When he was finally done, the sun already blindingly shone through the great windows, eliciting a hiss as it itched his eyes, then a yawn.
Time to make himself scarce and catch some sleep before the evening introductions.
His stomach churned and he lurched forward, feeling queasy.
Lack of sleep and food, too much coffee. No use sleeping like this.
His watch said ten past 7, the little café nearby was open already and there was a change of clothes in a hidden compartment not too far from his current location.
Plan A: Change, go outside, go to the café, order, sit down and eat there, since they didn't do take away for breakfast- required going outside.
Plan B: Sneak back home and then check if there even still was something in the fridge, which there might not... and then revert to Plan A.
The marmalade in the café was usually really good.
In the end, hoodie drawn deep into his face, he entered the café rubbing his smarting elbow.
That compartment used to be distinctly bigger in his memory.
It could be blamed on the fatigue, maybe, after all he also didn't realise that he walked perhaps a bit too slow.
Otherwise it had to be blamed entirely on utter rudeness of the lady that just bumped into him full force.
If he already had gotten a coffee, it might have scalded half his face off.
She, who was met with a growl, sputtered a bustling, giddy sorry at him and hopped behind the counter.
That one worked there, right. He'd seen her a few times before. Obviously rudeness then.
The app on his phone had a coupon for breakfast, he was opting for orange juice with a huff.
Another apology, at least her smile was genuine. Happy people, this early in the morning were a mystery...
She offered a free tiny glass of their new fig marmalade to make up for her misdeed and today's wifi password, it sufficiently appeased the customer.
Nodding quietly he accepted the plate and shuffled into a corner, checking his phone.
"What a grump..." Juliette whispered, leaning with a curious expression towards her coworker. "So what's up with you, how did the casting go?"
Gabrielle absent-mindedly emptied the dishwasher and restocked the cabinet, a smile glued to her lips.
She didn't mind the early ones, those were usually coming from a night shift and were k.o.
Allowed to be a bit grumpy, just grabbing a quick pick me up on their way home.
"Nothing really. I’m not sure, might have gotten into the choir... might not, can't say just yet. It's... difficult."
They did have a regular who usually left good tips, a bit on the stout side, always with a hoodie, didn't talk, but also didn't bother anyone and just scuttled off afterwards.
Might be that one for all she knew, never saw his face.
"Okay, so 'difficult' is a serene smile thing now?"
The plates and cups were hot against her fingertips, the inside of the metal cube like a green house, hot and wet.
Or like the air after a summer storm, warm and heavy with humidity. The dishwasher was a dangerous, yet useful and peculiar thing.
"Don't be so nosy! Okay so there's this guy..."
"Uh, huh?"
Another customer strolled in, ordered a coffee to go and a sub and left again.
"We used to be friends when we were kids, really cute, always playing together."
The coffee machine bubbled gently in the background, hoodie guy dipped his croissant into the marmalade, like a fucking savage.
Admittedly it would be worse if he'd dunked it in the oj...
"- really tiny kids with sticks and mud and scraping your knees. His family lived close to ours so we always ran off together into the woods or to the beach in the holidays. I usually roughed him up good when we played pirates or so, not much his thing. We used to play explorers a lot, collecting plants and bugs and seashells and watching animals, that kind of stuff."
Gabrielle blew a strand of hair out of her sight as two people with laptops settled near the window, waving Juliette over to order to mochaccinos.
"Okay so you've been 'exploring' with nature boy, go on?" sometimes this woman just deserved to have her mind forcefully dragged out of the gutter.
"I was ten when I last saw him, don't be like that." Two coffees to go and a cheesecake slice. Another in-house breakfast.
"Aaaand maybe I got an email from him last evening, saying he moved to Paris and asking if we wanted to meet up." Hoodie guy looked like he was leaving any minute now, she got the tray ready to clean up his table for the next customer.
"So you stalked his facebook and he grew up to be a super hot, surgeon with lots of money?" Did not look like he left any tip. Dang.
"I didn't stalk him, he wrote from his gmail and since I also use gmail, well... it suggested his google+ as a friend to me and there were photos. Ah, Monsieur, how may I help you?"
He seemed almost startled by her attention, freezing up, then holding up the tiny marmalade glass between thumb and forefinger, before tenderly placing it on the glass counter and opening his wallet.
"Oh you would like to buy one Monsieur?" She couldn't help but watch his hands, their movement was fluid, the nails had a silken shine, fine wrinkles on his knuckles.
"They're 5€ a piece." he held up 3 fingers and a 20€ bill, waved her off dismissively about the change. Even the big glasses looked small in his hands. If she didn't already have a date, she might have slipped him her number.
"He actually owns this place." Gabrielle said matter of factly after Shapely-Hand had left and she began to clean his plate and glass.
"What? Who? Nature boy? Wait so you knew you basically work for the company owned by your playground affair? And didn't ask for a raise for us?" Not for long anymore if everything turned out right with the opera.
"Not really, I didn't call him Vicomte d'Israfil back then, you know. He was just Raph. But to answer your original question, yes he has money and yes he is hot, the pale tall fair haired Nordic type, with innocent green eyes-" she caught herself gushing and turned to look busy.
"That's not why I agreed to meet him though, we're just friends. Just friends who used to read scary stories to each other and have bugs crawl around in your hair. So he's cute, that doesn't mean there's anything going to happen. This isn't some sort of romance novel."
A whole tourist busload of elderly ladies just began flooding into the café.
At least something to distract her coworker from asking more questions.
Maybe it had been a bad idea.
This could end potentially horrible.
How had he not realised, that he had accepted the waitress from his café into his ensemble.
He cried blue murder, agonized by his stupidity on his way through the corridors, before switching the security cameras back to their live feed for the day.
He needed sleep. He needed his mind in top form to fix this mess.
At least the marmalade was really fucking great...
