Since he didn't need anything else for his coffee, she settled down on a stool on her side of the counter to chat. The couple in the corner hadn't touched their half-full drinks in several minutes, but she'd refill them when it was needed.

"A cop who doesn't add all kinds of cream and sugar to his coffee? Someone must actually clean the coffee pot at your precinct. You should tell them to stop," she joked, as if the cliche about police coffeepots was her only knowledge of terrible institutional coffee instead of her reality for years.

"There's this thing called babysitting, you know. Not that I'm volunteering. Can barely keep a cat or a houseplant alive. But they exist."