Chapter Text
Ding Ding!
The high chime of the bell above the door signals their first customer for the day at a peaky - Alec squints at the clock - 5:43am.
A muffled grunt behind Alec alerts him to Maia’s presence as she shuffles out of the small back room with a “got it.”
He’s always been thankful for Maia, thankful for the ease with which they work together and the seamless way they accommodate and cover each other's weaknesses. Alec doesn’t really… do customer service. He can make a mean piping hot cup of coffee to wake the weary mind, but when it comes to early morning smiles, Alec just can’t quite manage more than an awkwardly bared hint of teeth that always comes off as more of a grimace. No, Alec’s skills are much more practical, and he likes it that way. He likes focusing on menial tasks and getting through his shifts with as little contact with people as possible.
It’s several minutes later when he’s plating the pre-cooked treats onto the display platter that he hears Maia’s laugh and excited chatter of someone telling her a story. For as long as he’s known her, Maia has always been good with people. There’s a genuine, charming way about her, endearing in the way she speaks, like you’re an old friend she hasn’t seen in a while even if you’ve just met. How she can look at you with her wide brown eyes that soak you in a warm bath of sincerity and calm all your worries, eyes that see through all the bullshit that life brings and has you spilling out all your woes over morning coffee to a kind smile and listening ears.
Maia has a skill Alec has never come close to mastering.
Not that he necessarily wants to. It does rake in the great tips (which Maia graciously splits 60/40), but some days what Maia does borders heavily on a cheap variation of therapy. They’re baristas, if they decided that an average cup of joe included listening to a customer’s problems, the inflation on the coffees they sell would skyrocket.
When Alec finally nudges the door to the main room open with his shoulder and tray of baked goods firmly in his grip, he’s not surprised to see Maia hunched over the counter nodding her head with the hum of someone deep in thought. She’s working her magic again, Alec thinks as he slips past her as quietly and unobtrusively as possible.
“So you told her to shove that...”
Firmly, he shakes his head, tuning his ears into the soft jazz that plays above them in familiar gentle melodies he hears every shift as Maia’s voice trails in the background. It’s repetitive and he hates that he always finds himself humming the tunes at odd times of the day unknowingly, but he likes jazz and honestly prefers it over the drivel that often accompanies Maia’s little sessions. He’d rather not know about Simon’s love debacles, or Mr. Morgenstern’s conspiracy theories, and though Alec didn’t see who Maia’s early bird is today, their no-doubt inane life story doesn’t distract Alec from the very important and imperative task of aligning the trays perfectly before the next customer arrives.
As if summoned, the bell above the door chimes again and Alec glances up to see one of his regulars stepping in.
“Morning, Lydia,” Alec nods, and waits for the perfunctory smile he’s greeted with almost every day.
“Good morning, Alec,” she responds, stepping up to the register where he’s already punching in her order that he knows she’s going to repeat to him anyways out of politeness, the one he knows by heart.
When he first started, he was advised to memorize at least one regular’s order in a week's time, and Lydia, with her simple macchiato every morning promptly on the hour, was the one. As far as customers go, Lydia is exactly what Alec prefers to handle. She’s quiet, polite, and expects none of the frills customer service often forces. She comes in for coffee, mild conversation if they’re both in above average moods, and enjoys her macchiato in the quiet corner of the shop surrounded by her text books until she offers a gentle goodbye when she departs hours later. Alec appreciates her soft company endlessly.
After taking her money (exact change, as always) and exchanging a few words about the test he knows she’s studying for, Alec turns to start on her drink.
There’s a mental checklist he goes through in the beginning moments of making his first drink of the day, tallying all the processes that happen before opening and tacking on mental reminders to not forget the muffins in the oven. It’s somewhere between his internal checklist and the steaming of milk that Alec realizes his quiet humming along to the jazz through the speakers up above is the only sound that fills the small shop, and he wonders if Maia’s customer has already left after only 15 minutes.
What he’s not expecting when he turns around with Lydia’s finished drink is to be met with two pairs of eyes watching him, and a sly grin on Maia’s lips.
“Uhhh,” he offers, ineloquent when his gaze falls onto the man leaning his elbows on the counter.
“Hello there,” he receives in response, a shy smile filling out bright in front of him.
Maybe it’s the backdrop of the sunlight that settles through the windows and casts a soft glow around him, or the way it reflects off of and draws attention to the flecks of glitter that encase deep brown eyes. But in that moment, Alec’s positive he’s never met anyone this handsome before. Especially not at 6am, and definitely not in this small hole-in-the-wall coffee shop.
“Hi.”
For longer than he’d like to admit, Alec gets lost.
The macchiato is warm against his fingers, but nothing compared to the heat that flares on his face, or spreads down his throat and through his stomach like he’s just swallowed a straight shot of espresso. He gets lost in the mirth that blooms in the gaze they share, lost in the bashful tilt of the man’s head as his smile widens with the flabbergasted stutter as Alec tries to form literally anything else. The halo of the sun that’s barely peeking through the glass illuminates the long strands that are tinged with red, and glints off of the silver ear cuff when he shifts under Alec’s stare.
“Alec,” Maia’s words bring him back and he snaps his eyes over to her, where she glares pointedly in what he assumes to mean ‘get your shit together, Lightwood!’
“Ah - um, macchiato,” he explains, lifting up the small cup he still has to plate and take to Lydia.
He sets on that mission, ignoring the burn of eyes that follow his movements, and the sympathetic smile Lydia grants him when he stumbles his way over to her table.
When he walks back behind the counter, he makes a point of avoiding eye contact with Maia and the man as they fall back into a hushed conversation. The jazz overhead suddenly seems too loud, too grating on the fragile nerves and the sun is both too bright and not bright enough when compared to the beauty that sits at his counter. Part of him wants to go back up and introduce himself, to extend his hand and feel the contact of what he’s sure is a soft palm. He wants a name to match the face, a name to whisper back with a hope for… something.
God, what is he doing?
This guy isn’t the only attractive person that’s walked into their coffee shop, he’s not the first person who’s sat with his chin propped in a hand and watched Alec through conversation with Maia. As long as Alec’s worked here he’s had a few men and women come in and leave a number, but… but something about this guy feels different.
There’s a twist in his stomach, a heavy tug of attraction that flutters his chest and frazzles his nerves with every pass behind Maia that leads to catching gazes. It takes everything in him to muster up enough coordination to not fuck up and drop something in front of them to further embarrass himself.
Several people enter the shop in the next 15 minutes that pass after Alec’s embarrassing non-introduction. It keeps him just busy enough that he doesn’t have time to stop and dwell on his mortification, but not too demanding that Maia needs to help. When there is a lull, just short seconds when he’s ducking down below the bar to grab milk, he finds his eyes scanning the counter to see where the man has moved with the steady stream of newcomers crowding his space. But the man isn’t nearby anymore, the quiet lilt of his voice just below the music suddenly missing and heavying his chest with regret. Did he miss his chance to introduce himself already?
He looks for Maia next, finding her only when she finally steps out from the back room carrying the tray of muffins Alec already forgot about. If Maia’s working again that must mean she’s done talking to the guy, and he’s probably long gone by now, any opportunity Alec had at conversation successfully departed.
Fuck.
Oh well, he thinks to himself in a grumble as he snaps the small refrigerator shut and resumes his work. In all honesty he’s not sure that he would have been able to gather the courage to even say anything to the guy, let alone make anything happen. No use beating himself up about it now.
The rest of his shift passes slower than the first forty minutes did, a monotonous string of customers and vapid conversation that does nothing to distract him from the nagging disappointment he can’t seem to shake, hard as he tries. At 9am Jace walks in to flirt with Maia and bother him on his half, and though it’s not a new occurrence, today it dredges up annoyance in the pit of his stomach where his sandwich doesn’t sit well. It sucks seeing Jace with the confidence to shoot his shot, to aim for whatever he desires and not get dissuaded by the constant shut-downs and rejections he receives. It’s more friendly banter at this point than actual flirting, but it’s frustrating to watch nonetheless when Alec knows he couldn’t even handle stuttering out his name to a stranger.
The last hour of his shift drags on in the worst sort of torturous drum, but Alec’s finally in a better mood than he was during lunch. Simon likes to brag that it’s his presence that brings the small chuckle out of him when he trips from the entrance of the shop, already late for his shift. But Alec’s only human, and Simon falling on his face with a wail is obviously going to provoke at least a smile.
It’s only when the speaker crackles out the same tune from earlier that he feels his mood sink once more, however slight. It’s the same tune he remembers humming along to when he made Lydia’s drink this morning, the same one that played to the vision of smudged eyeliner, sunrise, and missed opportunity.
Maia must see the crestfallen look and take pity, because only seconds later the toe of her boot knocks lightly into his shin as her way to catch his attention. “Hey,” she begins, motioning to the tip jar that’s crammed full of bills and odd change with her head. “How about you take the tips today?”
Sour mood or not, there’s no way Alec’s taking all of their hard-earned money. “Fifty-fifty?” he offers instead.
The silence in her pause makes him suspicious, but she shrugs and opens the display cabinet to snag a muffin before she clocks out. “Fine, but only because I had to endure Mr. Morgenstern’s creepy conspiracy about Freud and siblings in love. Start counting, I’m gonna make a drink.”
There isn’t an opportunity to be indignant about having to hand count all the tips alone, because Maia’s already scampering off to the espresso machine the second the words rush out of her mouth. Simon just shrugs at him and goes back to wiping the counter, and Alec allows himself the drama of a sigh as he takes the jar to one of the unoccupied tables against the wall.
One by one, he counts each and every bill, getting up to $27 before his eyes catch on a small strip of napkin folded into a square. Were it not folded so meticulously, Alec would have already thrown it away. Curiously, he opens it.
It’s… a number?
It’s a number.
Magnus.
A breath releases from the stronghold of his lungs, held unknowingly in the seconds as his eyes scan the digits inked into the flimsy paper. Magnus, his name is Magnus, and he left his number. For Alec.
Quickly, he glances over to where he had last seen Maia, meeting her shit-eating grin with wide eyes. He lifts a brow in a silent question that she nods to, and more questions arise - when, why, me? - but he doesn’t voice them aloud, choosing to save these instead for Magnus. And that, the thought of even talking to him, god, all of it makes the warmth on Alec’s cheeks feel stifling, not from embarrassment, but from the prospect of the future.
It’s with a rushed motion that he digs his phone out of his back pocket and punches the number into his contacts, saving it before Simon catches wind of the situation and somehow finds a way to obliterate the napkin with his sheer bad luck.
The money that sits at the table in front of him holds him back from leaving, and he mentally calculates the money still left in the jar versus the bills he’s already counted, stashing the small stack into his pocket before slamming the jar back on the counter for Maia.
“You can have whatever’s left!”
“Don’t mind if I do,” she hums.
He’s only a step away from leaving the shop when he turns to face Maia, beaming at the still abundant jar of money. “Thank you, Maia.”
She turns to him, her smile turning warm with friendly affection. “Go get ‘em, tiger.” Then, after a beat: “Also, I love Magnus, so if you hurt him I know where you work.”
His lips quirk and his chest feels full, the sun bright against his skin when he steps out of the coffee shop. There’s a pep in his step, and his fingers are buzzing with the excitement as he pulls out his phone again and brings up Magnus’ number.
Hey, this is Alec.
Today was… pretty great.
Against his palm, Alec’s phone vibrates with a new text alert that flashes Magnus’ reply on the screen and proves that it’s only going to get better from here.