Work Text:
They say that one really falls in love only once in a lifetime and at this point, Alice is more than certain caffeine is undoubtedly the love of her life.
She knows every single code of the machine on the second floor of her office by heart, so much so that by now she doesn't even remember the real names of the various types of coffee. Just when she goes in front of the machine she thinks “mmmh I could take a 04 today, with sugar level 3 "; probably if she went to a real bar she wouldn't even be able to tell the bartender what she wanted.
This morning she is in the relaxation room on the second floor (for a change) and on the radio, they are broadcasting a song that she is sure to have already heard somewhere. It has a good rhythm, and Alice finds herself moving her hips slightly with music while waiting for her 04 sugar level 3 of the day to get ready.
The relaxation room has two small machines, which is a great relief as the queues are avoided, but also a huge waste of space given that almost nobody besides her takes a coffee every morning. Which makes her morning extremely solitary, but also extremely pleasant.
Alice is still dancing, allowing herself to sing even the words in playback, putting body and soul into the performance, when suddenly someone enters the tiny room and heads for the free machine on her left without lingering over.
The girl suddenly freezes, praying and re-praying all the Hindu gods present that the man had just not seen her shaking her pelvis at the sound of "You're indistructibleeeee always believiiiing".
When she finally manages to recover from the embarrassment and her corner of the eye manages to see the face of the new intruder, Alice must restrain herself from not letting out a noisy “ugh” from her mouth, because the intruder just entered is none other than Mr Forsythe Jones himself.
"Good morning, Alice," he greets her, without even looking at her.
"FP...."
FP and her don't like each other very much, in fact, she can even say that they hate each other. They have been working together for three years, but their hatred goes back many years before they became colleagues, precisely to an embarrassing and prehistoric past back in 2010, when Alice was fifteen and her sister Penny was in her last year of high school. Alice had been single for a lifetime and Penny had just become engaged to the most disputed boy in the school, the beautiful and reckless FP Jones, the star of the school, the one that all the girls craved.
Her sister and FP had been together for only five months, until he decided to break up with her on their graduation day, just to go to Australia to pursue his dream of studying Aboriginal languages.
The story between her sister and FP seemed to have ended there, except that, seven years later, she and her sister's ex had found themselves by chance working for the same publishing house in the same office and in the same area at London.
The first thing Alice had told him when they met had been, "Why aren't you in Australia?" And FP had replied with a sarcastic: "There were too many snakes".
Alice and the boy who had broken her sister's heart into a thousand pieces to go to Australia and then return to England seven years later found themselves (obviously) working on the same level, but after three years in close contact in the same office, even now it is rare for them to speak. (And if they do, it's almost certainly just an excuse to argue).
The fact is that Alice does not like Fp for three main and very sensible reasons: the first obviously concerns what happened between him and Penny in high school and, although they did not speak much then, his attitude towards her sister was absolutely unacceptable.
The second reason is a bit more recent, namely the fact that, by spending almost every day together, Alice realized that she and FP Jones are two completely different people. FP Jones is one meter eighty of pure bliss and love for himself that is too exaggerated, he is a slobby person and he loves beer. Alice Smith is one-meter sixty-two, she loves to change her hairstyles every week, her main features are that she loves frozen yoghurt, coffee, high heels and she absolutely hates beer, preferring wine. FP is twenty-seven years old, originally from Brighton, but lives in Camden is the son of a CEO and has lived alone for six years in an apartment with three bathrooms and two kitchens. Alice is twenty-five, living alone for a few months in an apartment in Greenwich, her parents have a mini pub whose name is Pop’s and she doesn't even have a kitchen in her house.
The third and final reason, on the other hand, concerns the novel that Fp published a month ago with his own publishing company which became a best seller in a few weeks.
It would have been a fact that Alice would have easily ignored, except that it was her dream, that was what Alice had been trying to finish for more than two years, and FP Jones stole her dream, stole her dream and then he took all the credit. Alice has been preparing her novel for two years, with sleepless nights, working on every word and mulling over each sentence until it becomes perfect, two years in which she dreams of becoming a bestselling author herself, and she cannot conceive of the fact that someone who hates so deeply has managed to reach her goal before her.
At this point in her life, Alice came to hate and envy Fp Jones with all of herself, so much so that she hardly even tolerates his presence.
Today FP wears an elegant suit, as usual, complete with a tie and a steel watch on his wrist, which makes him look more like a Gucci model than the employee of a publishing house.
Alice quietly admits that FP is really an attractive guy, with his black hair always in order, those perfectly shaped eyebrows that make her die of jealousy every time she sees him and his face always and in any situation completely shaved.
The problem is that FP is handsome and knows that, which makes him even more unbearable in Alice’s eyes.
He has always known he was beautiful, since high school when the girls died behind him and Alice spent day and night studying how it was possible for a male to have such damned perfect eyebrows.
FP gives her a quick smile, then takes a few seconds to go to the machine next to her and press 08 for his coffee. Decaffeinated, Alice acknowledges. That sucks, thinks the woman.
"Look, I need you to do me a favour this weekend," he says suddenly, bringing his plastic cup to his mouth as soon as the machine tells him he's ready.
Alice looks up, slightly surprised. They've known each other for almost ten years and it's the first time Fp has come to her for a favour. "Oh, okay, then tell me."
"I need you to come to Brighton with me for three days and pretend to be my girlfriend in front of my family."
Alice stares at her colleague in silence. Her coffee is ready, confirmed by the prolonged beeeep of the coffee machine, but she can't help but look at FP without even blinking. She maintains an apathetic expression for almost ten seconds, before recovering from the shock and being able to formulate a sensible answer. But all she can say is confused. "Er ... no ...?"
Fp seems genuinely amazed by that answer. "Why not?"
At this point, Alice no longer knows whether to take it seriously or not. "Excuse me, is that how you usually approach your colleagues? Go to them and tell them ‘hey you want to pretend to be my girlfriend for three days, it'll be fun, come on!’ Because you're desperately bored or what?”
FP snorts loudly, bringing a hand through his black hair. He steps away from the machine, so he looks at Alice more carefully. "Look, I know it's very random as a thing to ask. But I really need your help this time. "
Alice bends over to take her coffee, now cold, from the machine, without taking her eyes off Fp.
“And do you really need ... me?" She asks, raising her eyebrows.
"Yes," FP says, starting to stir his coffee. Strangely he is very nervous. Alice does not remember the last time she saw FP Jones nervous.
“I have this ... sort of event with my family that is apparently a super important deal for them, and my brothers will bring their super perfect partners and the event itself is full of important people who come only to show their own partner and when my mother asked me if I would bring a girl to introduce I told her yes, but the problem is that I don't have a girlfriend, so now I need someone to pretend to be one. I mean, can you do me this tiny favour, please? "
Alice must recover from all this new information.
First, she didn't even know that FP had brothers, she assumed that he was an only child, with all the money he has. But she even realizes that she has other things to look after at the moment.
She takes a long breath and after finishing her coffee, she says “You know this office is full of women, right? Why me? Why don't you ask ... what do I know, to Gladys in the press office? "
FP makes a disgusted face. "Who? Gladys long legs? Nah, it's too high for me. I would look bad”.
The blonde shoots him a glare but has no time to reply, because FP comes up with a second answer that manages to upset her even more.
"And why ... well, I'm not a friend of any of them. You and I have known each other for a long time, at least it wouldn't be embarrassing, come on ".
Alice gives a laugh that she tries to hold back as soon as possible. “Um ... you know that you and I hate each other, don't you?" She says, more and more confused.
Fp looks at her for a second, frowning. “Oh yes? I was not aware of it!”
Alice can't believe her ears. That bastard...
"Listen FP," begins Alice, her tone suddenly becoming serious. "I don't know what game you're playing. But I'm not going to come to Brighton and spend some money on ... what? Being your fake girl for three days so you can make a good impression with your family and-“
“I'll pay everything," Fp interrupts her, taking a step towards her. "Transportation, food, everything. And you will sleep in our house and everything will be at my expense. You will not have to pay a penny, I promise you.”
"Oh, thank you so much, Gandhi! Do you think that's really the only problem?” Replies Alice, turning away to throw away the plastic cup, feeling slightly annoyed by all that insistence. "What should I tell my family? That I fled to Brighton for the weekend with my sister's ex because suddenly we became best friends? "
"You don't have to tell them you're with me. Make up an excuse, whether you spend the weekend at Sierra and Hermione’s lake house, or that you're at a convention for work!"
Alice turns to him impatiently. Fp has a ridiculous sad expression on his face, he almost seems to kneel and burst into tears in front of her.
"I beg you, Alice. I ... will do anything. Anything!” He ends up telling her in a whisper.
At this point, however, Alice is intrigued by the proposal. She puts her arms folded and begins to scrutinize him from the head to the feet with a half smile on her lips. "If I accept, what will you give me in return?"
"Coffee".
"Ahha, you are funny! No thank you.”
"Not just coffee," FP hastens to explain, putting his hands in front of him. “Real coffee. Pure, delicious coffee, the top quality, the one from Colombia!”
Alice suddenly relaxes her arms. She gives him an intrigued look. Real, pure, delicious, top quality coffee from Colombia. Oh, can there be more beautiful words than these? She thinks to herself.
"But shut up ..." she can only say, as her mind begins to covet that coffee already. "You're not so rich that you can really afford a-"
"I'll do it," Fp announces before she can finish her sentence. "I'll give you a whole bag of pure and tested coffee from Colombia, but you have to promise me you'll come to Brighton with me."
Alice bursts into a loud laugh while heading towards the exit of the relaxation room, turning to look at him. FP Jones is really stupid sometimes.
"Sure, Jones! I will accept your offer only on the day when a delivery boy knocks on my door and gives me a bag crammed from head to bottom with nothing but pure top quality coffee coming from no less than Colombia!"
Two days later a young boy in uniform knocks on the door of her apartment, and Alice is seized by a sudden desire to strangle FP when she hears the delivery boy said, "A six-pound sack of top quality coffee from Colombia for ... ehm? ‘The future Mrs Jones’? "