The phone burned a hole in her jacket pocket. The morning coffee didn't hit as usual. Instead of feeling relaxed, she felt like a kid playing hot potato. Marc wouldn't come into  Bloomingfoods until 10. She'd have to keep the phone in her pocket until then.

Her jacket was of course...

She answered the call, eager to say 'Marc is that you.'

A loud breathing came through. She could tell it was a man from the start.

She dared not say a word. Marc was slim. She could tell this breath didn't belong to him. It belonged to a heavyset man. An older...

It still was a mystery to her.

The empty contacts list.

The only city on the weather app being Cupertino. What did it all mean?

Could mean that it was a brand new phone.

She had tried hard not to check when Marc had gotten the phone.

But ended up looking through his texts. There...

"Excuse me, miss."

Damn Elena thought. The  podcast was getting to an interesting point. She would need to resume a few minutes before. To get the whole thing setup again. You couldn't just stop and resume at the same spot. Conversations built up to a crescendo. Climaxed.

But she was at work....

It was a cold morning. Elena's skin was pricked cold during her walk to work. It wasn't a cold that chilled to the bone. The wind was like ice; the cold stayed mostly confined to the surface.

The cold had arrived sooner than expected. She had not worn her wool...

The floor lamp casted a gentle glow when he walked through the door. He had a timer set so that he would never come into the apartment pitch dark. He hated that feeling. Scary memories from childhood.

His place wasn't so homey. He could never make a place like that. His...

He went to the bar sometimes straight after work. There was a new brewery in town. He touched his bristles. coming in thick on the way there. Driving. Listening to the local radio station covering the news at 5 o clock. It was ready by a volunteer from the community...

You could give a lot of coffees on the house at  Bloomingfoods . They made  coffee in those large self serve serve containers that customers poured using a spigot. The office tracked how many containers were made and how many cups were purchased. but because employees go to drink coffee...

At the coffee shop he hoped Mari would be there. Knew she wouldn't. She probably lived someplace further out. Probably didn't make as much as Jackie. Maybe Mari lived out in Queens or Long Island. The people in this coffee shop looked hip and rich. A world Joey didn't belong...

New York city... where the girls are pretty.

Joey said this to himself for the dozenth time. He took another swig. The coffee was lukewarm now. Barely lukewarm. Could even be classified as cold. What was lukewarm even? Who was Luke?

Maybe Luke wasn't a name. Had a meaning perhaps. He might...