Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc

The first time Nora realised she was completely, irreversibly in love with her best friend, she was watching him make pancakes in her kitchen at seven in the morning wearing her spare set of keys on his wrist like a bracelet, because he’d forgotten them there last Sunday and hadn’t given them back, and she realised, standing in the doorway in her oversized jumper, that she hadn’t asked for them.

She had not asked for them.

Because she didn’t want them back.

Because she wanted Tom to always have a key to her flat.

“You’re staring,” he said, without turning around.

“I’m not.”

“You make a weird face when you think.”

“I don’t have a weird face.”

He looked over his shoulder. He was wearing the apron she’d bought as a joke that said WORLD’S OKAYEST CHEF, and he had flour on his cheek. She was absolutely not prepared for how that landed.

“Blueberry or chocolate chip?” he asked.

“Both.”

“Bold. Chaotic. Very on brand.”

She sat at the counter and watched him work. He moved through her kitchen the way he moved through everything — unhurried, capable, oddly graceful. He knew where the mixing bowls were before she’d shown him. He’d just… found them. He’d integrated himself into her life the way good music did, until you couldn’t remember not knowing it.

“You were up early,” she said.

“Couldn’t sleep. Your upstairs neighbour was doing something suspicious at six AM.”

“He does yoga. He’s very enthusiastic about it.”

“At six in the morning?”

“He’s also enthusiastic about mornings.”

Tom made a face of profound disgust and she loved him so much she thought she might combust quietly into the kitchen tiles.

He slid the first stack across the counter. She poured the coffee. They sat side by side on the bar stools the way they always did, shoulders almost touching, the Sunday stretching out ahead of them like a gift.

This was their ritual. It had started after her breakup — he’d shown up with a bag of groceries and hadn’t mentioned Marcus once, just made her pancakes and put on a documentary about cephalopods. They’d fallen asleep on her sofa. He’d been back the next Sunday. And the next. It was just what they did now.

“Tom,” she said.

“Mm?”

She looked at the flour on his cheek. At the keys still on his wrist. At his hands around his coffee mug.

“Nothing. These are really good.”

He bumped her shoulder. “I know.”

She was a coward. She knew it. But she was a coward who got to sit next to him every Sunday morning, so she was choosing her battles.

Two weeks later, she came home to find he’d rearranged her spice cabinet into alphabetical order and left a note that said ‘I found the basil behind the radiator. This was a cry for help.‘

She laughed so hard she cried, and then she called him, and he picked up on the first ring.

“Did you find the note?” he asked.

“I found the note.”

“Are you going to tell me what you were thinking about last Sunday?”

Long pause. Long, rattling pause.

“Come over,” she said.

“I’ll bring blueberries,” he said.

He brought blueberries. He brought himself. He had already had her key for three weeks.

She gave him her spare toothbrush before he even asked.

So you made it to the end… which probably means you’re the kind of person who enjoys a little romance with their coffee. If you’re in the mood for more stories about messy feelings, stubborn attraction, and women who absolutely refuse to settle for boring love, you can find all my books here.

Fair warning though. One story tends to lead to another. I’ve seen it happen. Repeatedly.