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Most days, Adora barely even registers that her clothes smell like she took a bath in the dark roast. She barely notices the way the scent of coffee beans clings to her hair, holds tightly all around her long after she’s left. She’s been working here for over a year now, what started as a summer job during grad school becoming something she’s continued into the school year, and the overpowering aroma of Brightmoon Coffee Company has seeped into her skin. It’s familiar in a way she never expected, but here she is, keeping a dizzying pace scrawling names and acronyms onto cups with a sharpie, then sending them sailing down to Perfuma and onto Bow, who’s at the espresso machine pulling shots down to his very exact science.
Glimmer’s somewhere in the back, no doubt filing through their inventory with Angella. There’s familiar noise all around the crowded shop—it’s a Saturday morning, and the Salineas Farmers’ Market is in full swing down the street—dogs barking outside, a woman squealing in delight as she unexpectedly runs into a group of friends, Bow calling out “Large Boston for Scorpia!” at the end of the bar.
Everything’s rhythmic. Adora’s in her routine. And its comforting. It really is, to be so in sync with her friends behind the bar and to work quietly around each other, laser focused like they’re some kind of superhero team and not just a motley crew of college students in their 20’s trying to keep up with the 9am rush.
And then it all just stops.
The noise stops.
Adora can’t see the smiling baby reaching for their parents’ avocado toast anymore. She can’t hear the sound of the ukulele players busking outside. And her nose is punched with a kind of perfume she can’t quite place, but good god, she wants to drink it in.
And standing in front of her is probably the most drop-dead gorgeous woman Adora has ever seen.
Her wavy brown hair is up in a ponytail, and underneath her eyelashes are the most striking eyes, staring down at her phone screen as she steps up to the counter. The woman looks up at her, and Adora realizes she’s crushed the cup she’d had in her hand, ready to take her order. The woman notices, and Adora quickly tosses the cup to the side and grabs a new one when she raises an eyebrow and stares up at Adora with blue and yellow eyes.
“Rough morning?”
Adora chokes out a laugh that doesn’t even sound like a laugh, more like a sad cross between a wheeze and whistle.
“Yeah, haha—um, I uh—”
“Catra’s the name for the order.”
Catra.
Adora wants to haul this Catra across the counter by the collar of her stupid leather jacket and kiss her senseless.
Which is a ridiculous thought, Adora realizes, considering this Catra has been in her life for approximately 18.9 seconds (the time it takes for Bow to pull an espresso shot).
Adora inhales sharply and puts on her best customer service voice and does not allow herself to get lost in Catra’s eyes.
“What can I get you?”
(Adora toys with the idea of adding the woman’s name to the end of the question, but then again, Adora isn’t sure she can handle that.)
Catra crosses her arms and shrugs.
“What’s good here?”
And oh, this she can do. Adora was born for this moment.
There’s definitely a bit of added pressure when the woman across the counter looks like she’s stepped right out of a magazine, but this is the kind of stuff Adora loves about her job—figuring out what flavors go together best, taking the seasonal drinks from the menu and putting her own spin on them, watching in horror as Glimmer tries one that’s definitely a no-go and then in delight when Angella sips on one that gets instant approval.
“Well, are you looking for something with espresso or something—”
Catra snorts like it’s the dumbest question Adora could have asked.
“I’m in a coffee shop. Please. I’m here for the coffee.”
“Then you’d be devastated by how many smoothies I have to make in a day,” Adora quips, earning a small tug of a smile on Catra’s lips.
“So brave of you to face those blenders every day,” Catra shoots back, and good lord, Adora wants to curse the growing line behind Catra because all she wants to do is sit and banter back and forth with her all morning.
“I cannot espresso how much that means to me,” Adora replies, and Catra’s head tilts back (exposing her neck) and groans.
(All Adora can do is stare at the muscles of Catra’s neck.)
“That was awful,” Catra finally responds, before her gaze tilts up to the menu and asks, “how’s the ginger sage latte?”
“It’s really good. Actually, I really like all our seasonal drinks right now.”
“Then I’ll have that one, iced with oat milk.”
Adora nods, cutting the conversation short as she realizes the line is now quite literally out the door and rings up Catra’s total.
“Guess I’ll have to come back and try the other drinks, too,” is the last thing Catra says (with a wink—a goddamn wink) before she moves over to the waiting area at the end of the bar, and Adora’s left trying to charm away the scowl on an older man who’s been left waiting for several minutes while Adora thirsts over some stranger named Catra.
Adora falls back into the rhythm, into the routine, and every now and then throughout the day, visions of Catra throwing her head back groaning fondly at Adora play on repeat, wondering if the woman will make good on her offer to come back another time.
She’s snapped out of one of many daydreams of Catra standing in front of her about two hours later, when the line has grown long again, and Adora is floundering.
“How the fuck did the line get this long, Adora?” Glimmer mutters beside her, pumping pumpkin spice syrup into the cup Adora just handed her.
“I—”
Adora smiles politely at the next customer in line as they try to decide between a muffin and a danish.
“Do you need help?” Glimmer whispers.
“I’m fine. Just busy. Go help Bow on the bar.”
She’s focused after that, not allowing Catra another thought until she’s home later that night, until she falls asleep and she sees bright blue and yellow behind her eyelids.
Adora is stuck in the library working on a paper the whole next day, wondering if Catra went back to Brightmoon. At one point, she can’t even help but picture Catra sitting across from her, in the library, a cup of coffee cradled in her hands, smiling (smirking) the way she did at Adora yesterday.
Which is insane. Like, it’s so insane, right?
She doesn’t even know this woman.
But it’s been months since Adora’s gotten laid, even longer since the end of her last relationship, and she can’t ignore the spark that tugged deep in her body yesterday morning and has since hooked her brain’s entire wagon to Catra Catra Catra—
So maybe she’s a little crazy for turning up at Brightmoon later that afternoon.
Maybe she deserves the confused look Glimmer gives her when she walks in—the knowing one from her best friend that silently asks is everything okay?
Adora steps up to the counter and orders a chai latte, decidedly ignoring the way Glimmer is staring into her soul like she can find out what Adora is thinking if she just looks hard enough.
She steps over to the end of the bar when Perfuma calls her name.
“Someone was here earlier looking for you.”
Coffee’s never really made her heart race in a way that Adora notices.
But that?
That does.
“What?” Adora asks, and she curses herself when it comes out a little breathless.
“Said her name was Catra?”
(Adora wonders how soon is too soon to say she’s in love.)
“What did she say?”
Perfuma doesn’t seem to miss the way Adora asks much too eagerly but indulges her anyway with a sly smile.
“Said to tell you the latte was great and that today she tried the lavender cardamom.”
Adora knows she’s probably blushing as red as the jacket she’s wearing.
She really can’t bring herself to care.
Because Catra came back. Catra came back looking for her.
And she’s trying all of Adora’s specialty lattes.
“Is she the one you were making eyes at yesterday morning?” she hears Bow yell over the whir of the espresso grinder.
Adora’s mouth drops open as her friend just smiles brightly at her, Perfuma pushing the chai latte toward her as Bow continues pulling shots for other drinks.
It’s stupid. It’s a stupid crush.
But it’s really hard for Adora not to let herself enjoy it.
She doesn’t see Catra for another three days after that, Adora being busy with class for two of those and then working in the evening for the other. It seems Catra only stops by in the mornings at this point.
It’s 8:37 in the morning on a Thursday when Adora’s rhythm gets rocked out of time again, Catra walking up to the counter with a smirk.
“Catra, right?” Adora greets, trying to be casual, like this woman she’s met one time hasn’t been plastered to her brain like a poster for the last five days.
“Yep.”
“Heard you tried the lavender cardamom latte the other day.”
“I was a big fan.”
Adora smiles widely and taps the small seasonal drink menu that rests next to the register.
“You know, I’m the mastermind behind all these specialty drinks.”
Catra throws her head back again but this time its to bark out a laugh.
(Adora still stares at her neck.)
“Then tell me, Adora, what in god’s name is a peppercorn white mocha?”
“Okay, so here me out. It has all the warmth of the pepper without the kick at the end, and it helps cut the sweetness of the white mocha. It’s actually got a really great balanced flavor.”
Catra grimaces, tilting her head back and forth like she’s unsure.
“If you hate it, I’ll make you something else,” Adora rushes to add.
Catra stops and places both hands on the counter, gripping the edge of it and tilting her head once more, this time leveling Adora with a look that she’s hoping, begging, wanting so badly to not be wrong when she interprets it as flirty.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I guess you just have one more reason to come back.”
Amazingly, somehow, the line seems to land, because Catra’s smirking as she hands over her credit card, and Adora sets off to work on Catra’s latte.
(She brushes Bow aside and insists that she makes it herself, which earns another hearty laugh from Catra.)
Adora hands her the drink and asks her if she wants a drink stopper, to which Catra shakes her head no and then holds up a finger like she’s asking Adora to wait.
Adora’s never once in her life wished to be a coffee cup lid until she watches Catra press her lips against the cup she just handed her, taking a sip of the drink.
Adora’s not sure she’s ever been so nervous in her life.
And then Catra pulls back.
And makes a sound that Adora can only describe as a moan.
Adora makes the mistake of having a steaming pitcher in her hand and promptly drops it on the floor, spilling out the little bit of leftover oat milk that didn’t fit in Catra’s cup.
Fuck.
Shit.
Fuck.
“Guess this is going to become a regular stop on my way to work,” Catra says, holding up the drink, before whirling on her heel and walking out like she didn’t just practically make a sex noise in response to a drink Adora made.
Bow just looks between the two of them with wide eyes and then laughs, earning an embarrassed “shut up” from Adora, who immediately hides in the back under the pretense of finding a towel to clean up the spilled milk.
And it does become a regular stop for Catra.
Catra becomes part of the rhythm, part of the routine. Adora expects to see those stupid eyes and the way the corners of them crinkle when Adora makes her laugh with one of her stupid coffee puns. Adora gets used to the smell of Catra’s perfume, mixed with the smell of pepper because Catra really takes to the peppercorn white mocha after that. She’s familiar with the sound of Catra’s voice and gets way too comfortable memorizing the way it lilts when she says Adora’s name.
And she learns about Catra’s life, too.
Catra starts to make a habit of curling up next to the fireplace in the back of the shop in an overstuffed chair with her laptop, and Adora always finds herself making excuses to wipe down tables in that direction, always finds herself somehow starting a conversation with Catra.
(If Catra doesn’t start one first.)
Adora tells Catra about grad school, how she’s working on her Master’s in Nonprofit Management and one day has a dream of opening an equine therapy facility for kids. Catra tells Adora that she graduated last year from Horde University with a Business degree, her father expecting her to take over his family’s business someday, but actually, Catra really just loves to hide in the corner of Brightmoon and work on the novel she’s been writing. Catra tells her about her cat Melog, and Adora shows Catra pictures of her horse, Swift Wind, and how she teaches riding lessons on the weekends at her barn. Catra tells her about her best friends, Scorpia and Entrapta, and about the motorcycle she owns (which adds a whole bunch of fuel to Adora’s fantasies), and how she got the giant scar on her arm when she was six when a girl named Octavia pushed her when Catra called her a “dumbface.”
Adora spends hours over the next weeks sitting in the chair next to Catra, long after the shop should be closed down, drinking the last of the leftover decaf from the day and drinking in Catra.
“Hey, Adora,” she hears one evening, about an hour before the shop closes.
“Not your usual time to be here.”
Usually, if Catra’s going to show up at a time that’s not in the morning, she’ll get there around three in the afternoon and stay for hours typing away on her laptop.
Catra shrugs.
“Yeah, I thought I’d try and get some work done.”
“Are you wanting coffee this late?”
“Part of me wants to order a smoothie just to fuck with you.”
Adora presses a palm over her heart in faux hurt and gasps theatrically.
“That is so mean.”
There’s a warmth to Catra’s smile when Adora looks up from the register, pressing buttons on the home screen and awaiting Catra’s order.
“I think I just want tea, actually.”
Adora snorts.
“If I remember correctly, when you first walked in here you said, and I quote, ‘I’m here for the coffee.’”
Catra just rolls her eyes.
“And I kept coming back for all the different drinks and the convenient location.”
“Not for the dazzlingly charming barista and her friends?”
They’ve been doing this for three months now—the back and forth, the at least weekly conversations that last at least two hours at a time, the spark that Adora felt the first time she met Catra on an August Saturday morning still burning brightly (even brighter) every time she brings the November chill into the shop when she opens the door.
It’s driving Adora crazy.
“I came back in spite of a blonde girl who insists on annoying me with stupid coffee puns.”
Adora just turns around and walks toward the coffee grinder.
“You must work so hard to keep yourself…”
Adora makes a big show of pointing at the grinder.
“Grounded.”
Catra reaches around the register and actually throws a cup right at a laughing Adora.
“I am never tipping you again.”
“But you’re still gonna come back,” Adora responds confidently.
And she’s right.
She knows Catra likes her too.
Logically, she has to.
Right?
Who shows up at someone’s workplace just to talk to them? Who stays for hours just to spend time with them? Who moans at a latte?
Objectively, Adora should have all the evidence she needs to make a move.
But Catra gives her heart palpitations like espresso never could.
So Adora backs off, continues the dance around Catra, the dance around the café as the clock ticks past closing time but Catra stays, the unspoken agreement between them that Catra can always stay until Adora is about to leave.
Adora lingers this time.
Maybe it was that fifth espresso shot she had today.
Maybe it’s that distractingly low cut maroon button-down Catra is wearing, with just one too many buttons undone that Adora nearly trips over the mop bucket.
Maybe it’s just that three months is way too long for Adora to go without having kissed Catra.
But she snaps.
Adora walks over to where Catra’s seated, the fireplace long gone out and Catra focused in on the screen of her laptop.
“Kicking me out?” Catra asks, removing her headphones and starting to shut down her computer.
“I’ve done almost everything I need to,” is all Adora says in reply.
Almost.
“Almost?”
Adora’s mouth falls open and nothing comes out as Catra deposits her laptop in her bag, leans down to pick the backpack up off the floor and – it’s really not fair for Catra to bend down like that when her ass is right there and somehow it’s even worse when she turns around and stands up and there’s that stupid collarbone of hers again because that stupid button-down is barely covering anything and –
Adora kisses her.
She barely hears the “mmph” of surprise when her lips connect with Catra’s because immediately after, Adora’s hands are gripping Catra’s hips, and Catra’s hands are flying up to Adora’s cheeks.
And Adora thinks she really should have done this 18.9 seconds after meeting her because Catra’s lips feel impossibly soft against her own, and Adora can barely hold back a moan when Catra angles to deepen the kiss and snake her arms around Adora’s neck.
When Catra pulls back, she’s grinning broadly.
“I don’t remember that being on the closing checklist.”
Adora tries to formulate a witty response. She really does.
But her brain has completely short-circuited with the newly gained knowledge of what kissing Catra feels like.
So much so that all she’s able to manage is, “We should go out sometime.”
“Somewhere that’s not here,” Adora quickly adds.
Catra smiles up at her, one hand threading up through Adora’s hair, fingers scratching gently at the base of Adora’s ponytail.
“What, so like a different coffee shop?”
“I was thinking smoothies,” Adora deadpans.
“How about we start with dinner?” Catra suggests.
Adora nods and leans in to kiss her again before pausing against Catra’s lips.
“You look brew-tiful by the way.”
Catra just groans as Adora laughs, silencing her with a kiss.