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“The name for that?”
“Jack Torrance.”
Alex looks up from the cup and marker in her hands and at the absolute freak who just ordered a latte with seven shots of espresso. Seven. Alex isn’t new to coffee by any means, but she’s pretty sure seven shots of espresso isn’t the best thing to ingest at four o’clock in the afternoon.
“From The Shining?” Alex deadpans, quirking an eyebrow. Sure, people used fake names all the time, but never something so recognizably fake. They tended to use more mundane names, like Jerry or David.
“Shit, you know that?” The guy in front of her dawns a small, amused grin, his curly blonde fringe falling into his eyes under the hood of his jacket.
“I’m pretty sure everyone and their mom knows that,” Alex snorts, going back to writing the name on the cup.
“You’d be surprised,” the guy says, earning a huff from Alex as she sets the cup on the counter. Working at a coffee shop was fun at first, maybe for a week or two as you got to learn everything, but after a while, she’d realized it was just making the same drinks over and over (to the point she thinks she can feel coffee grounds permanently lodged between her fingers), with the occasional difference in syrups or type of milk. People usually weren’t the most adventurous when it came to coffee.
Eventually, to ease her boredom, she’d developed a sort of game to play with herself. Whenever someone gave her a name for an order, Alex did her very best to try to spell it as atrociously wrong as possible. It gave her a bit of a challenge, especially with the straightforward names in terms of pronunciation or spelling, and she relished the look of either annoyance or amusement whenever someone walked over to grab their drink and took a peak at the side of the cup.
JAK TAWRAHNS.
That’s what Alex writes this time. Not her best work, but it isn’t the hardest name to misspell, so she considers it a job well done. She goes about preparing the coffee (and it’s ridiculous seven shots of espresso that take forever to brew), closing the cap, and setting it down on the other side of the counter.
“A latte for Jack?”
Alex watches as the guy comes to pick it up and can’t help but smile to herself when he lets out a small laugh at what was written on the side.
———
“I’ll have a latte with three shots.”
Alex punches the order into the tablet, twisting it around for the other person to pay. It’s the same guy as last time, a light brown hoodie pulled over his golden hair. He taps away at the screen, going through the steps before twisting it back around.
“Decided to cut down on the espresso this time?” Alex asks. The guy looks confused for a moment before remembering and a hand slides behind his neck awkwardly.
“I had a project due that morning that I didn’t even start,” he breathes out. “Figured I had a long night ahead of me.”
“And caffeine overdose was the solution?” Alex rips off the receipt and hands it to him.
“Well,” the guy shrugs, “I was refraining from having to turn to crack.”
“Would you even be able to find crack?” Alex tilts her head. “We live in Boston.”
“That’s exactly why I’d be able to find crack,” he smirks. “Turn into the alley between any building and there’s probably a dude in a trench coat ready to ruin your life.”
Alex lets out a small chuckle, running a hand through her hair. “Do you go to school here too?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Majoring in sociology with a minor in communication. You?”
“Sculpture and linguistics double major.”
The guy lets out an appreciative sigh. “That’s no joke.”
“Well,” Alex lets out a knowing breath. “They definitely aren’t light on the homework.” She goes to grab a cup and a marker from behind the counter. “Can I get a name for the order?”
“Graham O’Brien.”
Alex blinks. “Are you seriously giving me the name of a Doctor Who character for your coffee order?”
The guy stares at Alex, mouth open slightly, eyes wide. “Do you know literally everything?”
“I don’t think Doctor Who and The Shining should count as ‘everything.’” The guy shifts down with her as she moves to work the espresso machine. “Plus, he was one of the best characters. His story’s kind of sad, but at least he’s funny.”
“Have you watched the whole thing?” The guy looks almost giddy, rocking back and forth on his feet with his hands in his pockets, eyes wide with interest. Alex has to bite back a smirk.
“Not all of it. Maybe, like, halfway through series 12?”
“You’ve got to watch the rest of it.” His eyes practically sparkle under the lights of the coffee shop. “Graham’s not in it as much, but series 13 is so good.”
Alex lets the guy continue rambling on about the show, nodding her head and saying something every now and again as she makes the drink. She hands it to the guy this time, smiling to herself again as he walks out, laughing and shaking his head at the spelling on the side.
GRAM OH BRAIN.
———
It’s not until a week later that Alex sees him again. He doesn’t have a hood over his head this time, instead, his long hair is pulled back out of his eyes into a half-bun. He orders a caramel Frappuccino, eliciting a raised eyebrow from Alex.
“Changing it up this time?” He asks, spinning the tablet around. “You know, Frappuccinos are a bitch to make.”
“Yeah, well,” the guy shrugs, “thought I would treat myself. My mom’s also with me and I told her I would share my drink with her. She loves these things.”
“They suck the soul out of me,” Alex says seriously and the guy has the nerve to laugh.
“Why do they even have it on the menu then?”
“Capitalism likes to see us suffer.” He snatches the tablet back around from him, only making the guy laugh more as Alex tears off the receipt and slams it down on the counter in front of him. “What’s the name going to be this time?”
“Charlie McGee.”
“From Firestarter?” Alex asks. The guy looks really shocked this time, eyes bugging out from his skull, practically stumbling back. “Don’t look so shocked, Stephen King is really popular.”
“You really do know everything! Practically no one knows Firestarter,” he all but yells as Alex focuses on writing the name on the cup. (He spells it SHARLY MIKGIE this time. One of his better attempts.) “Whenever they think of Stephen King, all they ever think about is It. Maybe Carrie or Pet Sematary you’re lucky.”
“Well, the movie just came out didn’t it?” Alex shrugs. “ I haven’t gotten a chance to see it yet.”
“I haven’t either,” the guy says, shifting down the counter with Alex again as he fills the blender with milk. “What time does your shift end?”
Alex pauses for a moment, looking up at him. That was maybe the last thing he expected the guy to say, but here he is in front of him, smiling, the apples of his cheeks looking slightly pink. “I get off at seven,” Alex says at last, returning to filling the blender.
“If you don’t have anything to do after, we should totally go see it.”
“If you wanted to ask me out, you could’ve just said so,” Alex teases. The guy's cheeks go almost red now as he shakes his head.
“It’s not that,” he spits out. “It’s just that none of my other friends like horror movies and refuse to go with me.”
It’s now Alex’s turn to laugh. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he says, popping the top onto the container. “We should, yeah. I’m free.” He shoves the container onto the machine, flips the lip down and turns it on. He tunes out the guy's response and instead focuses on watching the ingredients meld together, trying to ignore the look of triumph in the guy’s face. Alex makes a mental note to put as little whipped cream as possible.
———
That’s how Alex ends up seeing Firestarter that night. The guy comes back into the store around a quarter to seven, sitting at the table closest to the counter, talking to Alex as he wraps up his shift and clocks out.
“Magnus,” is the first thing the guy says as they step out of the shop.
“What?”
“Magnus,” he says again. “That’s my actual name. I just realized I never gave it to you, and I kind of already know yours from your name tag.”
Truthfully, Alex hadn’t realized he didn’t know his name, not even registering he was just calling him ‘the guy’ in his head this entire time. Awkwardly, he sticks a hand out for him to shake. “It’s nice to formally meet you, Magnus.”
Magnus takes it. His hands are warm against the outside chill from being in his pockets. His hair is down again, fringe back to falling into his eyes. His smile is bright, almost glowing, and Alex can’t help but smile back.
The movie turned out to not really be all that good (honestly borderline disappointing if you asked him), but the way Magnus clung to his arm during the jumpscares made it worth it. He ends up walking Alex back to his dorm at the end of the night and even asks him for his number, which Alex happily gives.
Over the next few weeks, they have six more hangouts (dates? Alex wasn’t even sure if he could call them dates. Hell, he didn’t know if Magnus was even interested in him the same way). Alex has never been one for sappy or romantic stuff, but slowly, subconsciously, he starts to compile a list of all the things he likes about Magnus.
He likes the way they just click, the way Magnus understands all of his sarcastic comments and jokes, likes the way he can ramble on about Scott Pilgrim or Sandman or any of the various graphic novels that he seems fond of. He likes the way Magnus’s eyebrows furrow when he’s thinking or reading something, the way his nose scrunches up when he laughs, or the way he grabs Alex’s wrist whenever he wants to drag him somewhere or show him something. He likes the way Magnus stops by the shop or outside one of his classes, just to walk him to the next one or talk about his day.
Alex develops a crush on the guy. A big, awful, humiliating crush, that’s even worse considering Alex hasn’t had a proper crush since middle school. It burrows deep into his mind and gut, filling him with guilt as he pretends to playfully flirt with Magnus, because they’re just friends. He would never in a million years admit it to the guy, much to his cousin and roommate Samirah’s annoyance, who’s the only person Alex would ever dare to confide in about his feelings, and in turn, has to hear his whining.
(“Just kiss him,” she’d said one day. “What do you have to lose?”
A whole lot, Alex had thought, burrying his head in his hands. A whole fucking lot.)
As it turns out though, to Samirah’s relief and joy, Alex’s self-destructive feelings that were currently carving a hole into his heart come to an end on the seventh hangout (-slash-date. He guesses he could call it a date now).
Magnus had revealed one day that he had an extra membership pass to an amusement park nearby, and so, they made it a day. Alex teased him endlessly about how he screamed like a little girl on all the rides with big drops, and ended up one of the times with soda splashed onto his bright pink shirt. They ate soggy fries and funnel cake and ice cream that completely drained both their wallets because, wow, amusement park food was expensive.
Magnus walked Alex back to his dorm that night, like he normally did. Samirahs words echoed in his mind as he hovered in the doorframe and finally, after what seemed like an eternity of silence between the two, Alex grabbed the front of Magnus’s shirt and asked if he could kiss him. Magnus had let him.
He still tasted slightly of soda and chocolate. His lips were soft and sweet and Alex could feel the brush of his blonde curls on his cheek as he tilted his head to slot their lips together. After a few seconds of initial shock, Magnus had kissed back. He placed his hands on the side of Alex’s face, and for the first time in a while, everything just felt right.
That’s how Alex ends up with a boyfriend. A stupid, nerdy, hilarious boyfriend who still, even after six months of knowing him, sometimes orders his latte with seven shots.