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| When coffee, rain, and second chances brew the perfect love story ☕💕 Emma and Jake find their way back to each other in a cozy Seattle café. |
Rain was hitting the windows real hard. The coffee shop was on Pike Street and it was small. Emma Richardson stand under the green thing above the door. Her hair was kind of red-brown and wet. She shake the water off and think maybe coming back here was bad idea.
She been gone ten years. That's long time. Ten whole years since she leave Seattle and drove away in her Honda car. She went to New York City because she want to chase dreams. Now she was thirty-two years old. She come back with two suitcases and a heart that got hurt and a life that didn't work out good like she thought it would.
The door had a bell and it make noise when she pushed it open. Coffee smell was everywhere, it was warm and nice. Some stuff never change, she thought.
"Emma? Is that Emma Richardson?"
She stop moving. That voice. It was more deep now, older sounding but she know it. Real slow, she turned to look at the counter and he was there.
Jake Morrison.
The first boy she loved. The one she feel bad about most. The guy she left and didn't even say goodbye right.
"Jake," she said quiet, the word got stuck kind of.
He look different. Better even, if that could be possible. When he was twenty-two he been skinny but now he was bigger with more muscles and his face was more sharp. But his eyes were still same. Those blue eyes that was impossible and used to look at her like she was everything, they was exactly same.
"I heard you was back in town," he say while wiping his hands on apron around his waist. "Small world, I guess. Or maybe small city."
Emma smile but it wasn't a good smile. "You work here now?"
"Own it actually." His face show he was proud. "Bought it three year ago. Morrison's is the name. I know it's not creative but it tell you what it is."
"It's great Jake. Really great." She mean it too. The place was real beautiful. Brick walls that you could see, light bulbs that was old-fashioned, shelves with books and art from around here. It feel warm and like you want to stay. It was everything a coffee shop should be, everything Jake always talk about making back when they was young and thought time never run out.
Nobody say nothing for a while. Just the espresso machine making noise and other people talking quiet.
"So," Jake finally said, "what can I get for you?"
"Just regular coffee, black."
His eyebrows go up a little. "You used to drink it with cream and two sugars."
"People change," she say, maybe too mean sounding.
"Yeah," he said real quiet with something in his face she couldn't read good. "I guess they does."
Emma keep coming back to Morrison's every single morning that week. She tell herself it was just because it was close. Only two blocks from where she was living in Capitol Hill. She tell herself the coffee was really good, and it was good. She tell herself lot of things that wasn't completely true.
The real truth was she couldn't stop thinking about Jake Morrison, that was the truth.
When she come the fifth time he sit down across from her. He had two cups of coffee. One of them had cream and sugar in it.
"Thought you might want to remember who you was before," he said with half a smile.
Emma look at the cup then at him then at the cup again. Even though she shouldn't, she drink some. It taste like home. Like Saturday mornings at the University of Washington library and like late night when they study and like promises they make under stars.
"Why you being so nice at me?" she ask. "After what I done?"
Jake lean back in his chair, thinking about it. "You want the honest answer?"
"Always."
"Because I never stopped wondering what would of happened if you stayed, or if I gone with you." He stop talking and his fingers touch the edge of his cup. "And because whatever happen between us, it was ten years ago, we was kids. I learned that being angry all the time is like drinking poison and thinking the other person gonna die."
Emma feel tears starting in her eyes. "That's real philosophical."
"I had a lot of therapy," he said smiling kind of funny. "Dr. Peterson over on Broadway, I recommend her a lot."
They both laugh and just like that the ice start to break.
The next few weeks, Emma and Jake got into a rhythm that was easy. She come to Morrison's every morning and if the shop wasn't too busy Jake would sit with her for few minutes. They talk about everything and nothing. His journey to open the coffee shop, her ten years in New York doing marketing work, friends they don't talk to no more, the city they both love.
What they didn't talk about were the past, not really, not the parts that matter.
Until one Thursday in October when it was raining and the shop was empty except them two. Jake finally ask the question she been scared of.
"Why did you really come back Emma?"
She stare into her coffee. It was black again, she switch back after that first cup with cream and sugar because it feel too dangerous, too much like going back to old ways that might be bad.
"My life in New York fell apart," she finally say. "I got laid off six month ago. The guy I was dating for three years, his name was Brendan, he decided he wanted to explore other options. I found out that mean he been exploring his yoga instructor for most of a year." She laugh but it sound mean. "I couldn't pay for my apartment by myself and every time I look around that city all I could see was everything that gone wrong, so I come home."
"I'm sorry," Jake say soft.
"Don't be sorry, it's probably the best thing that could of happened. I think I been living someone else's life for long time. The big career, the fancy boyfriend, the cool Brooklyn apartment, none of it was really me." She look at his eyes. "I think I been running away from who I really am since the day I left Seattle."
"And who is you really?"
It was such simple question but it break something open in Emma's chest. "I don't know," she whisper. "I thought I knew when I was twenty-two. I was so sure about everything back then, so sure that Seattle was too small and that what we had wasn't enough and that I need more." She wipe her eyes with her hand. "I was a idiot."
Jake reach across the table and take her hand. His hand was warm and had rough spots and felt familiar in a way that make her heart hurt.
"You wasn't an idiot. You was ambitious, you wanted to see the world and make something of yourself. There's nothing wrong with that."
"But I hurt you."
"Yeah," he say. "You did, but I wasn't exactly innocent neither. I could of fought harder for us. I could of asked you to stay instead of just let you go. I could of offered to come with you."
"You had your own dreams, the coffee shop."
"Could have waited, or it could of existed in New York just as easy as Seattle." He squeeze her hand gentle. "We both make choices Emma. And yeah some of them hurt, but they also led us to where we is now. And I don't know about you but I'm not the same person I was ten years ago. I'm better, stronger, more sure about what I want."
"What do you want Jake?"
He hold her eyes and in his eyes she seen everything. The past they shared, the years they lost and the chance of something new.
"A second chance," he say simple. "If you're willing."
Emma didn't answer right away, how could she? A second chance mean risking her heart again and she wasn't sure she could get broken one more time. But it also mean possibility and hope and the chance to rewrite a ending that always feel unfinished.
"I'm scared," she say.
"Me too," Jake say. "Terrified actually, but I learned that the things worth having is usually the things that scare us most."
She think about that when she walk home that night. Rain was soaking through her jacket because she forgot her umbrella. She think about it when she lay in bed listening to traffic on the street down below. She think about it when she wake up the next morning and the morning after that one too.
And then on a Sunday in late October that was crisp and cool, she show up at Morrison's at closing time with a idea.
Jake was wiping tables when she walk in and his face get all bright in a way that made her stomach flip around.
"We're technically closed," he say, "but for you I'll make a exception."
"I don't want coffee," Emma say. "I want to take you somewhere."
"Mysterious, I like it, where we going?"
"You'll see but you need to close up and come with me right now."
Twenty minutes later they was standing on the Aurora Bridge looking out over Lake Union while the sun go down in orange and pink and gold colors. Sailboats was on the water and far away Mount Rainier was up high with snow on top against the evening sky.
"This is where you bring me on our first date," Jake say soft. "After that terrible movie, what was it called?"
"Space Commandos 3," Emma laugh. "It was so bad."
"The worst, but this," he point at the view, "this made up for it."
"I bring you here because I need you to understand something," Emma say, turning to look at him. "When I left Seattle I thought I was running toward my dreams but really I was running away from how much I love you. Loving you terrified me Jake, it still does. Because when I was with you I couldn't imagine wanting nothing else and that scared me real bad. I was twenty-two and afraid that if I choose you I'd lose myself."
"And now?"
"Now I know that losing you was losing myself. I spent ten years trying to prove I make the right choice by leaving but I didn't. I make a choice that hurt us both and I can't take it back, but if you're really offering a second chance, if you really mean it, then my answer is yes. I want that, I want you, I want us."
Jake's eyes was bright with tears that didn't fall yet. "I wanted to hear you say that for ten years."
"I'm saying it now, better late than never right?"
He pull her close, his hands holding her face with gentleness that make her want to cry. "Emma Richardson I been in love with you since we was twenty years old. I dated other people, I tried to move on but none of it ever feel right because none of them was you. So yes I want a second chance, I want a hundred chances, I want all the chances for as long as you'll give them to me."
And then he kiss her and it was like coming home and going on a adventure at the same time. It was familiar and new, comfortable and exciting, it was everything she been missing for ten long years.
When they finally stop kissing, both breathing hard and smiling, Emma rest her forehead against his.
"So what now?" she ask.
"Now," Jake say, "we take it one day at a time, no running away, no avoiding the hard stuff. We build something real together and if it gets scary we talk about it instead of running."
"I can do that," Emma say. "I want to do that."
"Good because I'm not letting you go again Richardson, you're stuck with me."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Six months go by and Morrison's Coffee Shop had a new thing. A small area with a wooden sign that say "Emma's Corner." It was fill with comfortable chairs, warm lights and shelves that had books on them. Emma officially join the business, she bring her marketing skills to help Jake expand to two more locations across Seattle.
But more than that she found what she been searching for all those years in New York. Purpose and home and love.
She was taking books out of a box when Jake come up behind her, putting his arms around her waist and kissing her neck.
"How's it going?"
"Good," she say, leaning back against him. "I think people gonna really love this space."
"They already does, just like I love you."
Emma turn in his arms, reaching up to put her hands behind his neck. "I love you too, thank you for giving me a second chance."
"Thank you for coming back," he say. "For choosing us this time."
"Always," she promise. "From now on I'm always choosing us."
Outside rain start to fall on Pike Street but inside Morrison's Coffee Shop two souls who found their way back to each other stand in the warm glow of second chances and new beginnings. The future stretch out in front of them, uncertain but bright, full of possibility and promise and good things.
Emma spend ten years learning that sometimes the life you're meant to live isn't the one you chase halfway across the country. Sometimes it's the one waiting for you at home, patient and true, in the form of a man with blue eyes who makes the best coffee in Seattle and who never stop believing in forever.
And as Jake kiss her there, surrounded by books and the smell of coffee and the sound of rain on the windows, Emma finally understand what she been running from all those years ago.
She been running from happiness, from love, from the terrifying and beautiful scary thing of letting someone truly know her.
But she wasn't running no more.
She was home and that was where she want to be. With Jake and the coffee shop and the rain and Seattle and everything that was real and true. Her heart feel full in a way it never feel in New York with all them tall buildings and busy people and fancy things that didn't matter.
This was what matter. Love and second chances and coming home to the person who know you best. The person who seen you at your worst and your best and still want you anyway. That was Jake and that was what she been missing and now she found it again.
The coffee shop was warm and outside it was cold and rainy but inside was perfect. Emma smile against Jake's lips and think about how sometimes you got to lose everything to find out what really matter. And what really matter was standing right here holding her close and promising forever.
She wasn't scared no more. She was ready. Ready for this life, this love, this man who wait for her even when she didn't deserve it. Ready to build something real and lasting and true.
Morrison's Coffee Shop wasn't just a business now, it was theirs together. A symbol of second chances and new beginnings and love that survive even when people make mistakes and run away and mess things up real bad.
Emma look around at Emma's Corner with all the books and the soft chairs and the warm lights. This was hers. This was theirs. This was home. And she wasn't never leaving again.
Jake hold her tighter and she could feel his heart beating against hers. Two hearts that been apart for too long finally back together where they belong. It was simple and complicated and perfect all at once.
The rain keep falling outside and people walk by with umbrellas and the city keep moving like cities do. But in this small coffee shop on Pike Street, time stop for just a moment. Long enough for two people to remember what they almost lost and appreciate what they found again.
Love ain't always easy and second chances don't come around often, Emma think. But when they do you got to grab them with both hands and hold on tight and never let go. That's what she was doing. Holding on to Jake and this life and this moment and never letting go again.
She been running for ten years but now she was done running. Now she was exactly where she suppose to be. In the arms of the man she love, in the city she love, doing work that matter and building a life that was real and true and hers.
Sometimes the best things in life is the ones you leave behind and then find again, she realize. Sometimes you got to go away to understand what home really means. And home wasn't just a place. It was a person. It was Jake with his blue eyes and his kind heart and his patient love that wait for her to figure out what she want.
And what she want was this. All of this. Forever.
