Venti

45 miles in 30 minutes.

"Not bad, old man", he thought to himself.

Steve paused and took a side step to the left in order to open the door for a woman pushing a stroller. She looked up at him and gave him a grateful smile.

"Thank you", she said as she maneuvered her stroller through the coffee shop door.

"My pleasure, ma'am", Captain Rodgers replied as she passed through the open door.

Steve followed her inside and stood off the side of the forming line in order to gaze upon the chalkboard containing the options for coffee above the register. The new ways of ordering coffee were lost on him and he struggled each time. Finally, Steve seemed to settle on "The Brew of the Day" and took his place at the back of the line and waited his turn. After a few minutes he stepped up to the counter and was greeted by a young woman who seemed flustered by his mere existence.

"Good morning, Captain."

"Morning ma'am. May I have a Brew of the Day, please?"

"Of course, Captain. What size would you like?"

Steve returned his gaze to the board above the young woman's head and looked for the sizing options. This was the most complexing part of his day; he was unfamiliar with the terms for the sizes even though he had been frequenting the coffee shop for a few weeks now.

"I…", he began to stutter.

The young woman sensed his hesitation and quickly rescued him,

"Small, medium, or large, Captain?"

"Large, please", Steve replied mimicking a coffee cup that could easily hold triple the amount a venti cup could contain with his hands. The young woman giggled and wrote his name on the cup that would hold his coffee and added a little heart next to it. Steve could not help but offer her a small smile as he handed her a five dollar bill. The young woman handed him his change which he deposited in the tip jar on the counter.

Steve only had to wait a few moments for his large cup of coffee and quickly prepared it to his liking. At last he was able to take his favorite seat at the bar that faced towards the large window that connected the coffee shop to the sidewalk filled with people. This was the moment the Steve had been looking towards all morning. He loved sitting with his coffee and watching the people go by the window. Sometimes he would allow his mind to wander and become lost in the never ending crowd of unfamiliar faces and other days he would pick a person from the crowd and make up an entire world around them.

Today he felt in the mood to create stories for the actors that graced his window. It took a few moments to locate a face that was not looking at a cellphone screen or in a mad panic because they were running late on their way to work. The first face that he was able to get a clear view was a man. Steve began to construct an entire world around the man, beginning with a name: Addison. Addison was an older man happily walking along at his own pace without a spare thought to the bustling world around him. Steve could easily tell from his face that he was content with the knowledge that he had experienced a life well lived and filled with love. Addison had met the love of his life and married her before the war. Too soon after their wedding, Addison had been called off to war to fight for his county and with the goal of keeping his wife safe back home. He had fought, almost savagely, for the privilege to return to his wife's loving arms and once he was home, he had never left. They had made children and built a life together and since he did not look like a man that carried the burden of losing the love of his life, Steve imagined that Addison was on his way to purchase flowers for his wife, which he did every day.

While his imagined story for Addison made him happy, it also made his heart twinge for Peggy. He tried not to think of Peggy but inevitably, he always did. Steve could not help but imagine that he and Peggy could have had a life together filled with love and children and for a brief few moments Steve allowed himself to image a life where he came home to a wife's loving embrace and the laughter of children instead of an empty apartment and a shield.

In fact, Steve was so lost in his fantasy that he nearly missed her walking by his window. She was petite with shoulder length dark hair and she was smiling… she had a smile that seemed to hit him and changed his entire world. Steve's breath caught in his chest as he watched her, entranced. Her movements were graceful and her green eyes seemed to take every sight into them at once while translating into them only the beauty in the world. Her smile seemed like it had never seemed hurt and her spirit radiated through every part of her.

Steve was so enthralled with her that he did not even realize that she was not in the room with him until she was almost out of his eye line. Before he could stop himself Steve was out of his chair and out of the coffee shop, abandoning his coffee along the way. He was on the sidewalk in second and his height allowed him to see over the sea of people. He looked frantically in the direction that he had seen her walk in but he could not see anyone that even remotely emitted the soul that she possessed. He moved in the direction in which he had seen her in the vain attempt to try and guess which path she had taken at the intersection. She was gone. Cap looked at his watch and noted the time. He tried to match the pace she had walked and timed it as he returned to the coffee shop. He noted the time that it had taken him and he came up with the time of 9:30a.m. – the time his entire world had stop and began to spin at the same time.

Steve returned to the coffee shop and purchased another coffee, complete with his name and another little heart. He returned to his seat and his window but this time he wondered what her name was and what her favorite flower could be. The hours passed him by and yet he did not notice.