Once, Marcy and her had thought they found heaven. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
They would stumble through that same door, giggling and already buzzed, for that soup and coffee to pour cheap booze from their flasks in.
After Marcy died, Juniper kept coming. On her sparse free nights, she would pick up two donuts and two coffees at Dayans, and visit Marcy's grave. She didn't know what else to do except visit her dead friend and get drunk. At least it had made her a living one.
The first time she went alone, he'd asked where her “tall, obnoxious friend” was and she had burst into tears. Needless to say, it had left an impression on Ahmed. Ever since, he would pour three cups of coffee, and they would take them outside, sit on the steps in front of his shop and smoke a cigarette together.
They both enjoyed practicing their French. Ahmed complained about the weather. She complained about the girls at Pepper’s. On rare occasions he would tell stories of the village he grew up in, but never about how he met his wife, or how they left.
Juniper had seen her a couple of times. The right side of her face was scarred, just like her hands. Old burns that had healed as well as they could, leaving parts of her olive skin pink and silver, like flowers were trying to grow right underneath the surface of her skin. There was something they recognized in each other the first time they met. Like looking in a mirror.
In each other's eyes they saw something people who had survived longer than they had actually lived carried with them.
It had become a ritual. The Dayan’s were good people.
Even though Zainab would never join them, she would sometimes secretly hand her a paper bag stuffed with left overs. Other times, Ahmed would beg her to take some off his hands. They made her feel welcome. In the city Juniper had found herself trapped in, that feeling was rare.
‘Boss has been on my ass. How's everything?’ She'd been craving a friendly face. Her mind had turned to chaos since meeting the Hound, and she hated how he kept haunting her thoughts. Touching her temple, she cringed at the memory of pulling her stitches out that very afternoon. Those big blunt fingers of his were surprisingly deft. It had healed pretty well.
Standing at that counter, watching Ahmed's back while he poured their coffees, she saw a flash of green eyes in the intricate pattern of his sweater.
‘My wife smiles at me first thing in the morning and she is of good health. I am a rich man.’ He said, in tradition. A talent of his was weaving little love notes to his wife into every conversation he had.
‘How are you? You seem less inebriated than usual.’
It got a small smile out of her. Tapping her pocket where her flask was tucked away, she proved to him she wouldn’t change her patterns easily.
‘You are too young to drown your problems.’ Handing her two steaming take away cups in a carrier, he kept one for himself.
‘Getting old is not in the cards for me, Ahmed. My design is the type to burn like a match, or one of those flares they use at sea.’ She held the door open for him, which earned her a smile and a nod.
‘Always so dramatic.’ Groaning, the man sat down on the last step.
Before Juniper could open her mouth to pester him about his aging bones, he looked up at her sharply.
‘My back is not what it used to be, kid. That is my reminder of what it means to burn bright and fast. My shoulders have carried weight, my legs have walked miles, but all that earned me my kingdom.’
The man was a poet. She often wondered if he had always been like that, or if it had grown on him, like his coarser, grey hair was slowly gaining ground on his thick black curls.
‘And I’m dramatic? Do you hear yourself talking?’ Juniper took her usual spot to his left, one step lower. With three coffees between them, they blocked the entrance. She fished her flask from her pocket and held it up in a silent question.
‘Nicked this from Pepper’s office. It goes down pretty smooth.’ Twisting the top off, she waited as Ahmed took his cigarette case and pinched his thumb and pointer finger together.
‘Just a bit.’
Pouring a hefty shot in each cheap paper cup, which she knew was his actual measurement for just a bit, she leaned her back against the stone step.
‘What I am saying is, kid, the finer things in life often take tremendous effort.’
‘Everything in life takes tremendous effort.’ She mumbled, cigarette dangling between her lips as she screwed the cap back on.
‘I didn’t take you for the type to give up easily.’ Smiling, he held up his cup. ‘Santé.’
‘Santé.’ Together, they took their first sip. It warmed her insides in a way that only sitting in front of a fire could. A welcome burn, outside it was a wet kind of cold. The kind that slowly crept inside her bones and stuck to her clothes.
‘This is not giving up. I am waiting,' she said.
- Excerpt from BAD HUNTING, chapter 5. Three Of Cups.
