“Do you know each other?” Parvaneh asks with surprise, looking at the youth.

“Me and Ove are sort of friends.” The youth nods.

“Are you? Me and Ove are sort of friends too!” Parvaneh grins, tenderly imitating his enthusiasm.

Ove stops at a safe distance from the counter. As if someone might give him a hug if he gets too close.

“My name’s Adrian,” says the youth.

“Parvaneh,” says Parvaneh.

“You want something to drink?” he asks them.

“A latte for me, please,” says Parvaneh, in a tone of voice as if she’s suddenly having her shoulders massaged. She dabs her forehead with a napkin. “Preferably an iced latte if you have it!”

Ove shifts his weight from his left foot to his right and peers around the premises. He’s never liked cafés. Sonja, of course, loved them. Could sit in them for an entire Sunday “just looking at people,” as she put it. Ove used to sit there with her, reading a newspaper. Every Sunday they did it. He hasn’t put his foot in a café since she died. He looks up and realizes that Adrian, Parvaneh, and the cat are waiting for his answer.

“Coffee, then. Black.”

Adrian scratches his hair under the cap.

“So . . . espresso?”

“No. Coffee.”

Adrian transfers his scratching from hair to chin.

“What . . . like black coffee?”

“Yes.”

“With milk?”

“If it’s with milk it’s not black coffee.”

Adrian moves a couple of sugar bowls on the counter. Mainly to have something to do, so he doesn’t look too silly. A bit late for that, thinks Ove.

“Normal filter coffee. Normal bloody filter coffee,” Ove repeats.

Adrian nods.

“Oh, that. . . . Well. I don’t know how to make it.”

Ove points aggressively at the percolator in the corner, only barely visible behind a gigantic silver spaceship of a machine, which, Ove understands, is what they use for making espresso.

“Oh, that one, yeah,” says Adrian, as if the penny has just dropped. “Ah . . . I don’t really know how that thing works.”

“Should have bloody known. . . .” mutters Ove as he walks around the counter and takes matters into his own hands.

“Can someone tell me what we’re doing here?” calls Parvaneh.

“This kid here has a bicycle that needs repairing,” explains Ove as he pours water into the carafe.

“The bicycle hanging off the back of the car?”

“You brought it here? Thanks, Ove!”

“You don’t have a car, do you?” he replies, while rummaging around a cupboard for coffee filters.

“Thanks, Ove!” says Adrian and takes a step towards him, then comes to his senses and stops before he does something silly.

“So that’s your bicycle?” Parvaneh smiles.

“Kind of—it’s my girlfriend’s. Or the one I want to be my girlfriend . . . sort of thing.”

Parvaneh grins.

“So me and Ove drove all this way just to give you a bike so you can mend it? For a girl?”