Today's Reading
Theo began coming in three times a week, but little else changed. He barely spoke, struggled to order the same coffee every time, and never once removed his mask to drink it in the cafè. Instead, he claimed the same table for exactly forty minutes, clutched the warm cup in one hand, and wrote in his little notebook with the other, his leather satchel resting faithfully against his long legs. He always wore black, and Audrey could only ever see the upper left corner of his face.
No matter how hard she tried, no matter what she said at the register, she never got him to laugh.
It was hard not to fixate on such a goal.
He looked like he could use a laugh.
He was so sweet, Audrey ached to give him one.
He'd been coming in regularly three times a week for a month when the fall semester started at the tail end of August and time went strange. It was always like that when she shifted mindsets from just work to work and school, but she only had to do this one more time.
The Tuesday of her second week of classes was already an odd day. Monday had been so crazy, she was almost late for her capstone course after her shift, but this morning was practically dead.
"We haven't seen Pattycakes yet, have we?" Josh tamped freshly ground beans into the group head and clicked it into place. "Think she died?"
Audrey snorted at the nickname and shook her head. "Fat chance."
The lack of Patricia meant one of three things: she was running late(unusual, but most likely), she'd taken a vacation (god, Audrey hoped so), or she'd finally chosen to go get her goddamn Frappuccino at an actual Starbucks for once (wholly wishful thinking, but a girl could dream). A few of the usual suspects sat with their ceramic cups over in the lounge area, typing quietly away to the inoffensive lo-fi playing over the cafè's sound system, and Audrey drummed her fingers against the counter while Josh experimented with perfecting a ristretto.
"Hey, Auds." She glanced over her shoulder as he slid a shot to her. "Taste this, will you?"
"Sure." She sipped and thought for a moment as she rolled the coffee around on her palate. "You waited too long on that pull—it's a touch bitter."
"Damnit." Josh turned back to the machine to try again, and that's when Theo finally slid into the cafè, looking mostly like he normally did. But this time, his cap wasn't pulled quite so low, and Audrey could see a bit more of his face and eye than usual as he stepped up to the counter. "Hey, Theo! Happy Tuesday."
She leaned forward on an elbow and bit her lip as she grinned even wider at him. Now that she was getting a better look in better light, she could see his skin was speckled with freckles, dotting across his face like stars in the night sky. His eye also wasn't exactly brown, like she'd initially thought it was, but rather a more mottled hazel with dark brown clustered around his pupil and a lighter, greener color hovering around the edges.
Well.
That was interesting.
He was striking.
"Hi, Audrey," Theo replied softly, glancing around at the rest of the shop and looking even more nervous now that there were fewer people around. Perhaps it was because it might be harder for him to try to meld into the wall. "Slow day?"
"Yeah, you came at a good time. It's weird, but I'm not sad about it."
His eye caught on the shot of coffee she was still clutching between her fingers. "Wh-what are you, uh, dri-drinking?" he asked hesitantly, almost as if he was unsure if he should even try. His throat bobbed as he swallowed and tried again. "Well, I mean, what's—what's your favorite drink?"
Oh, so he was chatty today?
This was more words than she'd ever been able to wheedle out of him before.
How cute.
A slow smile crept across her lips while Theo fidgeted in front of her. He was about to wring those large, anxious hands together, and if she didn't know better, he might have even been sweating under that hoodie.
Actually, he might have been. It was a lot to wear out in the city in September when it was still this hot.
She folded her hands on the counter. "I'm drinking Josh's awful failed attempt at a ristretto."
"I heard that!" Josh snapped at her from the machine, and she giggled. Theo's eye crinkled, and his mask tilted upward over his cheeks.
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