Nanowrimo 2020 Day 4 - Word Count and Favorite Bit (Patreon)

Today I added 1934 words to Match.God, making my current total word count 9000! 

Despite her distrust of basically everything that was happening, Hannah found herself sleeping far better than she had in months that night. She figured she could chalk it up to exhaustion, but she had to admit that the beds were also extremely comfortable. She was also grateful for the bonus en suite bathroom. She’d shared bathrooms with upwards of ten girls in college, and she was not keen to do anything remotely like that again. Holding in a morning pee was literally the worst. Zero out of ten, would not recommend.

The smell of fresh coffee wafted up the stairs, beckoning Hannah like the call of a siren to a sailor. She found Clara and Lamia already in the kitchen, standing at the island counter while they sipped their coffee and munched on plate of pastries. Giotto was manning some complicated looking coffee machine – an espresso machine, maybe? – pumping out yet another cup of coffee in the time it took Hannah to remember everyone’ names from the day before.

“Good morning, Ms. Kim,” Giotto greeted politely. “Might I tempt you with a fresh cup of coffee?”

“Yeah, sure,” Hannah said, brain still not fully functioning yet.

“Excellent. Would you prefer a latte or a cappuccino? Or perhaps you prefer a simple espresso?”

Hannah blinked tiredly at Giotto. Is this what they called spoiled for choice? “Uh…I don’t know. Whatever you wanna make, I guess?”

Giotto frowned, and Hannah could feel his disdain from across the room. Great. Just what she needed. She shuffled over to Clara and Lamia, grabbing a croissant from the plate of pastries. She shoved it in her mouth to avoid having to answer any more questions from Giotto.

Clara smiled brightly. “Good morning, Hannah. Did you sleep well?”

Hannah nodded, waiting until she was done with her bite of flaky French pastry before replying fully. “Better than expected. How long have you guys been up?”

“Not long,” Lamia said. “I woke up because I heard the delivery driver honk. That was…maybe an hour ago.”

Someone had honked? Hannah really had slept like the dead, then, because she’d been totally unaware of anything up until maybe five minutes ago when her bladder yelled at her to get up.

“I’ve been up since about sunrise,” Clara said, pointing out the window with her coffee cup. “I grew up on a ranch, you see. So I’m used to getting up with the sun and getting chores done before the Texas heat decided to be a real bitch.” She looked over to Giotto. “If you pardon my French.”

“You are pardoned,” Giotto said permissively. He slid a black ceramic cup across the counter to Hannah at this point. “Here you are, Ms. Kim. Un cappuccino.”

It mainly just looked like a cup of foam, but Hannah wasn’t about to say that. She took the cup with a muttering of thanks. She took a sip, her tongue hit first with the sharp bitterness of espresso, and then soothed with the smooth sweetness of steamed milk.

“How do you find it, Ms. Kim?”

Hannah glanced Giotto’s way, finding him staring at her in some kind of anticipation. It made Hannah kind of uncomfortable. Was he really that eager for feedback on his coffee? From her?

“It’s good,” she said honestly. “Back home I just got the dregs of whatever Halmeoni made that morning. This is like drinking gold compared to that.”

Giotto’s expression wavered in a way Hannah couldn’t read. Did she say something she shouldn’t have? She’d been doing that more often lately.