If you're gonna wake up the whole building, the least you could do is offer them a cup of coffee.

"THAT'S IT! I can't take it anymore!" Lesley sat up straight in bed and looked at the clock. It was 3:42 am.

Brant rubbed his eyes and yawned.

"What kind of a nutcase grinds coffee at 3:30 in the morning? And then at 3:36. And 3:42."

"I dunno, Kitten. Someone who has mistaken it for the snooze button?"

Lesley got out of bed and threw on a robe and slippers. "I'm going to put an end to this once and for all!"

Brant watched as she huffed out of the room, mumbling under her breath. She looked insane with her hair disheveled by the sleep mask she had pushed up on her head. When he heard the apartment door slam behind her, he shrugged, yawned again and pulled the covers back up to his chin.

He was just drifting back off to sleep when he heard a furious rapping from above, and then two muffled voices he assumed belonged to Lesley and Raoul.

He couldn't make out what they were saying, but from Lesley's tone and cadence, he knew it couldn't be pleasant. A few minutes later, their front door slammed and Lesley was crawling back in the bed.

"Turns out he got some fancy new Krups Burr Grinder that preserves aroma. You should go up there. The entire hallway REEKS of fresh-ground coffee beans."

"Sounds dreadful," Brant said sarcastically.

"Yeah, and it has a fineness selector with 17 positions from fine to coarse. That's why it keeps going off so often. He's 'experimenting' until he finds 'the perfect grind.' UGH!!!"

"It's an outrage," Brant said sleepily.

"Yeah, well I've got a little something I'm going to be 'experimenting' with tonight, and we'll see how HE likes it."

That night, Lesley walked through the door with a Krups Mini Chopper and a 10-lb bag of onions. She set up the heavy non-slip motor base near the air vent, which just so happened to connect to Raoul's apartment. She sliced all of the onions into quarters and, for the remainder of the evening, chopped, pureed and emulsified them into oblivion.

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