Chapter Text
com∙pro∙mise (n.)
- a settlement of differences reached by mutual concession
At six minutes to six on Sunday afternoon, the cheap, brass overhead doorbell rings for the first time since noon.
“We'll be closing soon,” Oliver calls from the back corner of the cafe area.
The high-pitched ding is an unwelcome interruption from his crucial task of determining which scones are worth wrapping up and saving for tomorrow morning’s rush hour (at most, twenty-five extra customers beyond his regular clientele) and which ought to be pitched. He starts disposing of the near-burnt scones shoved in the back row. He needs to remember to not let Rene handle any of the baking. That kid would eat rocks if it came down to it.
While Oliver is usually not opposed to whipping up some fresh dough for his customers, he has been on his feet for the last nine hours and would prefer to head home early and maybe catch an hour of television and actually get some of that alleged decent night’s rest everyone’s always telling him he needs. Everyone being mostly Thea and Rene.
Besides, after dumping out ten perfectly charcoaled pocket pastries, he still has a dozen or so left on the tray that are decent enough to sell. He shuffles the most stale pastries towards the front row for his 11AM executive assistant and personal assistant late-breakfast-early-lunch-snack-run personnel from the business tower across the street, those fresh-out-of-grad-school, starry-eyed do-gooders, who are always checking their emails and won’t be able to taste the difference.
He almost had one of those once.
He wonders how much easier his life would be if he had a personal assistant now.
Of course, he’d have to pay said assistant, and he’s not exactly drowning in excess and privilege like he was a decade ago.
He’s the untrained owner of a small bookstore buried in a downtown city. And maintaining a struggling bookstore in a struggling economy is an arduous task at best and a depressing venture at worst. So, most work days are roughly somewhere in between. Mediocre. One day bleeds into the next until he forgets what day of the week it is until he checks the schedule.
When Oliver reads for leisure (ironically, he has very little opportunity to read for leisure), all the startup models and self-help books and even the occasional tycoon novel say the same thing: selling your soul to save your business should feel normal.
Unfortunately, the uncontrollable ingredient in this scheme called bookselling is the market.
He’s lucky if his small store makes it onto the back page of the monthly Starling City Living. Not that anyone buys magazines nowadays. Not that anyone has the time or desire to browse second-hand and third-hand books.
So he does what he can to keep his store afloat, cutting the staff’s hours and preserving day-old pastries and leaving that irritating antique bell afixed over the door. He’s been opposed to the doorbell from the start, but it came with the lease, and Thea thinks it’s good luck and swears it adds to the aesthetic of the place. Rene calls it a gimmick, and Oliver is inclined to agree with him. Nearly everything about this job is a gimmick.
As though on cue, a pair of heels pounds against old wooden floors, signaling the approach of his lone customer and pulling him up from behind the counter.
Oliver pastes on his best Customer Service smile, one truly useful skill he’s acquired thanks to an irregular attendance to dozens of high-end parties growing up. “What can I get for you?”
His smile slips when he sees her.
She, quite literally, takes his breath away.
While her fashion sense screams Complicated Order, she also exudes a soft demeanor and remains fixated on her small infernal device, wearing an adorable furrow between her eyebrows, thumbs flying a mile a minute.
The advantage of unhealthy technological immersion, however, is that it allows him to study her undetected. A Study In Scarlet of his own making.
His gaze travels slowly from her heels and blood-red jacket to her high blonde ponytail and feminine glasses and Neon Pink lipstick that is somehow flattering to her face. She wears so many shades of red that she looks like she escaped from a Valentine’s Day ad. He wonders if she’s one of those poor weekend executive assistants with a propensity for espresso and no social life.
She startles him when she finally looks up from her phone, and he recovers by trying to push one of his socialite smiles back onto his face, though it feels even more fake than usual.
The cute blonde throws out her question before he can repeat his. “Hi, could you tell me what the passcode is for the WiFi?”
What? He blinks. “There is no WiFi here.”
“What?” She sounds horrified, like he’s just told her her dog died. She seems peppy enough to be a dog person.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand--which, for me is kind of new. How exactly do you expect to run a business in the twenty-first century without accessible WiFi?”
He swallows. She sounds like his landlord. And his sales rep. And pretty much every other millennial who's miraculously managed to glance up from their rectangular deathtraps long enough to wander into this place.
He's annoyed that she's taking their side--and a bit irritated with himself for being attracted to her in the first place.
“Well, if you don’t like it, you can leave.” He doesn’t need the extra five minutes of labor and $3.50 profit her one cup of coffee was going to provide him anyway.
She flinches, and he regrets his gruffness immediately, but it’s too late. Her mouth pops open. She is clearly taken aback, and frankly so is he at his own behavior, that his pride has hurt a stranger and ruined a perfectly good sale.
She blinks a few times and then rallies enough gumption to tilt her chin up at him. “Fine.”
Before he has a chance to apologize, she spins and marches away, her ponytail flapping like a golden military flag. She is three steps from the door when a loud crackle of thunder shakes the room, and the sky opens up, unleashing buckets of water. Sudden gusts of wind begin spraying the rain sideways. The street is a wind tunnel of gushing water.
Oliver groans, moving around the counter to find his visitor in scarlet struggling to unfold her umbrella in as quiet and dignified a manner as possible.
“Your umbrella’s not gonna do you much good in this storm,” Oliver tells her.
Her shoulders tense again, this time with surprise but less agony.
He’s doing better. He can be civilized. He takes a hesitant step closer, softening his voice. “It should pass in a few minutes. Why don’t you grab a seat, and I’ll get you a cup of a coffee?” She shifts uncomfortably, avoiding his eyes. “It’s on the house,” he adds with a twitch of a smile, not that she notices.
She nods. “Thanks.”
The rain does not let up in a few minutes. If anything, it worsens. So Oliver devotes their extra time to concocting a supreme cup of coffee to make his guest feel better. (Any consideration he might have given to save face for the sake of his business is long forgotten.) He froths some half-and-half and at the last second decides to add honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top.
“I hope this isn’t too presumptuous,” he says when he reaches the corner chair she’s nestled herself into. “You look like a cream and sugar kind of gal.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Because I wear a skirt?”
“I…” He freezes. He honestly has no idea what to say to that.
She accepts the steaming cup with a teasing smile. “Cream and sugar is perfect. I just wanted to see if I could render you speechless, too.”
“I deserve that.” He crosses his arms and leans against the window, putting a small but safe distance between them.
She takes a few sips, and then her eyebrows pull together. For a second, he’s worried that maybe the milk’s turned sour. But then she says, “Oh wow. This is actually really good--not that...not that I was expecting it to not be good. It’s just it’s so hard to find a decent cup of coffee these days. I don’t really consider myself to be a coffee snob--though, I don’t suppose anyone would consider themselves to be a snob .” She lifts two fingers to make air quotation marks around the word snob . And the way her lips pucker and nose scrunches up makes her seem youthful and winsome.
“But honestly,” she continues, “the coffee at the office tastes like watered-down battery acid, and Starbucks is always so crowded and overpriced, and I’m already behind on this week’s data interface plans and…. I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear all of this.”
His lips twitch. Now that she’s apparently forgiven him, she really is quite the talker, isn’t she? “Actually, it’s kind of nice,” he tells her honestly. “You don’t mind if I start straightening things up? You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.” So what if he doesn't get to watch his hour of television tonight. So what if he doesn’t get to crash early. Sleep is overrated. Isn’t that why he owns a coffee shop?
“Thank you. I could use a break.” She visibly relaxes, sinking deeper into the chair.
“Boss keeping you busy all weekend?” He tilts his head toward the skyscraper across the road.
She hesitates, an uncomfortable look crossing her face. But it vanishes just as quickly. “Um...yes, you could say that.”
They shift into an easy, contended silence, as Oliver organizes the R through T shelf in literary fiction. He may not have finished his degree, but he knows Ra comes before Ru.
Eventually, he asks her about her work, and she chatters away, incessant and vivacious. While a third of what she says goes over his head, Oliver is unsure whether her job in the world of computer science truly is more exciting than his average, analog lifestyle or if she just possesses the natural ability to make everything sound exciting.
“Normally, I don’t like to brag about my job, but this week we have a really big sales pitch to make in front of our board of directors. My team and I have been slaving over this device for weeks, and a lot of company jobs are riding on the design. And I’m the one who’s going to be giving the presentation, and as you can see I tend to ramble….”
It takes him a moment to realize she’s waiting for a response.
“What kind of device is it?” he asks, glancing back over his shoulder to let her know he is fully engaged--or at least, as fully engaged as he can be--in their mostly one-sided conversation. He notices the rain has stopped, but she no longer appears to be in a hurry to leave. Something warm settles in his chest.
“Oh, it’s a, um, biometric chip implant that hopefully can be embedded into any spinal nervous system and help repair paralysis.”
“Wow. Really?”
She shrugs. “That is the plan.”
“And you designed it?” He hops down from the ladder.
“Not me. One of my...colleagues. I’m more of a numbers girl. I do all the back-end coding to support the engineering design. I’m like the Crick to his Watson--though, really, I suppose I’m more of the Rosalind Franklin in this scenario, who was basically cheated out of her Nobel Prize.”
He blinks, feeling like he’s completely lost the trail of her thoughts.
Thankfully, she finishes with, “They discovered DNA.”
He nods once. “Right. I do know what DNA is.”
She smiles brightly, and at once he feels both more foolish and more worthwhile under her scrutiny.
As she begins slowly packing up her things, the Lost Treasures section catches his eye. He picks up the book before he’s really made the conscious choice to do so. “Hey, I don’t know if you like to read or if your boss gives you time to read. I don’t even know if this is something that you would enjoy but…”
Wow, he is failing at this. Has it really been this long since he’s talked to a woman other than his sister about something other than her coffee order? Thea’s voice suddenly fills his head. Geez, Ollie, just spit it out.
He shakes his head, stretching out his hand before he can change his mind. “Here.”
She stands and glances down at the book. Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II.
“It’s a recent acquisition, and what you were talking about made me think about it. I know it’s not the same thing. I mostly read history books myself, and I just thought… You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. And if you don’t like it, you can always bring it back. No charge.” Does he sound as ridiculous as he feels?
“Oh. Well, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, I’m actually not much of a reader. I mean, other than the occasional novel on my Kindle.”
His hand falls, and he tries to ignore the way his heart pinches strangely at the malicious word kindle . “Oh. Right. Of course.”
“But you did just give me a free cup of what is unquestionably the best coffee I have had in months . The least I can do is pay you for the book.”
She reaches for her wallet, but he stops her. “No, I mean, it was my suggestion so…”
She wears that adorable frown of hers, eyebrows scrunching together. “Last I checked, this is not a library. You’ll never make it if you just keep giving away your product. That’s like Business Management 101.”
He huffs a short laugh. “Consider it an apology. For the way I acted...earlier.”
She finally relents, tucking the book inside her purse. “Okay. But next time, I will be paying for my coffee.” She points a finger at him, silently demanding that he keep up his end of the bargain.
“Next time?” He raises an eyebrow, wishing his heart not to cling to an indifferent promise. She is just being polite , he reminds himself. There is no guarantee he’ll see her again after today.
She tips her head, thoughtful and almost...flirtatious? No. That can’t be it. This is just part of her odd but sweet personality. “Despite your current lack of WiFi, I kind of like it here. This room has a nice, vintage, back-to-the-Victorian-Era ambiance.”
He smiles. If Thea were here she’d be graciously demanding a customer review for their online presence. Maybe he can pitch that as the company slogan at their next staff meeting. Verdant Books: the right place for a nice Victorian Era experience.
“I'm Felicity, by the way.” She holds out her hand to him, and his heart beats a little faster at the way her slender, strong, perfect fingers feel wrapped around his own.
“Felicity.” He likes the sound of her name and the pleasing way his lips and tongue move together to form the word.
Even after their hands go still, she doesn’t pull away, and he doesn’t release her. An amused look crosses her face. “This is the part where you tell me your name,” she whispers playfully.
He clears his throat. “Right. Oliver.”
Is it possible her smile grows, or is he merely imagining things? “Nice to meet you, Oliver. Bookseller and Barista Extraordinaire. By the way, the term barista is not meant to be emasculating at all. It is a compliment of the highest order. If I were a queen, I would dub you Knight of the Java.”
She winces, clearly embarrassed, a blush blooming on her cheeks.
But Oliver laughs, a real, full laugh, something he hasn’t done in a long time. “That’s not a bad title.” Coming from anyone else, the title would have sounded cheap, like one of those paranormal teen books Thea is always pestering him to try. But coming from Felicity, the title adds another facet to her intriguing, gemmed character. After all, some titles are misleading; some titles are commemorative; and some titles are significant just by who their author is.