I hated coffee.

Really, I did. Hot, iced, espresso, frappe-whatever, you name it.

I didn't even like the smell of it.

All of that, of course, was very inconvenient, seeing as my mother opened up a coffee shop when I was 13. I knew in her own weird way it was how she dealt with my dad leaving, but I still didn't understand why she couldn't have just taken up pottery, or knitting, or something a normal 40-something year old woman would do.

Instead, she had Beans, and I spent every afternoon after school sitting at the same corner table, wedged between the foggy window and the wrought-iron cart that held mason jars of sugar packets and straws. That table had been the pinnacle of everything negative about my time on Finnick Island, where I'd lived out my entire high school career labeled as "that angry girl Jayden Calhoun dates." It saw eight final papers and AP exams, three college rejection letters, to two broken cell phones, and one badly written obituary for a dead friend.

By the time I was 17, I hated that place, and I still hated coffee.

So needless to say, finding myself back at that stupid corner table, with a cracked iPhone and the smell of coffee infecting my senses like the plague, was dismal at best. Nothing had changed. Old fishermen's nets that my mom had nicked from the docks hung haphazardly from the ceiling, and the deep brown wooden walls were still covered in old, faded photos of Finnick Island that we'd dug up from the library archives. She even kept the original register that came with the shop, complete with its analog screen and sticky buttons.

Nothing had changed, but it felt small and cramped at my corner table. Almost as if being in the outside world beyond Finnick Island had stretched and expanded me so that I no longer fit here.

"This espresso machine is pretty complicated," my mother said as she clipped back her mess of dark hair. "And you have to really press hard on some of these buttons, and sometimes this handle gets stuck."

She smacked the top of the machine as it sputtered and hissed out steam. I heard a clank from behind the counter as the metal cup for foamed milk clattered to the floor.

"I'm sure I can figure it out," I replied with a wave of my hand. "Where'd you put the manual?"

My mother scrunched her face up. She darted from the register to the other side of the counter and back towards the espresso machine, pulling open drawers and shuffling through papers piled next to the stack of cups by the back door. "Well...I guess I threw it out."

I dropped my phone onto the table. "You threw it out?" I hissed through my teeth. "Why would you throw it out?"

"Well, I don't need it," she shrugged. She clipped and re-clipped her hair back, still a mess from fluttering back and forth behind the counter like a moth trapped behind glass.

"And you didn't think that maybe other people who work here might want it?" I quirked an eyebrow at her.

She laughed and shook her head at me. "Well, Delilah already has it figured out, and you're also the only 21 year old girl I know who reads manuals, Kennedy Marie."

"And you're the only coffee shop owner I know who can barely operate an espresso machine," I snapped back.

Even though we opened at 7 AM, the little bells on the door didn't signal the arrival of customers until almost 8. A burst of morning light came spilling through the open door, and a small gaggle of young women in different colored puffer coats and variations of Doc Marten boots came traipsing in.

Finnick Island was a (literal) stones throw away from Anchorage, so all the travel bloggers and social media tourists who wanted cute, aesthetically pleasing photos of "real" Alaska while still having easy access to civilization came to Finnick Island. It was always easy to distinguish them - they were the ones who failed to learn before their trip that Alaska did in fact have some mild variation of summer; the sweat that collected on their foreheads under their beanies was proof positive.

"Hey, can you get back here and help out?" My mother gave me her best customer service smile. The kind that crinkled the skin in the corners of her chocolate brown eyes and emphasized the apple-red flush of her cheeks.

"Well, you know I would..." I casually twirled a lock of my own dark hair around my finger. "But someone threw out the manual to the espresso machine, so realistically how much use could I be?"

The smile was gone and replaced with her infamous mom glare - narrow eyes, scrunched forehead, and a wagging "come hither or else" finger.

"Register. Now."

She retreated to the back office before I even had a chance to argue my case.

I grabbed a spare apron that was draped over the counter and tied my hair back into a loose ponytail before I started taking the giggling girls' orders. To nobody's surprise they all ordered the most sugar-laden, least coffee tasting item we had, then retreated outside where they stood around and took each other's pictures.

I went to wash out a used glass when my mom came up beside me and bumped her hip against mine.

"Come on, you can't tell me you didn't miss this," she said with a grin.

"Oh yeah," I replied with an eye roll. "This is exhilarating. So rewarding. I feel like a new woman."

"Well if you're so bored, you can take a look at these and start figuring out what our budget will be for this month." She dropped a manila folder in my arms. I took it to the back counter, and immediately felt a headache start to form as I thumbed through unorganized statements and documents. I was halfway through sorting them by date when the bell on the door rang.

"I'll be right with you," I called over my shoulder.

"Kenny?"

My heart took a nose dive straight into my stomach. I knew his voice, deep and hoarse like gravel under tires, but I also knew the way he said Kenny, since he was the only person who called me that. A lump formed in my throat as I turned and faced him. Grey Fischer, in his baseball cap, dirty t-shirt wearing glory, with only a counter separating us. He reeked of cigarettes and motor oil, and a rush of blood went straight to my head.

Grey had always been attractive. Not the goonish, jock-type attractive like Abercrombie models or football players. He had a refined, more rugged attractiveness to him, with his messy dark hair that contrasted with his light eyes, and a perpetual half-smirk on his face that always made him look like he was up to something. Something bigger and better than all of us. He was the one we all knew would leave and never come back, which is why the sight of him in front of me now flabbergasted me. He was the last person I expected to see here, which didn't help the fact that he was also the last person I wanted to see.

The years had only accentuated his attractive features, and the added strain his broad shoulders put on his t-shirt, and stubble that covered his stout jaw line didn't help. I brushed my hands on the front of my apron and took a breath to steady myself before addressing him.

"Grey Fischer." I tried to sound bored. "You're still here?"

"Don't sound so disappointed." He gave me that half-smirk, and it threw my stomach for a loop.

"I'm not disappointed," I snapped. "I'm just..surprised."

And mortified. Totally mortified.

"Yeah...me too," he said with furrowed brows. "I mean, to see you here, that is."

He couldn't mask the annoyance in his voice, but I couldn't blame him. I wouldn't want to see me here either. I brought back a whirlwind of hurt and bad memories.

"You still take your Americano black?" I asked. I hated that I still knew his order, and I fiddled with the espresso machine to keep my eyes away from his. Now seemed like the best time to get a crash course on how to use the damn thing. I could hear him tapping his fingers on the counter, and the silver ring he always wore on his pointer finger clattered against the laminate.

"Yeah," he gave me a curt nod. "You still putting salt instead of sugar in people's coffees?"

I didn't realize my hands were shaking until I went to pour the espresso into the cup. "That depends, are you still an insufferable know-it-all?" I shot back.

"Well, some things never change." He shrugged.

I slammed the cup down in front of him, sending hot little drops of espresso flying in every direction.

"Then I guess it's a good thing I did," I said with a grimace. "Here's your salt-free Americano. Goodbye, Grey."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "You don't want me to pay for it?"

"If it gets you out of here faster, then no." I shooed him away like a fly.

He responded with a groan and an eye roll. "Nice to see you too, Kenny."

"Don't call me that!" I yelled after him as he walked out the door.

My summer home just went from bad to absolute hell. After all, I didn't expect my nightmares to materialize in living, breathing form.