Coffee or Phone

By A von Kaine

I only wanted coffee.

Not existential revelation. Not accidental trespassing into a stranger’s inner world. Just coffee.

The little Seattle Coffee Co. on the corner of Melrose and too-much-sunshine was one of the few places in LA where nobody tried to sell me anything before ten in the morning. No producer, no photographer, no “quick question” from someone with a podcast.

Just caffeine, tired people, and a barista who’d perfected the art of not caring who I was.

It was beautiful.

I had my sunglasses on, my hood up, and exactly three hours of sleep behind my eyes after a late studio session with the band. Prime Fang had been recording all week, and I was somewhere between inspired and undead.

“Large Americano for Rosita.”

“Oat flat white for Karen.”

“Plain white latte for Annie.”

That wasn’t me.

I stepped forward when the barista called, “Double espresso. Johnny.”

She slid my cup across the counter beside a black phone.

I picked up both, nodded my thanks, and moved to the far end of the café, where the sunlight hit the floorboards in long gold bars and nobody looked twice at me.

The first sip was brutal.

Perfect.

I reached for my phone to check the time.

The screen lit up.

Cracked.

I blinked.

My iPhone was not cracked. My iPhone cost more than my first car and was treated with the nervous devotion of a Victorian child. The object in my hand looked like it had survived a small war out of pure spite.

It was an Oppo.

In a faded case with a tiny peeling sticker of a colourful country flag on the back.

“Well,” I muttered. “That’s not ideal.”

No lock screen. No password. Just a notes app already open, as if the phone itself had been caught mid-thought. I should have closed it immediately. There are laws. Ethics. Basic manners.

Instead, my sleep-starved brain registered the title at the top.

Chaotic ramblings of a South African in the US of A — Substack Draft

And below that:

The Kind of Voice That Follows You Home

I stared.

Then, against my better judgment and every saintly recommendation, I read the first line.

Some voices don’t just sing. They linger. They get into your ribs and stay there like they’ve rented the space illegally and pitched a squatter camp.

I took off my sunglasses.

That sentence had no business being that good before nine in the morning.

I read the next line.

The first time I heard him sing I was sitting on the floor of my little Los Angeles apartment surrounded by half-unpacked boxes and missing home more than I’d like to admit.

The song sounded hopeful, which felt unfair considering I’d been crying five minutes earlier.

A small, ridiculous heat crept up the back of my neck.

Being the frontman of a band comes with occupational hazards. People project things onto you. Mystery. Ego. Seduction. Damage.

I’d read enough interviews and think pieces about myself to know the public version by heart.

This wasn’t that.

This felt… observant. Tender, even. Like whoever wrote it wasn’t trying to possess the singer in the song, only understand him.

I scrolled.

He sings like someone who still believes words can save him, even if he’d never admit it in daylight.

I let out a short laugh, mostly because the alternative was feeling alarmingly perceived by a stranger with a cracked phone.

“Excuse me,” the barista said, wiping down the counter. “You okay?”

“Define okay.”

She gave me the flat look of someone who had no intention of doing that.

I looked back at the screen.

There was more.

Mentions of LA being too different. Missing rooibos tea and something called a bunny chow. Missing jacaranda mornings and the kind of sky that looked honest. A line about being a romantic in secret because the world loved sincerity right up until it had to witness it.

And threaded through it all, like a pulse under skin, was him.

Not named. Not directly. But I knew.

A singer-songwriter. A voice equal parts ache and electricity. A man who sounded like he performed with one hand around his own heart.

I leaned against the counter, coffee forgotten.

Whoever this woman was, she’d taken something as ridiculous as admiration and written it with such quiet dignity that it didn’t feel like fandom.

It felt like recognition.

That was somehow worse.

Or better.

Definitely more dangerous.

Then the café door flew open so hard the bell above it gave a panicked little jangle.

A woman rushed inside like she’d been chased by bad decisions.

Red hair first. Then breathlessness. Then a muttered, “Oh no. Oh no, no, no,” in an accent that was all warm edges and home I couldn’t place for half a second before the Substack title clicked into my skull.

South African.

She stopped just inside the door and scanned the room with the horror of someone realizing they might have handed their entire soul to a stranger over a coffee order.

And there it was in her hands.

My phone.

Cradled like a relic of discovery.

Her gaze landed on me. Then on the Oppo in my hand. Then back on me.

For one suspended beat, the whole café seemed to hold its breath with us.

I lifted the cracked phone slightly.

She lifted mine.

“I think,” she said, still catching her breath, “we’ve done something very stupid.”

Her voice was softer than I expected.

I couldn’t help it. I smiled.

“That depends. Are you planning to blackmail me with my screen time report?”

A flicker of relief crossed her face. “Only if it’s terrible.”

“It’s horrifying.”

She came closer, weaving between tables, clutching my phone in both hands. Up close she looked travel-worn in an endearing way. Red hair wind-tangled, denim jacket creased from travel, and the kind of face that became more interesting the longer you looked at it.

“Sorry,” she said. “I grabbed it with my latte and only noticed when it refused to recognize my face. Which was rude, frankly.”

I laughed.

“That does sound like my phone.”

We stopped in front of each other. She held mine out. I held hers out.

A simple trade.

Neither of us moved.

Her eyes dropped to the Oppo in my hand, and I watched realization dawn in stages.

First suspicion.

Then dread.

Then a tiny, visible death.

“Oh God,” she whispered.

I tilted my head. “You’re the writer.”

She closed her eyes briefly. “Please say you did not read anything.”

I considered lying.

“I read a little.”

Her hand came up to cover part of her face. “I need the floor to open.”

“It was good,” I said quickly.

“That is not the point.”

“It’s an excellent point.”

She lowered her hand just enough to glare at me. “You were not meant to see that.”

“I gathered that around the line where my hypothetical singing voice apparently rents property inside your ribcage.”

Her entire face changed colour.

“That,” she said carefully, “was a draft.”

“A very good one.”

“A private draft.”

I softened my voice. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have read it.”

She studied me for a moment, then exhaled.

“You really liked it?”

“I liked that it didn’t sound like you were writing about a fantasy,” I said. “It sounded like you were writing about a person.”

Something gentler crossed her expression.

“That was the idea.”

I handed her phone back carefully. Her fingers brushed mine when she took it, brief but bright, like striking a match in a dark room.

“I’m Johnny,” I said.

The corner of her mouth lifted. “I know.”

“Right. Humbling.”

That earned me a proper laugh.

“I’m Annie,” she said.

“Annie.” The name settled easily. Warm, vivid.

Behind us the barista called, “Plain white latte remake. On the house, for the international phone crisis.”

Annie groaned softly. “I left the first one on a shelf outside.”

“A tragic casualty.”

“Please be serious.”

“I’m devastated.”

She shook her head, smiling despite herself, and went to collect the drink.

I should have let her leave then. Accepted the cosmic joke and walked out with a story no one would believe.

Instead I said, “You never finished the piece.”

She turned. “What?”

“The draft.” I slid my phone into my pocket. “You never finished it.”

“That’s generally how drafts work.”

“I hate unfinished songs.”

She gave me a look that said she knew exactly what I was doing.

“And what does that have to do with me?”

I stepped a little closer.

“I was thinking,” I said, “the author could tell me how it ends.”

Her brows lifted. “Over coffee?”

“You already stole my phone. We’re basically close.”

That laugh again, brighter now.

Annie glanced at the window, at the LA morning moving on without us, then back at me.

“You’re very smooth for someone who accidentally read a woman’s private writing.”

“I’m improvising under pressure.”

She pretended to consider it, but I could see the answer forming in her smile.

“All right, Johnny,” she said. “One coffee. And no snooping.”

I opened the café door for her with a small bow. “Scout’s honour.”

She stepped past me, red hair catching the light like a spark.

Then she glanced back over her shoulder.

“Also, for the record?”

“Yeah?”

“The voice does stay.”

And just like that, my whole day changed key.

💕💕💕💕

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Annie Karsten is a South African writer whose work has appeared in The Hemlock Journal and Writing Against the Grain under the pen name A von Kaine Her published short stories include “The Perfumer of Rue Noir” and “Second Growth.” She writes romance, speculative fiction, and emotionally charged short fiction, and is currently working on several new projects.