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Alex fit the cup back into place, the double shot of espresso ready at the bottom. She sucked in a breath, holding it as she aimed the frothing tube and pressed the button for the third time. Finally— finally— a burst of steam escaped and frothed milk trickled into the cup.
She pushed the peaked blue cap with the embroidered coffee bean back onto the crown of her head, sliding the finished cappuccino over the counter.
“What, no art at the top?” Her coworker quirked an eyebrow over the brim of the cup.
“It’s bad enough they’ve got me stuck behind this counter,” Alex huffed. “I’m not going to be making your portrait in foam.”
“Hey, just say the word and I’ll hop back there. You can reorganize the manga section for the third time today.”
Alex snorted. “Uh yeah no. Not a chance in hell.”
“Well, it was worth a try.” Maggie shrugged, taking a sip of her cappuccino and humming happily. “You’re getting pretty good at these.”
“Well, I’ve been at it for four months, I sure hope so.” Alex scanned the floor just to make sure that no one was listening, then lowered her voice. “So it’s today then?”
Maggie’s eyes darted towards the Employees Only door, drumming her fingers on the cover of the book she’d lugged over to the cafe. “That’s the chatter. We’ve finally got enough to nail him after our last report.”
Alex nodded, busying herself by washing off the milk frother. When she had first met her partner for this mission— a joint undercover operation between the DEO and the NCPD— she’d been less than pleased. Detective Maggie Sawyer seemed to have been created specifically just to annoy her. Each day on her lunch break, Maggie would saunter over to the bookstore cafe and lean all over Alex’s freshly cleaned counters while ordering the most complex drink. Never anything on the menu of course, but recipes she’d discovered online, probably just to piss Alex off. She’d then tease Alex about her uniform before leaving a stack of unshelved books on one of the cafe tables.
It was infuriating.
It also became the one thing Alex looked forward to all day.
“So hey,” Maggie drawled, leaning in closer over the counter, “why don’t we make this interesting?”
Alex tried to ignore the smell of her perfume. “What have you got in mind?”
“Well, I’m still convinced that Slick is the mastermind.”
Alex rolled her eyes. Slick was the youngest of the two brothers who owned the bookstore, codenamed for his slightly greasy, slicked back hair. The evidence they’d compiled pointed to the store as being an alien drug front, but Maggie was certain that one of the brothers spearheaded the operation.
She was wrong, but if she wanted to delude herself, that was fine with Alex.
“So I was thinking,” Maggie continued, dimples deepening as a smirk crept onto her face, “that whoever is right about the real kingpin has to buy dinner after it’s all over tonight.”
“Shouldn’t the loser be the one buying?”
“Hey, either I finally get my chance to make you try vegan food and or you pay for dinner. Both wins in my book.”
It wasn’t phrased as a date, but Alex hoped that had been Maggie’s intention.
Somewhere around their second month of being embedded at the bookstore, Maggie’s antics had morphed from annoying to charming and Alex wasn’t delusional enough to pretend that she didn’t know why.
She was, as Kara often gleefully quoted, too gay to function, and Maggie looked really cute in her bookstore cardigan. It was a far cry from the leather jackets and tight jeans that she wore whenever they spent nights doing recon, but it made her look softer, more approachable.
It made it all too easy for Alex to imagine Maggie in other settings. At the farmer’s market, across the table from her at brunch, snuggled up under a blanket on Alex’s couch on a lazy Saturday morning...
Maggie cleared her throat softly and Alex followed her gaze to the entrance of the store where a man in a plaid shirt had stopped at the New Releases in Nonfiction table. The man coughed, looked around, then scratched his nose.
That was it.
Maggie’s partner had given them the signal.
But before Detective Daniels or any of Alex’s plain-clothed DEO agents could grab either of the brothers, a bookshelf toppled to the floor, drawing their attention away from the Employees Only door long enough for Slick and his brother Specs to slip out.
“Damn it, they must have been tipped off,” Maggie cursed, tearing off after the brothers through the store.
With the entrance blocked by multiple agents, the only other exit was through the emergency door in the Children’s Section. Specs was quickly apprehended by Agent Singh, but Slick was too quick, weaving in and out of aisles like the weasel he was.
Then, a shot rang out and the entire world seemed to grind to a halt as Maggie crumpled to the floor in front of the Science Fiction section.
Alex saw red.
She grabbed her gun from its hiding place under the espresso machine and vaulted over the counter in pursuit.
After four months working at the store (and many nights spent pouring over blueprints), she knew its layout like the back of her hand. She cut through Travel and Education, emerging into the aisle leading towards the Children’s Section just in time to tackle Slick to the floor.
The minute another agent appeared to handcuff the perp, she went to check on Maggie.
She knelt down next to Maggie, who had propped herself up against a bookshelf. She was staring down at a book in her hands, eyes slightly unfocused.
“Are you okay?” Alex asked, scanning Maggie for any signs that the detective was anything but dazed.
Maggie tilted the book towards Alex, revealing a bullet embedded in the thick cover.
Right in the middle of the “P” in War and Peace .
“You speak Russian, right?” Maggie looked up at Alex with a shaky smile, motioning for her to take the novel. “Consider it a souvenir?”
Laughter bubbled up in Alex’s chest, spilling out as relief flooded through her. That was a one-in-a-million shot. A miracle. The kind of thing that only happened on television. If that wasn’t a sign that she needed to make a move, she didn’t know what was.
Agent Diaz walked past them, pushing a struggling Slick out the door.
“It wasn’t even me!” Slick whined. “It’s my brother you want. Let me at least talk to my lawyer!”
Okay, maybe that was the sign.
She gently pushed the book back into Maggie’s hands. “Maybe I’d rather have that date we talked about?”
Maggie gave her a small smile. “A date huh?”
“Oh god, wait,” Alex fumbled, “Did you- was it not a date?”
Maggie reached up to adjust the peaked cap on Alex’s head, then leaned in for a kiss.
“Oh, it’s definitely a date.”