I'm already in love
This doesn't happen to me
You can't just swagger on up
And turn my head, oh so suddenly
“What d’you recommend, darlin’?”
“I might recommend the coffee at this coffee shop,” Angeline says drily. She’s just coming off a seven hour shift, and Michael is an hour from close. He doesn’t let her help with closing lately. It probably has something to do with Tera coming to ‘visit’ last time, the woman in the apartment upstairs screaming suddenly and one of his regulars turning up with a bullet in their skull not even a block away before close. Sales dropped for the day, and Angeline’s hours dropped for the year.
“Then I’ll take some of that ‘coffee’ you speak of,” he says, and okay, Angeline has to see this dork, so she gets the machine started and looks up to take his payment, and – fuck.
Oh no he’s hot.
His eyes are gleaming and he’s clearly amused with himself, pleased with his absolutely ridiculous sense of humour, which is a bright spark in a day of hazey-eyed caffeine addicts like herself. His jaw is sharp enough to cut glass, stubbled, and she kind of wants to run her fingers through his hair. Calm down, she says to herself, trying to think of Tera. Tera is probably the hottest woman she can think of off the top of her head, and Tera is an absolute sociopath. Tera flirts her way into the confidence of dozens of people a year, and then sees them dead for their trouble. Maybe this dude is a dick, behind the terrible humour and killer good looks. “Four dollars,” she says, taking the notes he passes her and shoving them in the till.
“You’re trusting me already, darlin’? And not even on our first date.” He clucks disapprovingly. “You didn’t count the cash.”
She bites her lip, turning her gaze back to the machine. “I figure you’re too busy flirting to rip off my lovely employer,” she says, telling herself she absolutely isn’t flirting back. She focuses on making his coffee the same flawless way she prefers, as black and bitter as she likes to say her soul is.
“Do you charm all your customers, or is this lip reserved for me?”
“No, I can’t say many people challenges me for coffee recommendations.” She watches him lift the takeaway cup to his lips, removing the lid and blowing on it gently. She tells herself she isn’t staring at his lips, and then has to fight not to laugh as he reacts to her preferred coffee. Strong, bitter and hot, the way it’s supposed to be.
“Such a rose as yourself, I didn’t expect you to drink tar,” he explains, peeling off the lid to start adding sugar. “I’d expected something sweet. Maybe a little spicy.”
She feels her face heat up. “It’s not my fault if I didn’t know you have no taste.”
“Please stop flirting and get out, Angeline. Your shift is over,” Michael says, sounding distinctly unimpressed.
Angeline pokes her tongue out at him, because this – this one is normal. She isn’t inclined to flirt with him. She isn’t drawn to Michael, and thus she doesn’t want the ground to swallow her up. She realises as she rounds the counter that the customer didn’t so much as try to pretend he wasn’t flirting. “Um,” she says, awkward, trying to figure out how to say Please don’t tempt me without letting on that she is definitely thinking about what he’d look like if he took off that shirt. That tight black shirt with Travis Masters’ most recent tour in Port Lyndon advertised across it. As in, Travis Masters, her boyfriends’ father.
“Don’t suppose you’d be up for giving me a grand tour of the best coffee in the city?” he says, a guy after her own heart. Angeline winces, still not sure how to address the most pressing issue. She looks up when the bell rings over the door, the sound of rain slipping in for a moment.
“I know this is Port Lyndon, and the rain is a fact of life, but I swear it’s been heavier lately,” says the new arrival, shaking off his coat. He glances up and lights up to see her. “Angeline, you good to –”
“Jackson!” she exclaims, a mess of guilty and relieved as she launches herself past the customer and into his arms. “Fuck, you’re soaked.”
“I just said it’s been raining heavier than usual,” Jackson says, a combination of amused and bemused. “Hey, Angel,” he murmurs, quieter and just for her, leaning down to kiss her.
She feels at ease like this, in his arms. She’s in love with Jackson, she doesn’t have any interest being involved with anyone else right now. It feels like coming home, though the thrill of a rapid-fire heartbeat has eased. Maybe he’s less exciting than this charming nobody, but he’s not no one, and he means the world to her, and she can probably figure out how to avoid serving this uncomfortably flirty customer again in the future. Maybe he’ll get the hint. Maybe she never has to tell him she doesn’t want him flirting with her.
“Jackson, man, hey. This is your Angeline?”
Angeline tenses, and Jackson loosens his hold on her so she has the freedom to turn and stare at the customer, baffled. “You two know each other?”
“Sure,” Jackson agrees, smiling his usual sincere, broad beaming smile that looks completely at home on his face. “Clint and I met ages ago. What was it, like, two, three months?”
“Jack here’s completely charming,” apparently-Clint says, almost as drily as Angeline when she first spoke to him.
They talk around her, catching up or saying their greetings, Angeline isn’t sure. She tunes it out, too busy having a minor crisis.
