"Hello, Jim, how was your weekend?"

Jim didn't respond to the small ginger girl at the register. He walked past her to hang up his coat.

"Hungover? Ugh. This weekend I went out with Kelly and I had to hold her hair back as she hurled in a flower pot. Thank god it was empty, I would've felt dreadful if there were daisies in there."

Jim still didn't say anything. He donned his apron and began to make himself a cup of hot coffee.

Denise smiled and jabbered on about her weekend and how school had went for her the previous week. Jim only half-listened. He cared about Denise, but not about her teenage girly-girly party sleepover thingy.

She watched him screw up a lot of coffee. He did horrible things to some of it, maybe even enough to get sued for it. He used salt instead of sugar and way more than what was called for, he made one with toilet water, shoved a hairball in the next.

Denise almost choked, but Jim was in his own world, thinking and rethinking and rethinking again.

He took his break, but he didn't sit in the shoppe like he normally did. Instead he went outside, walking around the block for the entire duration. When he came back inside, he went for another coffee. Denise figured that he was just stress-brewing, because he only ever sipped half of the coffee he made.

And after a week of this strange behavior, Denise found herself in a position to address it.

"Where's Sherl --"

"Sherlock's not coming anymore."

Denise closed her glossy lips, and neither of them mentioned the name Sherlock Holmes in the shoppe again.

~End~