Chapter 146 Almost the Perfect Fit
The warm air of Didi Cafe wrapped around Veyra the second she stepped inside. The savory scent of hot pizza carried straight over to the counter, blending with the rich aroma of ground coffee beans and sweet cinnamon syrup. Soft jazz tunes hummed gently from the overhead speakers, and a small handful of regulars were scattered across the wooden tables, casually reading the afternoon news or tapping away on laptops.
Veyra set the two warm, heavy boxes down on the front counter. The moment Mia noticed them, her eyes lit up with instant delight.
"You weren’t joking! You actually brought pizza," Mia said, leaning over the counter.
"A promise is a promise," Veyra replied, flipping the cardboard lids open. A fresh cloud of scented steam drifted into the air, revealing bubbling cheese and slightly crisp edges. "One classic pepperoni and one margherita, straight out of Clara’s oven."
Without missing a beat, Mia reached in and grabbed a slice of the margherita. She took a big bite, closing her eyes in pure bliss as she chewed.
"This is unbelievably good," Mia murmured, talking with her mouth full.
Veyra couldn’t help but laugh at her reaction. "I am really glad you like it."
Mia swallowed, wiping a stray drop of tomato sauce from her chin with the back of her hand. "Take a seat at the corner booth. I’ll squeeze us some fresh orange juice."
She ducked into the back prep area, the mechanical buzzing of the juicer whirring for a few minutes. When she returned, she set two chilled glasses of bright, sweet juice on the table. As she sat down, her eyes drifted past Veyra toward the front entrance.
Leon Wei stood near the glass door, his tall frame still as a statue, arms folded over his chest with his usual expressionless gaze.
"So, does your boyfriend want a slice of pizza too?" Mia asked, nodding casually toward him.
Veyra took a quick sip of juice and almost choked, coughing slightly into her napkin. "He is definitely not my boyfriend."
Mia blinked, looking genuinely surprised. "Oh, sorry. I just figured since he follows you around—"
"He is my bodyguard," Veyra clarified quickly, setting her glass down.
Mia’s dark eyes went wide. "A bodyguard? Wow."
"It’s a long story."
"Fair enough," Mia said with a light chuckle, not prying any further. "Well, he is more than welcome to grab a slice if he gets hungry. There is plenty to go around."
Veyra smiled softly. "I’ll make sure to let him know."
They settled into the cozy booth near the front window, the warm pizza resting between them alongside the icy glasses of juice. Veyra picked at a slice of pepperoni, her mind turning over an idea she had been harboring for days. She was trying to figure out the best way to bring it up without sounding too eager.
"Mia," Veyra began, keeping her tone light. "You have been working in food service for a while now, right?"
Mia nodded, resting her chin on her hand. "About two years here at Didi. Before this, I worked a night shift at a bubble tea shop, and way back in high school, I was at a neighborhood bakery."
"So you basically know how a place like this operates inside and out?"
"I know how to keep a shop from falling apart, that’s for sure," Mia said with a sharp laugh. "I actually ran this entire cafe for a couple of months over the summer. The owner went on an extended trip out of state and left the keys with me."
Veyra raised her brows. "Really?"
"Yep. Though he kept paying me my basic hourly wage the whole time," Mia added, rolling her eyes in slight annoyance. "I was doing all the heavy lifting—handling vendor orders, fixing schedule conflicts, dealing with angry customers—while getting paid peasant money. That was the moment I realized working for someone else is usually a raw deal. You pull all the late hours, and they pocket all the actual profit."
Veyra nodded slowly, taking in every word. It was the exact perspective she was hoping to hear.
"It really is always better to build something of your own," Mia added softly, leaning back against the vinyl seat.
Veyra leaned forward slightly, dropping her voice to a conversational pitch. "Have you ever seriously thought about opening your own place?"
Mia blinked, caught off guard. "My own place?"
"Yeah. A specialty coffee spot, a tea house, or a bakery. Something where you call the shots."
Mia went quiet for a moment, staring down at her fingers, which were lightly stained with coffee grounds from her morning shift. A soft sigh escaped her lips.
"Honestly? I think about it all the time," Mia admitted gently. "It’s kind of a pipe dream of mine."
"So why not do it?"
Mia let out a small, tired laugh and shook her head. "Because I simply don’t have the bandwidth. Medicinal chemistry is eating me alive right now. The coursework is intense, the afternoon labs take hours, and the weekly exams are relentless."
She traced the rim of her glass with her thumb, her expression turning serious.
"If I tried to launch a full-scale business right now, I know I would crash and burn. I would mess up the shop, fail my classes, and end up with nothing to show for it."
Veyra felt her chest tighten with a heavy wave of disappointment.
She had really hoped Mia would jump at the idea. In her head, she had already envisioned them working together, Mia taking charge of the daily store management while Veyra handled the backend formulations, recipes, and startup capital. It felt like such a natural fit.
But Mia was completely locked into her academic path. Her priorities were already set in stone, and Veyra couldn’t fault her for being realistic about her own limits.
She had hoped Mia was the answer to that problem. But asking her to juggle a new business alongside a brutal medicinal chemistry degree was completely out of the question.
Veyra set her crust down on the paper plate and wiped her fingers clean with a napkin. A quiet sense of frustration settled over her. She was right back at square one, and finding the right person to trust was turning out to be much harder than she thought.