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Grace couldn’t say that the man who appeared to be robbing the coffee-shop was easy on the eyes, because everything about him looked hard, his dark eyes, the angle of his jaw, his broad shoulders, and that ass in those worn jeans, but she had to admit he was hot as fuck.“Hey, what d’you think you’re doing?” she called out from the table in the corner that was her regular spot, for all that a workaholic hospitalist clocking seventy-plus hours a week to pay off her student loan debt and help support her elderly parents could be said to have a regular spot for the purpose of drinking coffee; Grace made sure it was cost-effective by taking advantage of any special that was offered, including the pastries dropping to half-price after 3pm. As attempts to stop thieves went, her intervention wasn’t very impressive. She was, however, only supposed to be meeting Lauren before they went to the yoga class Lauren insisted was a good work-out and not creepily appropriative of Asian culture and yet Lauren appeared to be standing her up and Maria, the barista she knew best, didn’t work on Saturday mornings if she could possibly help it, which evidently she could, because she was nowhere in sight, unlike the undeniably gorgeous man who looked intent on ripping off Tess, the coffee-shop’s owner, who’d let her in and then told her she had to run a quick errand but would be back in twenty. Grace’s sense of ethics was balanced out by her sense of self-preservation. It would have been so much easier to have to perform CPR on the guy, but the universe didn’t seem inclined to help her out.“S’okay,” the man said. He basically tossed the words over his shoulder, which felt pretty dismissive. That got Grace’s hackles up, as Lauren would say, reminding her of every senior fellow who’d brushed off her concerns about the labs on the old lady (and it was always an old lady) or the department chairs who couldn’t remember either one of her names and called her “you” as if it didn’t matter. Hackles up, Grace was somewhat less judicious about her personal safety.“Like hell it is,” she said, raising her voice and standing up. She had her hand on her backpack, which wasn’t nearly as helpful as having it on her phone, which she could use to call the police. There was probably some mace in her bag but she’d be more likely to pull out the sunscreen and prevent him from getting basal cell carcinoma. “You’re trying to rip off the coffee-shop, you’re a thief—”“I’m not a thief,” he said. At least he turned around and stopped moving towards the cash register. “I can’t be a thief—”“You can tell that to the cops when you explain why you have all the petty cash in your wallet,” Grace said.“I’m the owner,” he said, offering a smile that was half-smirk. Like he’d gotten one over on her and she’d just agree with him because he was so goddamn attractive and it would be far nicer for this to be an awkward encounter with a frisson (or sonic boom, but whatever) of sexual tension between them, rather than an interrupted robbery.“You’re not the owner,” Grace said. “I know Tess, I’ve been coming here for over two years. I’ve never seen you before. Or heard of you.”“Sorry, I’m the co-owner. The silent partner,” he said.“That’s rich,” Grace scoffed.“Not really,” he said. “Coffee-shop’s still restaurant industry. Staying in the black is a miracle.”“I meant that you’re the silent partner owner,” Grace said.“You planning a citizen’s arrest?” he said.“What? Am I nine years old? No,” she said. Lauren could show up any time at all. This guy was hot but she wasn’t about to have a whole attracted-to-bad-boys thing happening. It frankly sounded exhausting.“So, how’s it going to play out? I’m curious,” he said. He was now behind the counter, since her repartee hadn’t been very effective as a crime-deterrent, but he wasn’t ripping open the cash register or similarly rifling through the shelves looking for a cashbox. He looked comfortable there and she couldn’t deny that if he’d slung a dishtowel over his shoulder or wrapped an apron around his narrow hips, she’d have assumed he was subbing for Maria and hoped he could make a decent café au lait with properly scalded milk.“I’ll see what Tess has to say, I guess,” Grace said. “If you try to flee—”“If I try to flee?” he repeated and laughed. “C’mon, don’t rat me out to the feds—"“Asshole,” she muttered. It was possible he wasn’t a thief but jackass was rising to the top of the differential.“How ‘bout this? I’ll tell you some shit to put your mind at ease, then I can make you something fresh. It won’t be on the house, you won’t have to worry about ripping Tess off,” he said. “I don’t do matcha lattes though.”“I don’t drink them,” she said.“Smart,” he said. “So, Tess and me, well, it didn’t work out, but we’d already started planning this place. We kept it going and managed to salvage a friendship, mostly because I do any repairs for free, or get my brother Tommy to help out.”“Nothing’s free,” Grace said.“You’re right. I lose money on the labor, but I’m a GC, so I take it out of the people who want a six burner Viking Professional when they can’t fucking fry an egg,” he said.“So, you’re Robin Hood?” Grace said skeptically.“My name’s Joel. Joel Miller,” he said.“You think I’m going to tell you my name now?” Grace said. “I’m not even totally convinced you’re not robbing the place.”“You could lie, I’d never know the difference,” he replied.“Grace,” she said. Let him wonder if it was the truth. She wasn’t going to offer up her last name.“I named the shop,” he offered.“You named this place Tesseract Coffee?” It was the reason she’d first walked in, the refreshing absence of any pun on beans or grind, the reference to A Wrinkle In Time, then finding out the owner’s name was Tess—the coffee was good and the pastries better than they had a right to be, but she would probably have hung around even if the coffee had been mediocre.“I read. And I have kids. Two daughters. I read to them. Meg’s a favorite,” he said. “And Mrs. Whatsit.”“Yeah?” If he was lying, he was running a fucking masterclass in deceit.“Sarah’s not as into it, she’s been all about princesses since she turned five, and she likes music more these days. But Ellie, she’s read the whole series about six times,” he said and he couldn’t be feigning the fond affection in his voice, the way there was finally a softness about him, in his dark eyes. “She was Aunt Beast for Halloween, that costume was a bitch to make, thank God my neighbor Marlene helped me—”“Their mom didn’t?” Grace asked. Evidently, she had decided to believe him. Evidently, she was now going to ask some questions that would clarify if he was available, like there was some scenario where this turned out to be their meet-cute in a rom-com. She hoped, more for Tess’s sake than her own, that she’d made the right call. She hadn’t managed to date successfully since she and Kian broke up when he got that fellowship in Chicago, so anything normal materializing out of this was improbable. Honestly, with her track record, they’d be more likely to end up in a zombie apocalypse dystopia, where the memory of freshly ground coffee beans and the busy gurgle of an espresso machine were nearly beyond her recall.“Sarah’s mom moved to Miami after we split up. She has her for the summers. Ellie’s mom, it’s complicated, she died when Ellie was a baby and I found out after. We’d only dated a little while, I didn’t know she got pregnant,” Joel said.“That’s a lot,” Grace said.“Yeah, I know.”“I meant, to tell a stranger,” she said.“But you’re not a stranger anymore, are you, Miz Grace?” he replied. He didn’t smile at her, but the expression in his eyes had altered, appreciative and teasing.“Just Grace,” she said. If this went anywhere, if the look he was giving her delivered on even half of what it was promising, there’d be time enough to explain she was Dr. Grace, Dr. Grace Yang, and neither the Dr. nor the Yang was going anywhere.“You met Joel, I see,” Tess said, walking in from the back, glancing over at him. He nodded. It didn’t seem like they were going to have much more of an exchange.“She thought I was robbing you,” Joel said.“Then I’m glad it was Grace and not Bill I let in early,” Tess said.“Doc here would’ve had her work cut out for her, patching me up,” Joel said.“I didn’t tell you—” Grace broke off.“The clogs are a dead giveaway,” he said. “Plus your lanyard’s hanging out of your bag. I pay attention to detail.”“You do now,” Tess said, just loud enough for them both to hear.“Yeah, well, I screwed up a lot of stuff before I figured that out,” he said. “And I don’t just mean that kitchen reno on South Cedar. Or Ellie’s bangs.”