Harbour Lights – Part 2: The Morning Boat

The sofa in the back room was too short for Jonas and smelled faintly of cinnamon and old books. He woke at dawn with one foot over the armrest and a blanket Elin had clearly tucked around him at some point in the night, and for a moment he lay still, listening.

The café was quiet. Somewhere out on the Elbe, a ferry horn sounded, long and low.

He found Elin in the kitchen, barefoot, her hair tied up in a cloth, standing over a pot of milk and a bag of cardamom pods.

"Did you sleep?" she asked, without turning round.

"Badly, and very well," said Jonas. "Your sofa is a crime against the human back."

"It's a family heirloom."

"Then your family should be ashamed."

She laughed and turned, and held out a mug of spiced tea, and he took it with both hands, the warmth of it soaking into his fingers.

They drank it at the counter, watching the harbour wake up. Fishermen loaded crates onto the quay. A tram rattled along the waterfront. A seagull sat on the rail outside the window and looked in, as if it had been invited.

"I have to decide something today," said Jonas, after a while.

"About the flat in Stuttgart?"

"About the flat in Stuttgart. About the job I've been offered in Hamburg, measuring every bridge on the Elbe for the next three years." He turned the mug in his hands. "The job would mean moving here. And I've been running from every place I've ever lived for so long, I don't know what it feels like to stay."

Elin set down her tea. "Can I ask you something?" she said.

"Yes."

"Would you stay, if the place wasn't a flat, but a café on the quay with a terrible sofa and a very annoying owner?"

Jonas laughed, short and surprised, and then looked at her fully, his face open and serious.

"Yes," he said. "I would. But only if you say yes too, Elin. Not because I'm sitting in your kitchen at dawn. Because you want me here."

Her eyes were bright. She didn't look away. "I want you here," she said. "Not only at dawn. On the bad days, when the rain won't stop and nobody comes in for coffee."

"Then I'll be the one who makes the coffee," said Jonas. "I'm very bad at it, but I'm willing to learn."

"You'll burn the milk."

"Then you'll teach me to stop burning it."

She set her mug down on the counter, very carefully, the way she did when she was nervous and trying not to show it.

"Jonas," she said. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to kiss me again, here, in the kitchen, with the seagull watching? Because I'd like to remember this morning properly, not as a night that got away from us."

He stepped closer, slow and steady, and set his own mug beside hers.

"Yes," he said. "And if you want me to stop, I'll stop, and I'll go and buy you a new kettle, because you clearly need one."

She laughed, and rose up on her toes, and he bent his head to meet her, his hand coming up to cradle her jaw.

The kiss was warm and unhurried, tasting of cardamom and sleep. It was not the frantic kiss of a night that might end. It was slower, calmer, the kiss of two people who had decided to stay for breakfast.

"Green?" he asked, when they parted.

"Green," said Elin, smiling against his shoulder. "Very green. Now go and fetch the chairs from the back room, and I'll make the coffee. And you'll watch me, and learn, and try not to burn the milk."

"I'll try," said Jonas, and went to fetch the chairs, and through the window the first ferry of the morning sailed slowly past the quay, its horn sounding a long, gentle goodbye.