Milane

     Stephanie reached over and clicked the button to power down her computer. The familiar mechanical lull of the fans whirring to an end comforted her as she stretched in her office chair.  She rubbed her hands over her face, the seemingly too long day, now behind her. Work. Family. Near disasters. Things around the apartment, bills piling up.  Not to mention the aching lack of a social or love life. Exasperated as it all rolled through her head she made her way to the kitchen. The faint smell of hours old coffee beckoning her.
     A familiar peck and scrape at her window caught her attention. "Milane" she grinned the word.  From behind the half fogged window pane a pair of glittering black eyes peered back. With a grunt she lifted the window open and a big black raven hopped up onto the ledge.  From the couch her fat cat Spanky yowled in low protest, but didn't bother to get up. "Hush you." she chided the cat, who of course licked a paw and chose to ignore her.
     "Welcome back mister." She held out a hand as she always did, which the raven eye'd disdainfully before pecking at her fingertip. "I know. I know" She looked at the bird again. Longing to touch those glossy blue black feathers, but gave a sigh as she made her way to the fridge. "Filet mignon tonight?" she chirped at the bird, who responded with a hop and scrape of talons against the wood of the window sill. She pulled out the left over steak and pulled apart hunks and offered them gingerly one by one to the handsome beast on her window.  He was large, even for a raven. Feathers always pristine and darker than an oil slick. blue and green highlights sliding across the surface of them. Surreal. She imagined them warm, but slick as ice.  She was  rocked from her reverie by a low gravely sound and the bird regarding her with those dark eyes. He tilted his head, pecked her fingertip again gently and in a big rush of plumage was back out the window.

     Steph sighed, feeling a familiar since of forlorn as she watched the bird dip into the alley and disappear around the side of her apartment building. Shivering as the night filtered into the room, she stood and slammed the window closed.

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     Milane dipped and rocked on the city wind. The glow of the apartment fading behind him then blinded by the garish lights of downtown.  His hunger satisfied his thoughts roll back to Stephanie.  He composed an explanation in his head, as he had done dozens of times before. "I'm not really a Crow Steph.  I'm a human with ... a condition. I've seen you down at the bakery.  You don't know it's me because you never look up" He let out a loud caw. Even as a bird it sounded bitter and full of disdain.
     A few miles across the city, Milane landed on a brick ledge outside of an open window and peered in. Lights off, furniture empty. All of his things just as he'd left them. folded. Neat. clean and in their place.  He couldn't bare to go inside yet, so he ruffled his dark feathers and nestled down against the brick and tucked his beak into his plumage against the wind.

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     Late again, but she couldn't seem to muster up that sense of urgency that usually comes with it.  She slapped the alarm clock as the snooze went off again. In a fit of defeat it clattered to the ground and she pushed her face into the pillow. "serves you right minion of doom" Her sleep slurred words muffled by her pillow, but she drug herself out of her quilts and to the bathroom to get ready for work.
     Half an hour later, the sense of urgency found her again with a fierceness. She clambered onto the bus and pushed her way to a seat near the door. Frank was going to kill her if she kept being this irresponsible. She pushed it from her mind and tucked her long dark hair into a bun, elbowing the bag lady next to her accidentally.  She muttered an apology and shot from her seat at the next stop, hopping down the stairs.  She accidentally bumped into another stranger as she fumbled with her bag as she left the bus. "I'm so sorry."  She flushed and looked down at the toes of her shoes. "Not a problem" The mans voice was gentle and warm, but she couldn't make herself look up.  She ducked down her alley way and burst through the side door, skidding on the back kitchen's tile floor. "Frank!" She called as she tossed her bag and sweater to the side and snagged her apron from the peg. "Damn it frank! I'm in"  She didn't wait for him to respond, he'd come find her.  Instead she busied herself prepping dough and putting it to the side. braiding bread and frosting cinnamon buns.
     A deep voice from the doorway popped her out of focus "I should let you be late every day"  Franks formidable frame filled the doorway as he chuckled at her. She looked up from her work and saw all the work lined up on the counter ready to go. She flushed a bit and looked down
     "Guilt will do that to a person" She blew a strand of hair out of her face and ran over and stood on her tiptoes giving Frank a kiss on the cheek. He blushed and she swiped his other cheek with flour.
     "I'd give you a walloping if you were my girl" He said sternly, but his eyes were dancing with laughter.  Frank had asked her out once before she worked at the shop. It'd been a quick and complete disaster that ended with the two of them being amazing friends. She'd do anything for him, and he'd helped her out of more than a few tight spots.
     "You wouldn't know what to do with a girl like me"  She laughed and ducked under his arm dancing out into the front room behind the counter. She wiped her hands off on her apron and gave a polite smile to Raquel, who was doing her best to serve three pushy customers at once. Raquel flashed her best coquettish smile at the three gentlemen and poured on an abundance of charm. Soon all three of them were in good spirits and laughing warmly.  "I'll bet you even wheedle a huge tip out  of all of them" Steph gave a contrived look of dismay at Raquel, who swished her hips while making an over the top flirty face at her in response.
     "They're all the same. They just want to feel doted on and special.  I'm good at that"  She winked at Steph before slipping behind the counter again "Am I good for a break?"
    "Yeah. I've got this for awhile" Other than the three gentlemen Raquel had already served, the front of the bakery was quiet.  Sunlight poured in the plate glass windows as people passed outside.  Stephanie gazed at them.  Somewhere between a warm enjoyable empathetic connection, and the ache and quiet truth that "There could just be more than that mundane life"  feeling edging around in her mind. Something unsettling. A weird tug or war seeming to happen in herself.  She let the smell of coffee and warm bread pull her back out of her strange mix of thoughts and to the task at hand as she began setting out pastries behind the glass cabinets.

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     James walked into 'the upper crust' as he had many times before.  He stopped outside of the building, looking in quietly through the window at the girl behind the counter. He watched her eyes unfocus as she lost herself in thought, and a series of quick emotions roll across her features.  He pulled his collar up in a losing battle against the city wind, and pushed the door to the shop open. "So we meet again."  He kept his voice low and easy, so as not to startle to the woman.  She slowly peered up at him from behind the counter.  A comical moment that seemed to be nothing but waves of black hair and too big blue eyes, peeking shyly up from behind the pastry display.
     "Do I know you?" She asked slowly. James blinked slowly and had to concentrate to keep his composure.  How did she not know how beautiful she was. How could she be so absolutely shy and self deprecating. He took a breath.
     "We bumped into each other, I assume on your way here" He watched recognition light up in her eyes and that flush creep across her cheeks. All he could do was chuckle and stuff his hands in his pockets.  "I didn't come to give you a hard time. I'm kind of addicted to your bagels and coffee" He tipped his head in the direction of the bagel rack
     "Oh man.  I'm so sorry about earlier.  I was running behind...." She caught herself in the middle of the explanation and forced herself to drop it.  "Hey man. On the house.  Please" She stumbled over getting his coffee and bagel. By the time she'd wrapped it up and returned he'd already tucked a twenty in the tip jar.
     "Well that's very sweet of you Steph." His voice was easy, and deep and calm as he spoke. But he could hear his heart thudding away in his chest a mile a minute.  Then it happened again, she flashed him that brilliant smile as she wished him a great day and apologized again. Time stopped for him. For that brilliant blaze of seconds... could have been hours.  He had no idea what her last sentence had been so he just nodded and ducked back out of the door into the wind, coffee in hand.

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     Raquel came back just in time to see James leave from the counter and head back out onto the street. The bounce of his dark brown curls of his pony tail across the lapel of his jacket. Those dark eyes looking back just as he passed the window. "Someone has a crush." She said very low, and suspiciously close to Steph's ear. Making her jump and spill her own coffee across her apron.
     "You ass." She took a deep breath and tossed the apron to the side and snagged another.  "Besides, I don't know who he is. Never seen him before. "  She bit her bottom lip thinking about the exchange at the counter and the way he seemed very familiar.
     "You're absolutely hopeless.  That guys in here nearly every day." Raquel shook her head and pushed past steph to go wipe down the counter. "He's handsome, you should ask him out." Her face spread in a wide mischievous smile. "When was the last time you even got laid Steph?" She ducked as a hand towel barreled its way through the air towards her.
     "None of your damn business little one" She tried to sound stern but it came out with a bubble of laughter. "Probably far longer than I want to admit out loud" She reached up to straighten her name tag and realized it wasn't there.  She walked to her grab her coffee covered apron to retrieve it.
     "Well I might have me a date tonight" Raquel did her favorite eyebrow wiggle and held up the ten dollar tip she received earlier from one of the three customers when she'd arrived, and there were numbers and a heart scrawled in marker across it.
     "Well.. if that isn't classy" She plucked her old apron from the hamper and hunted for her tag. Nowhere to be seen. "Quell have you seen my tag?" She touched her pants pockets double checking.
     "Counter in the back covered in flower you clutz" she called over her shoulder.
     He knew her name. She lifted her hand to where the tag should be, and her fingers played at the strap while her brain fiddled with the thought. "Thanks." she said absently.

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    Hopefully I'll finish this later.  I can see the story unfolding in my noggin. but my typing skills are quickly diminishing for the night. brain turning to jello.
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