Work Text:
“Dude, it’s your turn,” Eden said, lightly barging Juan with his shoulder as he walked past. “And where’s your name tag?” It was the second shift in a row where Juan didn’t have his nametag on.
The Spaniard huffed before going to start unstacking the chairs and tables to put out the front of the Java Bean coffee shop. It was summer, so more people opted to sit outside, and because he had arrived 30 seconds after Eden this morning, Juan had been given the job of lugging everything outside.
“I couldn’t find it again this morning.” Juan said, jutting out his bottom lip, unashamedly playing the sympathy card. “I’m only little, I can’t do this alone,” referring to setting up furniture outside.
“Are you seriously trying that with me?” Eden laughed, stuffing more napkins into the dispenser. “I’m shorter than you are, and David’s shift doesn’t start until 2pm – he’s the only tall one.” The Belgian waited a second to stuff the last of the napkins in. “So I guess you’re going to have to stop pouting and get to work, Juanito. We open in 10 minutes.”
It took Juan 20 minutes to get everything set up outside the shop; he wiped a hand along his forehead and made his way back inside. Eden chuckled at how clearly his colleague was out of breath.
“We only finished the football season 2 weeks ago, how are you so out of shape already?” Eden asked, carefully putting the steam wand into a jug of milk, tapping the side to settle the bubbles. The two played together on their college football team, both attacking midfielders and their manager Jose had often said they had an unspoken connection on the pitch.
Juan glared at him playfully. “I went home the week before last and I stayed with my Abuela for a few days. You know what grandmothers are like, especially when they haven’t seen you in nearly 7 months. The amount of food I ate was incredible.” Juan couldn’t help but remember the huge amounts of cheese, ham, and cider he consumed, suddenly realising the packets of instant noodles he’d been living on since his return to university were no comparison.
“Stop daydreaming, and help me make these drinks!” Eden said, and Juan looked up to see that the queue was almost out the door.
Juan mumbled an apology and began making a white chocolate latte.
Later on in the day, Eden’s shift had ended (he had a class to attend) and David bustled his way into the shop fifteen minutes late, calling a rushed apology as he threw on his apron and got behind the till.
“My class overran and then I missed my bus and had to wait for half an hour.” The Brazilian said with an unamused expression on his usually jovial face. “And I tried to call you, but then I realised my battery had run out.”
“Sounds like quite a day.” Juan sympathised, as he squeezed whipped cream on top of the hot chocolate he’d just made. Scanning the cup for a name, in David’s messy scrawl he tried to decipher what it said. “Oscar?” he called and a tall, skinny guy with a serious case of bed head rose from a chair in the corner, holding up his hand.
“Obrigado,” he said after taking a second to look at the cup, and in his peripheral vision, Juan noticed David’s head snap up and look in their direction. It took a second of him looking thoughtful but Oscar corrected himself in uncertain English. “T-thank you?” He smiled and then left the shop, drink in hand.
The shop began to quiet down, as it was the middle of the day and only a few customers were sitting inside. David was unpacking and stacking the cups by the register when Juan crept up on him.
“So,” he said suddenly, making David jump and drop several of the plastic wrapped stacks of cups. “Why did I see that you wrote your phone number on that guy’s cup earlier?”
The Brazilian turned away from Juan and carried on as he was before. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Well, when I was looking for the name to call out, in your awful handwriting it said, ‘Oscar, me chamar’ and then your phone number.” There was a beat of silence and David still wouldn’t look at Juan. “Does someone have a little crush?” he grinned when David turned around and a blush stained his cheeks.
“Oh my god, you do!”
“He’s been coming in here every time I have a shift and I noticed he always sits down and waits until I’m on the register to order his drink. And this has been happening for about 3 weeks, I thought I should make a move.”
“I don’t blame you, he’s cute.”
“The first time he came in, he stuttered his way through an order in English, but he’d put his notebook down on the counter and I noticed everything he’d written was in Portuguese, and since then, we only speak in English if he’s trying to learn a new phrase.” The smile on David’s face was adorable, so Juan clapped him on the shoulder and went to take a customer’s order, deciding not to tease him any longer.
Seeing as the coffee shop was so close to their university campus, when it got nearer to the end of the semester the shop stayed open later, so as to let the students get their hit of caffeine while they were pulling all nighters to finish their essays and cramming for their exams.
It was nearly 10pm and Juan was approaching the end of his shift, the shop itself was fairly quiet, but lots of people were coming in to get orders to take away, so he had been on the go constantly. He secretly hoped no one else would come in because his feet hurt - he’d had 4 solid hours of classes until 1pm and then his shift had started at 2pm. Eden was doing the rounds cleaning all the tables in the shop.
Juan was cleaning the cappuccino machine (so he didn’t have to do it after the shop had closed) when he heard the bell above the door ring. Wiping his hands on his apron, Juan went to take the customer’s order. The man had a serious looking face, but once Juan started asked him what drink he’d like, his face broke out into a bright smile.
“Can I have a venti Pumpkin Spice Latte please?” he said, rooting around in his pocket, presumably for money.
“Of course you can, that’ll be 3.75. Can I have your name please?”
“Branislav,” he smiled and handed over some change.
“It’ll be ready in a minute, can I get you anything else, a piece of cake?” Juan suggested, gesturing to the selection of baked goods in the display case.
“Actually, let me ask my friend if he wants anything, one second.”
Branislav jogged outside, and Juan set to work making his latte.
Moments later, Juan heard another voice that didn’t belong to Branislav, this time the accent was more similar to his own.
“I just wanted to look at what they have,” the voice said. Juan poked his head out from behind the coffee machine to see the new addition.
Juan finished Branislav’s drink and handed it over to him before going to take the new guy’s order.
“Hi,” the new guy said, without taking his eyes off the board with the drinks above Juan’s head.
“It’s a tough decision, there’s so many things to choose from,” Juan smiled.
“I think I’ll have a grande Caramel Macchiato please,” the new guy said, finally tearing his gaze from the board and down to Juan.
“Could I have your name please?“ Juan grabbed the right sized cup and a marker pen, poised to write it down.
“Fernando,” he said, with a smile.
Juan wrote down the name and went to make the drink while Fernando went to talk with Branislav who had taken a seat next to the window.
“Stop making googly eyes at him and make his drink.” Eden muttered, hitting Juan with a tea towel as he walked past to stop him daydreaming.
A blush found it’s way on to Juan’s cheeks and he couldn’t help but remember teasing David only the day before about developing a crush on a customer when Juan was now doing exactly the same thing.
He drizzled the caramel sauce on top of the whipped cream and called for Fernando.
When he reached the counter, Juan handed over the drink, and as Fernando took it, some of the liquid sloshed over the side of the cup and on to Fernando’s hand.
“Joder!” he cursed.
“Lo siento,” Juan said quickly, dabbing at Fernando’s hand with a paper towel.
“Eso está bien, no te preocupes.” Fernando said with a smile. (That’s okay, don’t worry.)
“Do you want me to get you some ice?” Juan asked worriedly.
Fernando shook his head. “We’ve got an all nighter to do in the library. Studying for your PhD isn’t a walk in the park!” He grinned, before winking at Juan and leaving the shop with Branislav.
“Juan and Fernando sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!” Eden sang while dancing around the now empty shop and Juan took the liberty of throwing a tea towel at his younger friend’s head.
Over the next few weeks, Fernando’s visits to the shop became more and more frequent. Sometimes he was alone, but other times he was accompanied by friends. Juan had been unlucky enough to be given the morning shift seeing as one of his marketing classes had been cancelled for the week, which meant he started work at 8:30am. It was basically still night time.
The morning rush was the worst, because you could almost guarantee that there’d be no respite for almost 2 hours, the line seemingly never ending. There was a coffee shop in the middle of campus that many students used, but The Java Bean was just off campus, so those who didn’t live on the university grounds tended to be the ones who frequented in the mornings. David was with Juan throughout the horror of the morning shift, which always made things easier because his Brazilian colleague was always upbeat no matter how early it was, singing one song or another while he made coffee for sleepy students.
Just as Juan was losing count of how many espressos he’d made that morning, Fernando wandered into the shop, bleary eyed but smiling.
“Good morning, what can I get you this morning?” Juan asked, his hand poised over the screen of the cash register to punch in Fernando’s order.
“A grande Caramel Macchiato please,” he punctuated his sentence with a yawn.
“Long night?” Juan asked, handing the cup off to David.
“Another all-nighter in the library. I’m pretty sure I was in there for 12 hours – and I have a class to go to in 20 minutes.”
“Wow,” Juan counted out Fernando’s change. “You’re a better man than I, I think I would’ve crashed ages ago.”
Fernando’s smile was small but brilliant, causing the skin around his eyes to crinkle and deep laugh lines around his mouth to appear. “I may or may not have accidentally fallen asleep for an hour or so with my head in an Economics textbook.” His smile transitioned to a slightly cheeky one.
Another group of customers joined the queue so the two men could no longer flirt chat leisurely. David had been standing at the other end of the counter holding Fernando’s drink for almost a minute.
When Fernando went over to get the drink, Juan began serving the other customers with a smile on his face.
At the end of the queue, however, Juan could see Oscar, so when there were only two or three people left in front of him, Juan called David to takeover at the till on the premise that Juan needed to run to the bathroom quickly.
Upon his return to the front of the shop, Juan grinned when he saw that David and Oscar were sitting down at one of the tables by the window.
As he made 5 hot chocolates for a group of teenage girls, David came back over.
“I’ll see you later,” David called to Oscar as he was walking out the door; he looked back over his shoulder and smiled before leaving.
“You’ll see him later?” Juan asked, dusting the top of the drinks with chocolate.
“We might be going to see this band that’s playing on campus later…” David trailed off, fitting lids on the drinks.
“Stephanie?” Juan called, pushing the drinks over the counter as a young auburn haired girl approached him. “So it’s like a date then?” he asked turning his attention back to the Brazilian.
“It could be, I’m not really sure. He asked me to go with him, I said yes. It might not even just be the two of us, he could be going with a group of friends and asked me along too.” David shrugged and adjusted the hairband that pulled his mop of curly hair back.
Juan’s breath got stuck in his throat when Fernando walked in and went to sit at the big armchair in the corner of the shop.
Almost on autopilot, Juan made Fernando a grande Caramel Macchiato and took it over to his table.
“Thank you so much,” Fernando said smiling brightly and taking the cup from Juan.
“I thought you might want a drink,” Juan said, cursing himself for blushing, but also simultaneously being grateful that his beard covered it somewhat.
“What do I owe you?” Fernando sat up and retrieved his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans.
Juan held up his hands. “Don’t worry, it’s on the house.”
“No, please let me give you something,” he said holding out the correct change for the drink.
“I’m serious, just accept the free drink, before I change my mind,” Juan grinned before going back to the counter and to David who was smiling smugly.
“So this must be the infamous ‘Fernando’ that Eden told me about. He’s hot.”
Juan was never going to tell Eden anything ever again.
The next few weeks saw Juan have only a couple of shifts as his own university work was piling up. He had a practical project due in wherein he had to create and plan a complete marketing campaign for a new energy drink and then write a 2,000 word essay to validate why he’d come to every decision that he made. He also had another module in Sports and Exercise Pedagogy, which had a 3,000-word essay due the same week. So to put it simply Juan was very busy. He even found himself frequenting the Java Bean on a particularly study-filled night to get a Vanilla Spice Latte as his flat had run out of food and drink because he forgot to go grocery shopping.
Eden and the new guy, Kevin, were working together when Juan went into the shop. The shop was pretty calm, and the two were speaking in French before they noticed that Juan was waiting.
“Hey guys, can I get a Vanilla Spice Latte please?”
“Sure,” Eden said as Kevin set to work on making Juan’s coffee. “Go sit down, I’ll bring it to you. I think the table in the corner is free.” Eden recommended, as that table was Juan’s favourite, it was tucked away and had the comfiest seats in the whole coffee shop.
On his way over to the table, Juan got his notebook out of his bag, ready to power through and plan another chunk of his marketing essay.
He dropped down onto the seat and was rummaging around in bag looking for his pen until Juan heard someone clear their throat.
When Juan looked up, he saw Fernando sitting in the seat across from him (and he’d clearly been there for a while, judging from the three empty cups on the table), holding a pen out to him with an amused look on his face.
“Thanks,” Juan mumbled and took the pen gratefully, quickly scribbling down the points he was going to make in the next section of his essay. He could feel Fernando’s gaze resting upon him, but he wanted to get his ideas down on paper before he forgot them.
“Thank you,” Juan handed the pen back to Fernando who placed it on the table and crossed his legs. When he handed the pen back, Fernando’s fingers brushed Juan’s hand
“How are you?”
“I’m fine thank you,” Juan replied. “My work is making me a hermit, but I decided to venture outside and grab some coffee.”
“Oh okay, I was wondering why I hadn’t seen you around in a while.” Fernando said nonchalantly.
“Yeah, I’ve been working hard, just not here.” Juan could feel his face heating up as he spoke to Fernando. “I find it easier to do work in the library, but sometimes I need a change of scenery.”
“I totally understand.”
“Here’s your drink,” Eden walked over with a pleased grin on his face, it was a grin that only Juan could see as Fernando had his back to the Belgian. As soon as Eden got into a position where Fernando could see him, the smugness dissipated and a sickly sweet smile appeared.
“Thanks,” Juan cut his eyes at his colleague who practically skipped back to the counter. He probably thought he was so smart.
Checking his watch, Fernando rose from the chair. “I’m really sorry, I have to go. I’m meeting a friend across town.” Juan tried to ignore the disappointment that built up in chest at an alarming rate.
“No worries, it was nice to see you, Fernando.”
Fernando zipped up his hoodie and slung his bag over his broad shoulders. “Hasta luego…” Fernando trailed off suddenly realising that he didn’t know the other man’s name.
Just as Juan opened his mouth to answer, “Juan!” Eden shouted from across the shop, oblivious to the moment that was happening.
A look of intense annoyance spread on Juan’s face, which elicited a laugh from Fernando. “Hasta luego, Juan.” He said pointedly before leaving the shop.
It was Friday night and somehow David had convinced Juan and Eden to go to see some band at the venue on campus. Even though he had a huge pile of work waiting for him on his desk, Juan knew he needed a night to relax and let his hair down.
The venue on campus wasn’t all that full when the three men arrived, people were milling around the bar, and some old Foo Fighters song was being played quietly on the sound system.
“The band doesn’t come on for another 45 minutes, so let’s go grab a table.” The Brazilian walked off, leading the group to a cluster of tables on the far side of the venue.
The trio sat down, each of them nursing their drinks and chatting to pass the time until the band came on. Steadily more and more people entered the venue until there was about 15 minutes left until they were due to take the stage.
“Is that…” Eden trailed off, standing up slightly and craning his neck. On the other side of the venue, by the door was Oscar. He seemed to be alone, with his hands in his pockets; he leant against one of the pillars.
“Oscar!” Eden shouted before pulling Juan out of his seat and away from the table. Luckily, Oscar looked over and saw David, presuming that he was the one who had called his name, and made his way over.
“Smooth,” Juan giggled. He and Eden stood off to the side watching as David and Oscar chatted.
“They don’t call me The Match Maker for nothing.” Eden said, popping his imaginary collar.
“Who the hell calls you ‘The Match Maker’?” Juan used air quotes for emphasis.
Eden mumbled for a moment before quickly changing the subject. They both downed the rest of their drinks and pushed their way into the crowd of people who congregated in front of the stage. Despite the fact that neither of the men were the tallest or had the most imposing physique, they managed to make their way fairly close to the front.
However as soon as the band came on stage, everyone began pushing and shoving and Juan somehow ended up behind a guy who had to be around 6 foot tall. Although he didn’t let it annoy him too much, the band was powering through their first song, and Juan was enjoying it a lot. Though he was very intrigued to hear that some parts of the song were sung in his native language.
The singer did sing with an accent that at times made it hard to understand what he was saying in English. Though, whatever you couldn’t catch through the words you could feel through the sheer emotion in his voice. He had a gritty tone and he commanded each song with maturity, Juan was enthralled.
For the first few songs he was stuck behind the tall guy, but when the band launched into a much faster song, the pushing began again. It took a moment before Juan could see anything but when he got a clear view of the stage, his breath caught in his throat and his mouth dropped open.
On stage, singing into the microphone and strumming a guitar was Fernando. Juan almost couldn’t believe it. The man who had seemed so subdued and almost shy whenever he came into the shop was owning the stage like no other.
Even if he had wanted to Juan wouldn’t have been able to tear his gaze away from the stage throughout the band’s whole set. Juan did recognise some of the other guys in Fernando’s band, as they’d been in to the Java Bean together a few times – most notably, he recognised Branislav playing the bass and his tall friend (Juan thinks his name was Petr? Peter?) playing the drums.
All too quickly for Juan’s liking, the band’s set came to a close. He and Eden wrestled their way out of the crowd, and Juan checked his phone and saw a text from David saying he’d left a bit earlier (Juan presumed with Oscar).
After handing in all of his university work, Juan went back to the Java Bean, working as many shifts as he could. Christmas was drawing closer and the weather had dropped from comfortably warm to devastatingly cold within the space of a fortnight.
Once again Juan had been given the early morning shift, and he wanted so very badly to complain and ask someone to switch with him, but no one was so unwise that they’d willing take the shift that meant they had to open the shop. At 6am.
He had to open the café on his own because no one else was ‘available’ to take the shift with him. He didn’t mind really, it gave him the chance to be alone before the morning rush started and Eden’s shift would start at 8am.
The skies were dark and cloudy when Juan unlocked the front door; the guy doing the weather had said it might even snow. Not that they ever got it right, for all Juan knew the day would be the sunniest they’d had all year.
It wasn’t busy just after the shop opened, just a few cappuccinos here, a couple of lattes there; Juan was silently bracing himself for the inevitable madness that occurred day after day. He had taken the lull in customers to clean the cappuccino machine, as it was pretty gross.
The bell above the door rang, so Juan wiped his hands on his apron and couldn’t suppress a smile when Fernando was grinning right back at him.
“So, you’re the lead singer in a band?” Juan bypassed normal greetings to grill his fellow countryman on his extra curricular activities.
With an upward glance, Juan could have sworn he saw a faint blush on Fernando’s face, but chose not to comment on it in favour of making his Caramel Macchiato.
“Um, yeah. For a couple of years actually.”
“I thought you guys were awesome. You kinda reminded me of The Gaslight Anthem – that’s a compliment by the way.” Juan said drizzling caramel sauce over the top of Fernando’s coffee.
“I’m really glad you enjoyed it. Maybe you should come and see us again, we should be playing another show in a couple of weeks. It’d be nice to see you there.” Fernando smiled brightly and left the shop.
Juan knew the exact cause of the warm feeling that had begun residing in his stomach, but he had no idea what to do about it.
“So you two are a proper thing now?” Juan asked, in the backroom five minutes before his shift was due to start.
“I-I think so.” David smiled. “We’ve been out quite a few times, and the other day we met up with some people that he works with, and he introduced me as his boyfriend.”
“That’s great,” Juan wrapped his much taller friend in a hug. “I’m so happy for you.”
“I’m happy too.” David smiled, and Juan gave him a quick hug before going out to start his shift.
“I have to make a music video for my Advanced Video Production module for my final piece of work, and I have no idea what I’m going to do.” Eden huffed as he made two espressos and placed them on the counter for a customer.
“When’s the deadline?” Juan asked, bringing the clean mugs to the front from the dishwasher.
“I have 6 weeks to do it, but I need to create a find an artist, choose one of their original songs, come up with a storyline for the video, shoot it and edit it in that time. And I also have work for other classes that I need to do.”
Juan felt sympathy for his younger friend, the first year of college was definitely a shock to the system, especially as the end of the semester neared and deadlines were piling up and approaching faster than you ever imagined they could. In fact, Juan had his own work to worry about, but miraculously, he seemed to have everything under control, he’d meticulously planned out nearly every minute of his life until the end of the semester and the beginning of summer when he’d get to go back to Spain.
He gave Eden a reassuring pat on the shoulder and grabbed the rest of the clean mugs from the back.
When he returned, Oscar and David were standing at the counter. David had a wide grin on his face, while Oscar was in the process of rolling his eyes.
“What’s up guys?” Juan asked keying in his employee code on the cash machine. It was David’s day off, so he had no reason to be in the shop and the Brazilian tended not to come in unless he was working.
David nudged Oscar in the side a few times, but Oscar didn’t budge. After a particularly hard nudge in the ribs, Oscar reprimanded David in Portuguese. But David’s only response was to nudge him again.
“Can I have two coffees, a slice of banana bread, and a slice of lemon cake – to go?” Oscar asked in near perfect Spanish.
Juan smiled brightly, and rung up their order, passing the cups off to Eden.
“So is this what you’ve been doing with your time off?” Juan asked, plating their two pieces of cake.
David nodded. “I’ve been teaching him basic Spanish and helping him improve his English.”
“Only because you said you would no more order for me in the restaurants!” Oscar grumbled, seeming more assured in his English ability.
“Oh yeah. I forgot I said that.” David chuckled.
“Anyway,” Juan smiled. “Your Spanish is great.”
“Gracias mi amigo,” Oscar laughed as David pressed a kiss to his hairline.
“You guys are so cute!” Eden interjected, causing the other three to laugh.
It had been almost a week since Juan had seen Fernando in the shop, and he was beginning to think that he wouldn’t see him again, until one morning when he had the early shift (again), Fernando walked in, bleary eyed and carrying a stack of books.
“Morning,” Juan greeted, trying to stop an embarrassingly large grin from making its way to his lips.
Fernando smiled slightly but not for long.
“What’s wrong?” Juan asked, making Fernando’s Caramel Macchiato.
“Dissertation.” The older man replied shortly. “Looking at whether the British marketplace is oligopolistic or not, isn’t exactly thrilling.” Fernando punctuated his sentence with a long yawn.
“Did you get any sleep last night?” Swirling the whipped cream on top of the coffee, Juan looked up at Fernando and tried not to imagine what he would look like sprawled out in bed, the early morning rays spilling through Juan’s too-thin curtains with the same sleepy smile on his face.
“Nope,” Fernando said. “Hence coffee at 8am.”
Juan shook his head to rid it of the thoughts and handed Fernando his drink.
“It’s on the house.”
“But-“ Fernando started.
“No buts. You’re working hard, and I want to treat you.”
Fernando’s smile got bigger, it was like someone had lit up his whole face. Juan desperately hoped he was the only one who got to see that smile.
With another thanks, Fernando left the shop.
Well, shit.
Juan had fallen. Hard.
Juan had taken four exams in two weeks and also handed in two essays in the same time period. He was well and truly exhausted, despite the fact that he hadn’t had a shift at work for nearly three weeks.
He was sitting in one of the study suites on campus, finishing his final project when Eden dropped into the seat next to him, signing heavily, but his lips were curved into a smile.
“I finished my project.”
And without asking for permission, Eden lightly shoved Juan out of the way and opened up his profile on the computer. After a couple of seconds of clicking and scrolling, a video popped up. Eden handed Juan his headphones and pressed play.
A light guitar melody started, and Juan instantly recognised the song, but couldn’t quite place where he knew it from.
The second the voice kicked in, he knew.
And we waited for sirens that never come
And we only write by the moon, every word handwritten
And to ease the loss of youth and how many years I've missed you
Pages plead forgiveness, every word handwritten
The video was simplistic, and a performance based one. Juan immediately recognised the venue on campus that the band were playing in.
Fernando and the rest of the band were playing to an enthusiastic crowd, the video shot in grey scale.
Here, in the dark, I cherish the moonlight
I'm in love with the way you're in love with the night
And it travels from heart, to limb, to pen
It was solid, well-shot music video, but Juan wasn’t thinking about that. He’d never heard the song before, but it resonated with him immediately. He sat there staring at the blank screen and didn’t say a word.
Juan was only pulled back to the real world when Eden flicked him in the shoulder.
“What did you think?”
“It was brilliant.” Juan said breathlessly.
The day of Juan’s departure arrived much faster than he had hoped. Despite picking up every single shift at the coffee shop that he could, Juan hadn’t managed to see Fernando again. Which Juan could have seen as lucky, because he was almost certain he’d make a fool of himself if he did see him. But on the other hand, he just wanted to see Fernando once more before he left for the three months of summer vacation.
As usual, the airport was packed, as it always is in the summer months. Juan had ended up buying a ticket to Madrid, and then he’d get a connecting flight a few hours later up to Oviedo – for some strange reason, doing it that way worked out cheaper than a direct flight to Oviedo. It added a few hours to his journey, but Juan was a student, he was pretty good at saving money in any way possible.
He’d had to run through the terminal in order to catch his plane on time. Juan was so close to missing his plane that he was the absolute last person to board.
Throughout nearly the whole flight, Juan was asleep, being on a plane knocked him out like nothing else. The airhostess shook him awake when they reached Madrid, he shyly rubbed his eyes and grabbed his carry on after realising he was the last person on the plane and everyone else had gotten off already.
With a groan Juan looked at the departure board, he’d misread his ticket. There wasn’t two hours in between his flights, but four. Four whole hours stuck in the airport.
Not being able to stop himself, he grabbed a meal from McDonalds and got out his book. Although he only had 50 pages left and was done within 45 minutes.
Sitting in an airport proved to be too boring and Juan found himself falling asleep a few minutes later. Juan knew his own body well enough to realise that if he fell asleep he’d probably miss his flight altogether. So, he reluctantly pushed himself up off the chair and found a coffee shop.
He ordered a Vanilla Spice latte and moved to the second counter to wait for his drink. This coffee shop was part of a chain, so everything was mock vintage. To his right some girls took pictures of their drinks no doubt to upload on to Instagram, and he counted at least 5 different people dotted around working on their MacBooks. Although over the shoulder of one of those people, he saw them playing Solitaire, so he doubted they were all doing serious work.
Turning his back on the counter, Juan looked out of the window and across the airport, watching the people wheeling their suitcases and carrying their duty free. He smiled as he watched a couple embrace just outside; they both had tears in their eyes as they clung on to each other. Juan couldn’t tell whether they were about to be separated or being reunited, but Juan didn’t care. The emotion on their faces was enough.
“Can I get a Caramel Macchiato please?”
Juan froze.
He turned around slowly, because if he moved quicker he might realise his mind was tricking him.
But it wasn’t.
There stood Fernando, ordering coffee at a Starbucks in Madrid-Barajas.
Juan wanted to say something, to call Fernando’s name, but nothing came out of his mouth.
“Juan?”
His eyes widened when he realised he’d been spotted. Subconsciously, Juan smoothed down his t-shirt and plastered on a smile. Doing one thing after the other, because apparently at that moment his brain was incapable of multi-tasking.
“Fernando.”
“How are you, man?” Fernando asked, wrapping the smaller man in a hug.
“I’m good thanks,” Juan replied just as the barista called out his order. He grabbed the drink and sipped at it, thankful for something to do with his hands.
“What a coincidence this is, where are you off to?” Fernando asked, leaning his elbow on the counter, with a lazy smile on his face.
“I’m going to Oviedo, home.” Juan smiled. “What about you?”
“I’m going up to Langreo to see a friend, but I’m going via Oviedo.”
Involuntarily, Juan’s smile got a bit wider and he hoped that Fernando didn’t notice.
“My flight is at 4:30, I don’t know why I’m here so early.” Fernando laughed checking his watch and realising there was just under 3 hours until his flight.
“No way, me too. I’m on the same flight.” Juan laughed heartily.
As the barista handed Fernando his coffee, he sipped at it and made a face, “It’s not as good as yours.”
Juan blushed darkly and giggled. “Want to sit?” He motioned towards an empty table in the corner and Fernando agreed.
The whittled away the three hours talking to one another, it was much easier than Juan expected it to be. They talked about everything and anything; somehow they got on to the subject of high school crushes.
“Mine was this girl in my class called Sofia, she was stunning - dark brown glossy hair, bright smile and she was sharp as a tack.” Fernando smiled nostalgically.
“I think mine was Shakira. Until I realised that I liked guys better and then it was Justin Timberlake.” Fernando almost choked on his coffee at Juan’s remark.
“Oh man, they’re calling our flight?” Fernando said suddenly, grabbing his bag and then Juan’s hand and hauling him up from the table. They ran to their gate, and Fernando still hadn’t let go of his hand.
It was warm. It fit perfectly.
Unfortunately, their seats were a few rows apart on the plane, so they couldn’t talk to another during the flight. The flight was only an hour and twenty minutes, but exactly like before, Juan was out like a light. This time though, Fernando was the one shaking him awake when they got to Oviedo.
Fernando and Juan left the plane together and waited by baggage claim. Their shoulders brushed and Juan found himself leaning on the older man, not having quite woken up since getting off the plane. Reaching over, Fernando put his arm around Juan’s shoulder, pulling him closer to his body.
They retrieved their luggage and went outside, Juan to hail a cab and Fernando to meet his friend.
Standing outside the airport, Juan had decided to wait with Fernando until his friend showed up.
“He’s on his way,” Fernando promised after they'd waited for a few minutes, although Juan didn’t care, he was perfectly content waiting.
“There he is,” Fernando pointed across the car park to a small black car that was looking for a parking space.
“Thanks, um, for waiting with me.” Fernando stuttered over his words, which was so unlike him, that Juan couldn’t surpress a smile.
He was about to reply when Fernando leant down and pressed his lips against Juan’s.
“I-uh…” Juan couldn’t formulate proper words to say. So instead he decided to kiss Fernando again, wrapping his arms around the taller man’s middle and pulling him close.
“So, on your way back to Madrid, do you think you could swing through Oviedo?” Juan asked with a devilish smirk. He pressed a kiss to the corner of Fernando’s mouth and the older man then ran off to meet his friend.
“Only if you promise to make me a Caramel Macchiato,” Fernando called back, winking as he went.