Work Text:
“Oblivious should be your middle name.”
Angelique was fully in Work Mode. Eyes glued to her laptop, coffee in hand, focus music on. It took her an embarrassingly long moment to register Quinn had said something.
She pulled off her headphones. “Sorry?”
Her saint of a best friend cracked an exasperated smile. “Exactly my point. Take a break. I have been in this cafe with you for two hours and that is the longest you’ve looked up from the screen-no, stop it.” She puts a hand in front of the screen, forcing Angelique to look up in exasperation.
“Quinn, I cannot afford to bomb this Ethics exam. You know Professor Quarrelous has it out for me.”
“First of all, I refuse to speak the name of that hag in this hallowed sanctum. Second of all, you are reading material that we have not even covered in class yet.” Quinn leaned forward. “Trust me, it will not be on the exam. If you are dying to study something, please study the mystery of your never-ending supply of coffee for the past two hours.”
Angelique was beginning to feel like a broken record. “Sorry?”
Quinn sighed and gestured to Angelique’s mug. “Expresso. Tank. Always. Full.” She enunciated each word slowly. Something about that finally punctured through the caffeine-induced fog.
Angelique blinked and stared at her cup. Having a full-on conversation meant that her mind was slowly getting reacquainted with Real World Logic. Which meant registering that she did indeed have a Bottomless Coffee Cup on her hands, because she had been steadily drinking her weight in coffee without paying for a refill. Interesting.
She looked across the table. “Wait. Your hibiscus tea is also still full.”
Quinn favored her with a look of pity. “This is honey lemon, Angel. Coffee Guy, who clearly has a crush on you, was kind enough to bring it by while giving you a fourth refill.”
“How nice of him.” Angelique said absentmindedly, already falling back under the hypnotic spell of the blue screen. Then her brain caught up to her hearing. “Wait, what?”
“You don’t like honey lemon?”
”The other part, Quinn!”
Quinn pushed Angelique’s laptop shut, smiling. “You really are out of it. Coffee Guy has been flirting with you all this time and you truly have not noticed a thing?”
Angelique shook her head. “You are being ridiculous.”
“I am not ridiculous, I am right. I am always right.”
“Emerys would probably disagree with that.”
“Emerys is entitled to his wrong opinions. Do not change the subject, Angel. Is it that hard to believe that a handsome boy could be interested in you?”
“Who said I think he’s handsome?”
Quinn’s eyebrows rose so high that Angelique actually squirmed. Yeah, she probably pushed it too far on that one. Their cozy little campus cafe had recently skyrocketed in popularity, almost certainly due to a very cute and very charming barista that had been hired a month ago. A majority of students on campus had already dubbed him ‘Coffee Guy’.
On a professional level, Angelique could respect the manager’s business acumen in hiring a charismatic server to lure in more customers. On a personal level, she utterly despised how it turned her favorite hiding spot into the new hottest trend.
Seriously. If she had to hear Lovelana and her twittering flock of birds—er, girlfriends— giggling one more time, she was going to break something. Probably Coffee Guy’s flawless nose, to fix the source of the problem.
“Okay, fine. He is not…entirely unattractive. And he seems kind. But you are still being ridiculous. He probably flirts with dozens of customers every day, and he is definitely not interested in some coffee gremlin who has never been in a relationship.”
Right as Quinn was about to fire back a retort, her phone buzzed. Thank heavens.
“Ooh. Is that the lover boy?” Angelique drawled teasingly. “Look at that. Speak of the devil and he really does appear.”
“One day, you and Emerys will admit you two actually are friends.” Quinn rolled her eyes good-naturedly and swung her bag onto her shoulder. “It’s Kenneth, for the record. Team practice. We’re to play against Sole next week, and their Knights are no joke. Roy is on the warpath with practice, because he’s determined to get at least one goal past their golden boy goalie Isaia.”
“Go, Soldiers, go. Or whatever the sports motto is.” Angelique stood up to accept Quinn’s hug, squeezing her shoulders quickly. “See you later?”
“Don’t stay too late. And do not think you’ve gotten out of this conversation,” Quinn warned. Angelique flapped a hand in lazy acknowledgement. She would deal with it next week, assuming Quinn even remembered.
Once Quinn’s blond ponytail was out the door, Angelique slowly eased open her laptop again, looking over her shoulder to see if Quinn would suddenly pop back in. Nope. She was home free.
To celebrate, she took another swig from her apparently-bottomless drink and made a face. Ugh. This is why she shouldn’t have stopped. Once she did, she remembered how much she hated black coffee. Alas, she couldn’t risk adding in sugar. A sugar high along with the extra caffeine would be a nightmare.
Alright. Just one more section—her phone lit up with an incoming call. Angelique squinted as she answered. “Quinn? Did you forget-“
“If you don’t take a break right now, I will calling Elle to drop by and steal your laptop,” Quinn cut her off in a disturbingly pleasant tone.
Angelique immediately scanned her surroundings. “How on earth did you know?”
“You just admitted to it.”
Angelique swore silently. She fell for this every time.
“Live a little,” Quinn continued. “It won’t hurt to add a little sugar to that tar pit that you call coffee. But if you want to call my bluff, Elle still has your location and she’s been fairly bored, so. You have been duly warned.”
“Quinn!” There was a tiny click as her infuriating best friend had the nerve to hang up on her.
This time, Angelique swore aloud as she glared at her phone, already swiping to redial. It went straight to voicemail, the traitor. “I am going to kill her. I’m going to stab her with a rusty fork, set a pack of wild squirrels on her, and-“ She faltered momentarily at the drip-drip-drip sound of coffee being poured.
Ah. Please don’t be who I think it is.
“Would you like me to pretend not to have heard that? I’d hate to be a witness of premeditated murder.” Coffee Guy’s voice was warm and rich, with the slightest hint of a French accent, and of course he would come by at the moment she was plotting hypothetical murder, because that was just how Angelique’s luck worked.
She slowly looked up, praying she did not look as flushed as she felt. There he was, grinning at her in a way that completely scattered her thoughts. Somehow, Quinn was to blame for this, she just knew it. “Um...so how much do I owe you?”
There was evident laughter in Coffee Guy’s mismatched blue and green eyes as he filled up her mug for the…fifth? Sixth time? She had embarrassingly little idea. “Owe me? For what?”
“You know.” Angelique waved her hand haphazardly, nearly knocking over her cup in the process. Luckily, Coffee Guy caught the wobbling ceramic and moved it out of reach. Smart. “The uh. refills. And the tea. And forgetting my...descriptive language.”
In her opinion, Coffee Guy was doing a terrible job of hiding his amusement. He could at least pretend not to be laughing at her. “Consider it on the house. My supervisor Clovicus would call it a necessary sacrifice to ensure the safety of our customers.”
Angelique winced. She was aware that she had an intimidating vibe, which only got worse the more stressed out she was. But she didn’t think people were actually scared of her. “Am I really that scary?”
“Not to me. Besides, I like scary.” Something about the careless way he threw that out, not to mention the playful, conspiratorial grin he shot her, had Angelique narrowing her eyes.
“You seem pretty sure of yourself.”
His grin broadened. “I once saw you tear apart a man’s ego using nothing but your sharp tongue. It left me with a healthy dose of respect for you, but certainly not fear.”
Angelique barely remembered such an occurrence. “Who?”
He laughed. “Duke. One of my least favorite customers. He has an inflated sense of his own importance and thinks he ought to be treated by royalty. He had been harassing a couple of my coworkers. I was already getting ready to throw him out, but you got there first, and verbally stripped him bare in front of half the entire campus. I was so in awe, I almost asked you out on the spot.”
“Huh. It’s a shame you didn’t.” It slipped out before Angelique could think to stop herself. Too late, she slapped a hand over her mouth. Coffee Guy had frozen, mouth half-open.
Way to go, Angel. You broke him.
She let out her breath in a sharp exhale. “Sorry. You should know, I’m not very good at this.”
“This?”
“Talking.”
Coffee Guy cocked his head, eyes intent. “Is that…all this is?”
Embarrassed, she clammed up and shrugged. “What else would it be?”
His sunny smile wavered. “Ah. Nothing, really. I was hoping-never mind. Sorry to bother you. Here, I can take your friend’s tea.”
The sudden shift made her feel like she missed a turn somewhere. Coffee Guy still had that ever-present smile, but it had…changed. Like masking another emotion. And Angelique, of all people, would know what putting on a mask felt like.
He clearly has a crush on you. Quinn’s words rang in her head as she studied her coffee, once again filled to the brim when she has not been looking. She took a deep breath, feeling as if she was standing at the edge of a precipice. Okay. Why not.
I hope you weren’t kidding, Quinn. Otherwise, I can never show my face here again.
“Imangeliquebytheway.” She rushed to say before she changed her mind. “My name. Is Angelique. You should know it, for my number. I mean, let me give you my number so you can tell your boss and he won’t blame you for giving away coffee to some random person. Because I’m going to pay you back before I leave, obviously.”
And this was the moment when she regretted drinking all those cups of coffee, because here she was, babbling like an idiot.
“Angelique, is it?” Coffee Guy had lit up again, his smile seeming more…real. “That’s a beautiful name. It suits you.”
“I-thanks?” It had to be the caffeine that was making her heart race this fast. She grabbed her phone. “So um, here. You can, uh, text yourself from my phone? And then let me know what I owe.”
He typed something, then handed her phone back. “I’m on the clock until late tonight, so I probably won’t be able to text back immediately. But I will. I definitely will.”
“That’s okay, text as late as you want. I’ll probably still be up studying,” she said without thinking, then internally cringed. Way to seem overeager, Angelique.
But his gaze only brightened. “Good to know.”
She sipped her coffee as he left to take care of another customer. Despite the lack of sugar, it tasted a little sweeter. Odd.
Out of curiosity, she glanced to see what he had put as his contact.
…he’d named himself ‘Coffee Guy’. Which was funny and rather self-aware, but told her less than nothing about him. Angelique really was not a nicknames kind of person.
He was already halfway back to the counter, a bounce in his step, before she called after him. “Wait! You didn’t put your name!”
“Evariste.” Even from here, she could see how his smile grew into a teasing smirk. “So you and your friend really don’t need to keep calling me Coffee Guy.”
Oh. Oh. So he had heard everything. Yeah. Quinn was absolute toast.