Chapter Text
“You have to make me another one,” Newt makes a face at his cup of tea, now gone thoroughly cold having run all the way across campus after making his escape from the café. “This tastes bloody awful.”
“That’s what you get for messing up your order,” Sonya clucks her tongue as she drapes her towel around her neck. She had just finished track practice when Newt ambushed her at the bleachers by the track, begging her to take back the morning shift at The Glade and now begging her to make him another cup of tea. “If you want extra milk or less sugar, you ask for it. We baristas are not psychic, Newt, just like the rest of the world.”
“I was distracted,” Newt says defensively, taking another tentative sip. He grimaces when he finds that it’s still too sweet and went down his throat all wrong and he just wants to drown himself in Sonya’s tea so he can forget about Alby and his coffee everything.
“I knew Alby would be perfect for you. Here,” She hands him a handheld mirror while she grins around the hair tie between her strawberry coloured lips, raising her arms to pull back her strawberry blond hair into a ponytail. Everything about his cousin reminds him of summer sweet berries and fruit tea, her very own dependencies.
“What?” He fumbles with the mirror when he realises the implications of her words.
Sonya glances up from her reflection, blinking innocently, “What?”
He drops her mirror into his lap as he sends her a flat glare, “Whatever you’re trying to do, bloody shuckin’ don’t.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Sonya smiles coyly, reaching over to lift his hand so she can return to tying her hair and avoiding his accusatory stare.
“I don’t need you to set me up with a bloody date, Sonya,” he warns, squinting his eyes at her. Frustratingly, she continues to smile sweetly even though her eyes never stray from the mirror. “I’m perfectly fine.”
She sighs softly, giving her hair one last pull to tighten it high on her head. Then folding up her long legs on the bench they’re sharing, she grabs onto Newt’s shoulders and stares straight into his eyes as she speaks, “As your favourite cousin—nope, as your really dear friend, I want you to be happy, Newt.”
“I know, Son—”
“Nuh-uh,” she gives his shoulders a hard shake that leaves his teeth clenched tightly. “I know you like your time alone but there’s a thing called a happy medium and never returning Minho or Thomas’s calls are not it.”
He groans, ducking his head and silently reminds himself to never talk to those two backstabbing shanks ever again. It’s the least they deserve after ratting him out to Sonya.
It isn’t that he doesn’t want to talk to them, it’s only that they are reckless and loud and where they liked to bar hop or go to Jorge’s bi-weekly house parties, Newt preferred to read a book or drink his tea, safe in his home where everything is under his control.
“I text them,” he says, crossing his arms. “I shuckin’ text you.”
“Human contact is not a hazard to your health,” she waggles her finger playfully in his face.
Newt scoffs then, thinking of all the times he had gone out with Minho, Thomas and Gally and how too many of those times ended with them having head-splitting hangovers, running for their lives or going for a visit to the hospital. Even the medical intern, Jeff at the student health centre knew them by name and probably desperately wished he didn’t.
“Newt, come on,” Sonya sighs explosively, slapping her thighs with open palms. The sweatpants she’s wearing muffle the sound and Newt makes sure she knows he’s still very much unimpressed by the case she’s presenting. “I’m not asking you to date Alby—hell, I’m not even asking you to become friends with him if you don’t want to.”
He raises a suspicious brow at her because from his experiences, Sonya always got what Sonya asks for and they almost always include someone else’s suffering, sooner or later. Her deceptively sweet demeanour works wonders; just ask Harriet.
“I just want you to keep doing what you’ve always done,” she speaks slowly, like her words are made of melted sugar and the way she is smiling right now reminds Newt of everything that is good in this world.
It’s so unfair really, he thinks as she finishes her request, “Spend your mornings at the café. No big deal, right?”
The worst thing is that it’s not even that awful of a thought.
In fact, it’s entirely too tempting of a thought and just the very idea of being wrapped up in the atmosphere of the café and the arms of the wingback chair beside the counter has Newt wondering if Alby would make himself coffee when there were no customers, or would he pull out a book to read instead?
It’s perplexing that he’s so caught up in the details of just wondering what it would be like and the thought of physically spending half an hour alone with Alby makes him heat up all over.
Sonya’s hand, cooled by the brisk autumn air, cupping his cheek reminds him that he’s not actually there, not yet. She smiles, genuinely this time and the freckles scattered over her nose and cheeks look like drops of iced tea staining her pale skin, summer bright even in the increasingly monotone colours of late fall.
“I just want you to be happy,” she says again, quietly, and Newt sighs just as softly. “It’s hard to be fully happy when you’re alone all the time, Newt.”
“I know,” he murmurs, and he does. He pulls her hand down from his cheek and holds it in his, an anchor for the both of them.
“Just promise me that you won’t stop going to the café just because it’s a stranger that works my shift now, okay?” Sonya’s grip tightens on his fingers and he jokingly shakes her free.
“Alright, alright, you’re not that bloody important anyway,” he rolls his eyes and endures the punch she lands on his shoulder.
“Fine, whatever!” She throws up her hands and jumps to her feet. “Then I will leave you to your crappy tea. I’ve got a hot date with Harriet to get ready for anyway.”
With a wink and a hand quick enough to ruffle his hair before he could even complain, she leaves him on the benches with a cup of tea as cold as his hands and an oddly serene feeling spreads across his chest.