The raindrops dribble down the shopfront panes while back behind the counter the barista drips her own creation in handled earthenware cups. He's always liked the tables here, the way they're cut with thick pine tops and sturdy legs two inches thick, like they were made to last for longer than a coffee's caffeine buzz, and sipping his drink he greets the grainy dregs with sifting teeth, the neural background beat of study music pulsing in his ears. She used to sit here with him before the year when all went wrong and he had found she'd met someone else she'd rather sit, and lie, with more than him, but he had kept on coming after his night-shift out of habit, drumming his fingers on the counter and perfecting the lie that she was busy with work. But now he'd get his coffee black.
The rain was unexpected, but so was her leaving him, and though he'd suspected her discontent he never though it'd hit the fan the way it had, but then again he also never thought his hair would grey or his eyes would cloud, or that there'd come a day when he was sixty-four without a ring, so what's some rain.
Confident that it's able to hold his weight, he rests his wrinkled elbows on the tabletop, and staring outside he knows now why he's always loved these pine-top tables.