I directed Hadley to stand by the espresso machine. "Listen up, Jamison. This is coffee one-oh-one, take two."

She'd just arrived for her second shift at Mama Rosa's and was edging around the place like she was afraid to touch anything, keeping her arms tight at her sides. I couldn't blame her, seeing as her first shift had been nothing short of a disaster. And yet regardless of how I felt, my mother was still dead set on Hadley joining the team here.

I'd been expecting things to feel awkward and unsettling the first time I saw Hadley after I shared the more... unpleasant  parts of my family's history. But things weren't awkward. Hadley had given me the same smile she always did at lunch earlier and wasn't treating me any differently than she normally would've.

It came as a relief in a way I didn't necessarily want to admit to myself yet.

"I wanna see you taking notes," I added. "You need to memorize all this."

"Yeah, but I don't have any paper," Hadley pointed out.

I snatched a blank order pad off the counter and chucked it at her, and she managed to impressively catch it with one hand. I threw a pen at her next and that she managed to fumble with.

"Alright then," Hadley said, uncapping the pen. "Ready when you are."

"Good. Now tell me everything that you remember from what I told you during your first shift."

"That I should stick to waitressing because I'm a terrible barista."

"Okay, smartass," I said, crossing my arms. "I meant about making drinks."

"Oh."

I was a little surprised when Hadley listed off a few drinks I'd given her a crash tutorial on. 

"Not bad," I allowed. 

The smile that came over her face at the semi-praise was ridiculous.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Hadley said happily. "Thank you, Archer."

I felt my lips twitch with the unusual desire to smile. 

Hadley and I spent the next however many hours running through the list of drinks we served and how to make them. I walked her through the steps of steaming the milk, adding syrup, making espresso, and she watched everything with a look of interest on her face that never seemed to wane.

 Every so often we would have to stop when customers arrived, leaving Hadley to take their orders and ring them up while I made the drinks.

I had to give the girl credit; Hadley was good at customer service. She made polite chit chat with everyone who came up to the counter, all smiles and compliments. It seemed effortless for her in a way that had always felt like pulling teeth for me. 

Occasionally my mom would poke her head out of the kitchen to check in on us, and the third time she did this, she looked pleased as she watched Hadley ring up a customer and pour them a house brew. Not exactly a difficult task, but she at least did it without spilling anything.

When my mom met my eye, she grinned, raising an eyebrow as if to say, see? I told you hiring Hadley was a good idea. 

Then she nodded toward the tip jar on the counter, and I was shocked to find the thing stuffed full of dollar bills -- something that had never happened when I was manning the counter on my own.

I decided to put Hadley to the test when there was a lull in customers.

"Alright then, Jamison," I said. "Let's see what you've learned so far."

"What do you mean?" Hadley asked in confusion.

"I want you to make me an americano."

She went a little pale as she pulled her order pad of notes out of her apron pocket and flipped through it. "That's.... hot water and a shot of espresso, right?"

"You tell me," I said, gesturing toward the espresso machine. 

Hadley bit her lip as she scanned her notes again, then nodded, stuffing the order pad back in her pocket. "Okay. Let's do this."

I stepped to the side and watched her get to work. She moved slowly at first as she grabbed a twelve-ounce cup and scooped out the right amount of ground coffee beans. It probably took her way longer than it should have (she was right, a caffe americano was just hot water and espresso) but she did it.

"There." Hadley was gnawing on her lip as she passed me the cup of coffee with a trembling hand. "Enjoy, I guess."

I could tell she was waiting expectantly as I took a sip of the coffee. I thought about torturing her a little bit with a delayed response, but instead I went for the truth.

"Not half bad."

Hadley's eyes widened, her jaw dropping. "Seriously?"

"Well, you didn't burn the espresso," I pointed out. When she simply beamed at me, I followed up with, "Do you want a gold star for a job well done or what?" 

Hadley ignored me, clapping like a dork as she did an excited jump and managed to click her heels together like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. "Ha! I made an americano without spilling hot water everywhere!" 

I could only stare at her in either amusement or horror. Both?

"Jamison."

Hadley stopped congratulating herself long enough to give me a look. "What?"

"What will it take for you to never do... that again?" I asked, not unkindly.

Hadley's scowl lasted half a second before it morphed into an impish grin. "One of those cookies that just came out of the oven."

I gestured toward the kitchen. "Take as many as you want."

"Really?"

"Really, really. It'll be worth it to save everyone else from witnessing whatever that dance was."

"Excuse you!" Hadley laughed as she brushed past me into the kitchen, heading for the chocolate chip cookies set out on cooling racks beside the oven. 

She grabbed a cookie off the rack and took a bite, then moaned. I almost choked on my own spit hearing that noise.

"I swear, your mom makes the best cookies I've ever had," Hadley said, eyes still closed.

I cleared my throat, fixing my gaze on the ceiling. Christ. Could this be any more awkward?

"Yeah, the finest Nestle Toll House has to offer."

She kept munching on the cookie, thankfully without any more moans. My mom joined us in the kitchen a minute later, a bin of dirty dishes balanced on her hip.

"I take it things are going well?" she asked Hadley, smiling.

Hadley nodded and waited until she was done chewing to say, "Your son is a pretty good teacher."

"It's a sin to lie, Hadley," I told her seriously.

"I'm not lying!" Hadley exclaimed. "You are a good teacher. Just when you're not, you know, barking out orders like a drill sergeant."

I wondered if I should've felt flattered.

"I took lessons from my grandma, so you should be thanking her instead," I said.

"Actually," Hadley whispered, taking a step closer toward me as my mom started dumping dirty dishes into the sink. "I have a confession." 

"Which is...?"

"Your grandmother frightens me." 

I couldn't help it; the snort of amusement I'd been fighting turned into a full-on laugh, and Hadley grinned in response. The laughter was short lived, but it wasn't lost on me that it'd happened again. 

 Somehow this girl had succeeded in making me laugh for a second time.

Hadley was mid-chew on another bite of cookie when we heard the unmistakable chime of the bells on the shop door, announcing the arrival of another customer. 

"Ready to get back out there?" I asked.

"Yeah! Yeah, of course. Just let me..." Hadley's gaze darted from the half-eaten cookie in her hand, then through the kitchen doorway to the front counter. 

I wasn't sure what I was expecting her to do, but it wasn't to take another bite of cookie and promptly stuff the rest in her apron pocket for later. Hadley gave me a double thumbs up before she skipped off to greet the customer.

It took me a solid few seconds to realize that this quirky response of hers had me smiling. Why, I had no idea, but the smile was there.

I was yanked back to reality at the loud noise the mug that slipped from my mom's grasp made as it hit the sink.

"Mom?"

I moved toward her, ready to ask if she was alright, but she held up a hand to stop me.

"I'm fine," she said quickly, her voice sounding warbly. "I'm fine. Butter fingers."

I let the subject drop, although I wasn't convinced by the smile she sent my way. 

It wasn't until later that evening, when I went downstairs for a glass of water after finishing my homework, that I figured out the reason behind my mother's unusual behavior.

I didn't intend to go snooping through her cell phone, but it was there laying forgotten on the counter by the kitchen sink. I was alerted to its presence when the phone gave a cheery little ding! and the screen lit up with a new message. I leaned toward the thing automatically, wondering who could've been texting so late.

The message was from my aunt Rebecca and the message was obviously about me.

It's okay to feel hopeful things are getting better, Regina. The Lord knows you've been praying for your son long enough.

A bunch of heart emojis followed that message, and I struggled to squash the guilt I felt rising in the pit of my stomach as I unlocked the phone, anxious to read more, wondering why my mom was talking to my aunt about me.

Once I scrolled up through the messages my mom and my aunt had been exchanging for the last few hours, I very quickly found the message that had to have been the start of their whole conversation.

Regina: Rebecca, I just saw my son smile for the first time in God only knows how long. And do you know what else? 

Rebecca: What?! Tell me! 

Regina: Archer laughed

Rebecca: !!!!!!!!!!!!

Regina: He LAUGHED, Rebecca. I haven't heard Archer laugh in years — not since Rosie dropped the F-bomb in the middle of mass when she was two. 

I returned the phone to its place on the counter. It didn't seem necessary to read any more of their conversation.

Once I was back under the covers in bed, I allowed myself about two minutes to wonder what so significant about laughing. So, I laughed – big deal. What was so important about a laugh?

And now I couldn't smother was the immense feeling of guilt that quickly came after all my contemplating about laughing. I had been blowing off Rebecca for well over a month now – maybe even two – but I still couldn't bring myself to just text her back.

I ended up falling asleep trying to figure out where the disconnect was in my brain thinking that my aunt would be angry with me for not calling after all those encouraging messages she'd sent to my mom.