she’d actually slept. “I know some great sneaker joints in the area if you need a recommendation,” she offered.
“That’d be great. I’m still freshly transplanted, so I don’t really know my way around except for work.”
She indicated the secured bike with her free hand. They had bikes with official logo where she worked, but she’d preferred to invest in one of her own, as some of her co-workers did. Easier to maintain and you didn’t have to jockey for wheels at the start of each day.
“Where’d you move here from? Seems like there’s few ‘real’ Vegas natives around here.”
Tasha peered out the window at the bike and nodded. She knew quite a few people who did courier work as well as rideshare gigs. She gestured to an empty table in the corner. “You wanna sit? I feel like that would be safer for me right now.”
As she made her way over to the table, she added over her shoulder, “Came here from Seattle a few years ago. What about you?”
“Came up from Chicago about six months ago, still just making myself at home.”
She hadn’t decided if she’d stay in Nevada once she’d finished her mission, get a permanent place instead of the studio apartment she lived in now. She had a decent job, was starting to get acclimated, and even if she did move, the outskirts of Las Vegas weren’t that far away. If nothing else, the going price of coffee was a big plus.
“Hanna Pulaski.” Her free hand held out for a shake as she set her full cup down. No coasters. Oh, well. Maybe those were just for bars.
A hand went out to return the shake firmly as Tasha settled down. “Tasha Sloan.”
“Chicago. That’s a hike.” Tasha took a bracing sip of her coffee before tearing off a piece of Danish and dunking it in the liquid, bringing it to her mouth. She thought of her mother, the face she would make if she could see Tasha imbibing in what the older woman called garbage. Thirty-four years old and still thinking about what mom would say. She shook her head minutely.
“What brings you to Vegas, Hanna?”
“Looking for some old friends.”
She’d started a new grid on the map she had on her bedroom wall, the older part of the city. High crime rate, low employment numbers, frequent police activity. Maybe not exactly out of sight, but a good place to hide if you wanted to blend in. She hadn’t done the legwork yet, but that was for next week, or maybe the next.
“Guys I went to high school with,” she added, embroidering the lie a bit. “Our reunion was a month or so ago, but not everybody made it. Life gets too busy, I guess. I figured I’d surprise them.”
The coffee was almost too hot, and she set the cup aside. “Does it really rain all the time in Seattle?” she asked, genuine curiosity in her voice. “I’ve always heard that. Is it just a rumor?”
Something in Tasha reared up, deep inside. Intuition. Looking for some old friends, not looked, and Hanna had said she’d been in Vegas for six months. She tilted her head slightly with a smile. “Did they convince you to stay?” She leaned back in her chair, one leg crossing over the other.
“It rains a lot, but there are sunny days, too. I personally like the rain.” Tasha shrugged. “So much of Vegas is designed to make you forget where you are, and lose track of time. Sometimes it fucks with my head.”
“That’s why I stay away from the casinos,” the brunette said, tapping the black wristwatch on her left arm. “No clocks. You walk in, you could lose an entire day and not even know it unless your money runs out.”
She paused long enough to look at the Danish the other woman was gradually demolishing, got up and ordered one for herself. She’d had breakfast, but she could wrap up what she didn’t finish and eat it later.
“And I haven’t found ‘em yet,” she continued. “You’d think I was a process server or something, plus I had to make the rounds while looking for work. You’d think the gig economy would make it easier to get started somewhere, but the interview process isn’t obsolete just yet, I guess.”:
“Well, it’s a big place,” Tasha offered between sips of coffee. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, eventually.” She gave Hanna a brief but shrewd glance before turning her attention out of the window, at the bike locked up there. “I know a lot of people, so if you’re looking for something more steady, I’m not against leaving my number.”
She considered it, flashing back on Brian’s offer of help. It couldn’t hurt to get more networked in, could it? Not if she was planning to hang around afterwards, once it was over. If anything, it made her feel like a transient, having no real connections. If there was life after she finished what she’d started, she should make an effort at looking for it.
“I can text you right now, actually, before I forget.”
She waited until Tasha gave her the number, tapped in a fast text. “So what do people do around here for fun if they don’t have large amounts of disposable income? Hard to decide what to do with the weekends when most of the advertising is fixated on gambling.”
“I’m usually playing music or haunting the venues around here listening to it,” Tasha offered. “If you know where to go, it’s not a big drain on the wallet. I’m talking local talent, not the big name concerts or residencies.” She brushed away a small pile of crumbs on the table, but they just fell onto her jeans.
“Do you like music?”
“I haven’t been out to see a band in a while,” Hanna relied, her cooling coffee finally at the right temperature. “But yeah, local music is usually better than the big national acts. Fewer people to worry about climbing over me to get to the stage, y’know.”
The other woman still had that slightly frazzled look to her, but it was probably just the early hour combined with a late night. “Clubs not on the Strip itself, I’m guessing?”
Tasha stared at her coffee for a silent moment, wishing she could slip a little something in it to smooth over the rough edges of the early morning. She chuckled softly at Hanna’s mention of the Strip. “Nah, dude. That’s tourist country. I mean, this whole area kind of is, but…” She waved a tattooed hand.
“I’m a dive bar kind of girl. Dyed in the wool,” she continued, pushing her empty plate aside. “What did you do in Chicago for fun? I’m sure you could find a similar situation here.”
“I’m sort of fresh out of basic training,” Hanna said, and it was okay to tell some of it. Even with the haze of what passed for amnesia hanging over most of her final days in the Guard, what she could remember was harmless. “Went through machinist’s training, but I still owe them some time, a weekend or two a month. If I stay out here, I’ll have to report to somebody in Carson City, make different arrangements.”
Her cup was half-empty, and she considered a refill, then decided against it. One caffeine jolt was good enough before noon, no need to overdo it. “You can’t be too much younger than I am, you on a break from school?”
“No, not in school. That would be far too ambitious for me.”
Tasha’s phone buzzed loudly against the table, and she picked it up before it could vibrate straight to the floor. She had three incoming texts. She glanced up apologetically at Hanna and began thumbing through them, her expression turning to a frown. “Shit, I have to go.” The musician stood up quickly, giving Hanna a nod. “It was nice meeting you. Give me a call sometime.”
She shot the other woman a nervous smile, grabbing her empty plate and coffee cup. Tasha slid the plate onto the counter and with a final wave at Hanna, exited the coffee shop.