Time plays funny games…
Henry remembers the café, even though this technically marks his first visit. A lovely place full of warm people who don’t know him. Yet. And only some of them will remember. Or maybe they won’t. Henry can never be sure.
But every time he comes to the café, he must complete his job. Failure means disaster in ways difficult to anticipate. Every job hinges on paying very close attention to details.
And on the precision of the single moment of time.
HENRY BACK FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE CAFE is available to read for free until the 15th of January, when another story will be posted. For readers who would prefer to read on a device of preference, or who would like their own personal eBook of this story, you can find it here.
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Henry Back for the First Time at The Café
A Café Story
Henry checked his watch as he pushed into the café next to the small bookstore. Wrist watch this time. Analog, with a ticking minute and hour hand in silver, dashes instead of numbers, and a small date box that showed the date as the 22nd of February. A nice date. Lots of twos. The wrist watch was a nice watch with a black leather band and a marbled black base behind the clear crystal. He wondered about the small scratch in the crystal over the watch’s face. Didn’t that happen later?
But, no, the last time he’d had this watch, that scratch had been there. Or had it? Sometimes it was hard to tell. Maybe this was the first time he’d had this watch. Keeping track could be difficult.
The café was an old favorite, even though this was his first time here. He did remember that as he stepped inside and breathed in the rich smells of coffee and pastry. Agnes sat at her usual table in the center of the café, reading a collection of erotic poetry and sipping a cup of tea. Frank was in the back of the café, typing his crime stories into his computer. Henry knew he’d read a few of Frank’s books at this point, but he couldn’t remember if they’d been written yet or not.
Jamar sat in the corner by the front window, softly strumming some chords on an acoustic guitar. Boo, the huge gray Maine Coon cat had not yet left his stool by the register to join Jamar. Nina, the proprietress of the café, was behind the counter working at the large espresso machine, preparing a drink for a young man standing at the counter, looking at his cellphone screen.
Yes. Henry remembered this moment even though he hadn’t been here yet. This was a lovely café. The atmosphere warm and welcoming. He’d been glad for this moment, glad to know he’d return here after this visit.
The moment he was here for this time was still a few minutes away. He thought he might like a cappuccino this visit. As he recalled, Nina made a very nice cappuccino.
Once the young man had moved away from the counter with his coffee, his attention barely leaving his phone’s screen, Henry stepped up to the counter and smiled.
Nina smiled back and ask, as always, “What can I get you?”
“Today, I’ll have a cappuccino.”
“And if it wasn’t today?” she said with a wink as she moved toward the machine.
The comment startled Henry, because this was the first time they’d met, and she hadn’t started to realize they’d met before until later. And even later, she wasn’t sure. Time, and his job, was a funny thing. Nina was a witch, and therefore aware of time’s oddities. It was one of the reasons he loved this café. Oddities were…welcome.
Then he realized she was just teasing because of the way he’d requested his drink and said, “If it was a month ago, I might order a tea. In two weeks, it might be a latte.” Those were, as it happened, his orders for those dates.
Because this was his first time here, he made the effort of asking names. Knowing them later required he do this now. Nina introduced Boo, who gave him a lazy yawn before jumping off his stool to join Jamar, who’d started playing a song on his guitar instead of just practicing chords.
“And the young musician? He’s here often now?” He remembered at the last minute to make that a question instead of a statement.
“Jamar is very talented and he and Boo get along like a house on fire,” Nina said with a chuckle. Then she gave Henry a narrow-eyed look.
He raised his brows at her as he took his coffee mug in hand and inhaled the deep, milky roast espresso scent.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m having a moment of déjà vu.”
“I understand. I get that a lot.” He winked and crossed the café to a seat near the open wall separating the bookstore from the café. He didn’t have to get Agnus’s and Frank’s names on this visit. He got those another time. Maybe the visit a month ago. That was probably why he’d ordered tea, though he couldn’t say for sure.
He checked his wristwatch again. The leather wristband was comfortable and snug around his wrist, but he did find he preferred the pocket watches. They appealed to his aesthetic more. Still, this was a good watch. Not the worst.
This one made him nervous, though.
He sipped the cappuccino and savored the milky foam. Shame he wouldn’t be able to finish it. The second hand on the watch moved rapidly, in a jerky motion that looked strange compared to the smooth movement of the rest of the watch. Even the change in dates was smooth, a single click and the new date appeared next to the small bead with the month’s abbreviation on it.
Time falling into place.
The bell over the door rang. An older man in a black suit walked in. A suit not that dissimilar to the one Henry was wearing this time. Though he preferred a vest with his. The man had a tie but no vest. His tie was red, his shirt white. Very sharp and clean. Very stern looking. He glared around the café, his gaze stopping on Henry, and his mouth flattened. Then he walked to the counter.
Nina served him with a strained smile. The man made her uncomfortable, and Henry couldn’t blame her. He never smiled, which would have been fine. Except his expression wasn’t neutral. He glared at Nina. At Boo and Jamar where they were still quietly rocking out, as the kids say—or did they now?—to Jamar’s quiet guitar strumming. The man faced the café and glared at the other patrons. But he particularly glared at Henry.
Henry was sitting in his usual spot after all.
The man snatched his coffee up off the counter and went to sit by the front window near the door. He looked very unhappy about it, but he settled stiffly into one of the wooden chairs at the small round table. Nina hadn’t replaced half the tables and chairs with comfortable seats and couches yet. Henry couldn’t remember when that happened. He thought this was a time close to her opening. But not so close that he wasn’t here a month ago.
The man gave the café one more glare, then pulled out his cellphone and starting tapping it with such aggression, Henry worried he’d break the screen.
Henry glanced at his own watch. The second hand ticked rapidly around the circle of slashes that represented numbers. The minute hand ticked over.
The younger man who’d been at the counter when Henry came in stood abruptly, scraping his chair across the wooden floor, a noise which drew half the café’s attention. The other half ignored the sound. The chair didn’t tumble over, but only because the wall was behind it and stopped it. The young man rushed toward the bookstore, his face still in his phone, looking both panicked and hopeful.
But also not looking where he was going.
He slammed roughly into Henry’s table. Sent the table skittering into Henry’s stomach, which knocked the air out of him momentarily. His cappuccino mug rocked and rolled. Then coffee spilled across Henry’s lap, the coffee still hot enough to sting, and the bowl-shaped mug tumbled to the wooden floors. Shattering so loudly everyone in the café turned to look this time.
Everyone except the man sitting by the window still scowling at his phone. Henry watched the man by the window long enough to make sure he didn’t look over. Then turned his attention to the young man who’d just slammed into him.
The young man’s eyes were wide, his pale skin paling as he stared down at the mess he’d made. “Oh shit. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t even see the table. I’m…sorry. I was looking at my phone. Here, let me…” He looked around.
Nina hurried up with a clean dish towel and a broom and dust pan.
“Sorry,” the young man said to her as well. “I wasn’t watching what I was doing.”
“It’s not a problem.” Nina smiled kindly as she handed Henry the towel. “Accidents happen.”
Henry nodded. “Please, don’t worry yourself,” he said to the young man. “I’m not injured and a little spilled coffee never hurt anyone.”
Which wasn’t precisely true. But it was what the young man needed to hear.
“Did I break anything besides the mug?” He looked at Henry’s watch. “It’s cracked. Did I do that? I’m so sorry.”
Henry waved away the concern. “It already had the crack.” That was right. This wasn’t the time when the watch had been cracked. He’d forgotten that other time.
Henry glanced again at the man by the window. He still hadn’t glanced up from his phone. The second hand on Henry’s watched tick-tick-ticked.
“Can I… Can I at least buy you another drink?” the young man said. His dark hair was messy around his pale face, but color was coming back to his skin now. He was tall, lanky, but he’d fill out soon. His dark eyes were no longer as wide as they’d been when he’d first crashed into Henry’s table.
As he rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable and guilty, Henry smiled. He was a good young man. “Accidents happen,” Henry repeated what Nina had said, giving her a wink. “You don’t need to worry about replacing my drink. You seemed like you were in a hurry anyway, and I wouldn’t want to slow you down.”
“Yeah. I… I’ve just found out I got a job interview. I need the job. So I was heading home to get ready. I should have been watching where I was going.”
Henry gave the young man’s hand a pat. “You will next time. Good luck with the job interview.”
“You’re sure I can’t replace your drink?”
The minute hand on Henry’s watch ticked over again.
“No. I’m fine. I needed to go soon anyway. You go get ready for that interview.”
“Thank you.” The young man looked at Nina. “Sorry again.”
She waved him away.
The young man hurried into the bookstore, and left through the bookstore exit after stopping at the counter to pick up a book he’d placed on hold. A computer programing book, if Henry remembered correctly.
The man by the window looked up then, finally glancing toward Henry and Nina as Nina swept up the broken pieces of porcelain. The man at the window’s scowl deepened. He watched Henry dab coffee from his shirt, the brown stain against Henry’s white shirt obvious.
The man let out a breath and gave his head a little shake. “I usually sit there,” he said to Henry. “I would have been pissed if someone had spilled a drink over me.”
Henry waved a hand. “That’s what drycleaners are for.”
The man gave him a shrug, then turned back to his phone, ignoring everyone again.
Henry smiled faintly to himself.
“You sure you don’t want another cappuccino?” Nina asked, her gaze moving between Henry and the man at the window seat. “On the house for not causing a fuss.”
Henry chuckled. Then he looked at the pocket watch in his vest pocket. Oh, he liked this one. It had a tree of life etched into the gold casing. This was a fun one. He rose. “I have to go anyway. But thank you for the delicious coffee.”
“You’re welcome.” Her gaze went back to the man by the window, then toward the bookstore where the younger man had disappeared.
“He’ll get the job now,” Henry said. “And he’ll find a glitch in some software that could have started a cascade effect that would have gotten people killed.” Henry nodded toward the man at the window. “He owns a drug manufacturing company. They’ve been having trouble replacing one of their computer programmers. They’ve been updating software for a vital part of the system, and the man in charge of that process just quit without notice for personal reasons. Without the right person in that job, the new software will glitch and result in several batches of drugs with wrong dosages.”
“Deadly dosages,” Nina said, or guessed. But she was a witch, so Henry wasn’t surprised she caught on quickly.
He nodded. “The man by the window is very fond of that suit. And he’s in a temper today. A temper that would color his decision-making process.”
“And he wouldn’t hire the person he really should hire because that person accidentally soaked his favorite suit in coffee.”
Henry smiled as he rose from the table. “Thank you very much for the cappuccino. It was delicious.”
Nina tilted her head and gave him a look again. “Have we met before?”
“Technically? No. This is the first time.” Which was true even if he was going to be here a month ago. That was the second time he met Nina.
She gave him a little nod, her eyes narrowed. She glanced at the man by the window again. Then back at Henry. “Well, I hope we’ll see you again.”
“You will.” Henry glanced at his pocket watch. “I have to go now. But I look forward to our next meeting.”
“Yeah,” Nina said, leaning on her broom handle as he walked away. “Me too.”
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Thanks for reading HENRY BACK FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE CAFE! I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like your own personal eBook copy of this story, you can find it for sale here. You can also peruse the previous Café stories that are individually available for sale here.
If you've missed any of the previous Cafe stories, including Henry's first appearance at the Cafe--which was obviously not his first time there *grin*--you might consider picking up STORIES FROM THE CAFE: VOLUME ONE available in eBook, Print, Large Print, and Hardback Editions!
And look out for the second volume of STORIES FROM THE CAFE releasing on January 21st! The eBook is available for preorder now and the paperback editions will be up soon!
And don’t forget to check back on 15th for the next Free story from The Café! Thanks again for reading! Happy New Year!
HENRY BACK FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE CAFE Copyright © 2026 Kat Simons
All Rights Reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.