"You're telling me we can't get coffee beans from Colombia anymore?"
Ezra dropped the invoice on his desk and looked at his business partner like she'd just told him aliens were real. Which honestly might've been easier to handle at this point.
"Not can't," Naya said, pulling off her reading glasses. "Won't. The new guy running customs thinks our paperwork looks suspicious."
"Suspicious how?"
"Hell if I know. Something about our import licenses being too clean or whatever that means."
Their coffee shop had been doing decent business for three years now. Nothing fancy, just good coffee in a neighborhood that needed it. But everything depended on getting those beans from this one farm in Huila that Ezra's cousin had connected them with back when they started.
"What'd Rafael say when you called him?" Ezra asked.
"That's the thing--" Naya sat down heavy in the chair across from him. "He can't ship to anyone in the States right now. Something about new regulations on his end too."
Ezra felt his stomach drop. The Guatemalan beans they'd tried last month tasted like burnt dirt, and the Kenyan ones cost twice as much. Their customers weren't stupid. They'd notice if the coffee suddenly sucked.
"Okay, so... what do we do?"
Naya was quiet for a minute, staring at the ceiling fan that made that weird clicking noise they kept meaning to fix.
"My uncle Tomás has a guy," she said finally.
"What kind of guy?"
"The kind that doesn't ask questions about paperwork."
Ezra knew where this was headed and he didn't like it. "Naya--"
"Just hear me out, alright? It's the same beans, same farm, just... different route."
"Different route meaning illegal."
"Different route meaning we keep our doors open and our employees get paid."
She had a point. Their barista Keiko was saving for nursing school, and old Mr. Chen came in every morning at seven sharp for his cortado and crossword puzzle. The thought of telling them they were shutting down made Ezra feel sick.
"How much would it cost?" he asked.
"Double what we usually pay."
"Jesus."
"But we could make it work if we raise prices a little. Most people wouldn't even notice."
Ezra walked over to the window and looked out at their street. The bodega on the corner had closed last month, and there was already another 'For Rent' sign two blocks down. This neighborhood was changing fast, and not in a good way for small businesses.
"What if we get caught?"
"What if we don't try and end up bankrupt anyway?"
That's when Ezra realized they weren't really talking about coffee beans anymore. They were talking about what happens when you build something from nothing and then watch the rules change around you. About whether playing it safe was actually safer when safe meant slow death.
"Your uncle's guy," he said, still looking out the window. "He reliable?"
"Reliable enough that my uncle's restaurant has been serving the same quality ingredients for fifteen years."
Ezra turned around. Naya was watching him with that look she got when she was trying not to push too hard but really wanted him to say yes.
"If we do this," he said, "we tell nobody. Not Keiko, not anyone."
"Obviously."
"And we find another supplier as soon as possible. This is temporary."
"Absolutely."
But they both knew temporary had a way of becoming permanent when you were trying to keep your head above water. Ezra thought about his dad, who'd run a hardware store for thirty years until Home Depot moved in down the street. About all the little compromises that seemed reasonable at the time.
"Set up a meeting," he said.
Three weeks later, their coffee was back to normal and their customers were happy. The money coming in was enough to cover expenses plus a little extra. Nobody asked where the beans came from, and Ezra stopped checking the news for stories about customs seizures.
But he also stopped sleeping as well as he used to. And sometimes when he was making change or wiping down tables, he'd catch himself thinking about his dad again. About the difference between bending rules and breaking them, and whether that difference mattered when you were just trying to survive.
The coffee still tasted good though. That counted for something, right?
