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“Roy, I am beginning to think that you are in fact a secret agent. It’s the only way to explain the fact you keep turning up late with increasingly ridiculous excuses as to why you’re late that only an idiot would believe. One of these days, you’re going to come rushing in here telling me that you couldn’t make it in on time because you were trapped underground by one of Jean’s ex-girlfriend and the only way to get out was via homemade flame-thrower.”
“Well, now that you mention it…”
Trisha just rolled her eyes and continued to take the chairs down off the tables and wipe the surfaces ready for the first customers coming in. She’d already fired up the coffee machine and put the first batch of pastries in the oven by the time Roy had skidded into the coffee shop at mach three, grabbing his apron and attempting to make it look as if he’d been there the whole time. He came out of the back room to help her.
“So what happened this time?” Trisha asked. “Or am I better off not knowing, Agent Mustang?”
“Well, it all started last night after Kain found a dog and obviously we can’t have pets in our building so we’ve all been taking it in turns to hide it, and then this morning I had to find someone to hand it over to because I couldn’t just leave it in my apartment and I couldn’t turn it out onto the street, but the only person who was in was Heymans and he’s afraid of dogs so that was a non-starter, and in the end I had to go and see if Maes was in and could take care of him. Which is why I’m late.”
Trisha just raised an eyebrow. “Right.”
Truth be told, she didn’t really mind hearing the tales of all the antics of Roy and his friends neighbours in his block; she just wished that there could be one day when she didn’t have to open up the coffee shop on her own, not knowing whether he’d just overslept or had been kidnapped and was being held to ransom in Central City somewhere.
“Anyway, I’m here now,” Roy said, gesturing around the shop. “And it’s not like we’ve got any customers yet so I’m not too late.”
Trisha decided not to push the point. At least the beauty of working the opening shift for both of them was that their supervisor never usually deigned to show up until about ten, so no one ever knew about Roy’s persistent tardiness other than herself, and she would always cover for him. Baristas needed to stick together in these times.
“One of these days, you’re going to get yourself into trouble. But at least it’s going to be a good story to tell Riza when she comes in.”
Roy almost spat out the mouthful of coffee that he’d just taken. “What? No! What? What makes you think I would do that?”
“Yes, you’ve got a point. You do tend to get rather tongue-tied around her, even when you’re just asking her if you can interest her in a Danish. It’s a good job I work here otherwise I’d wonder if that was a euphemism for something.”
Roy just glared at her. “Well, you can’t talk. You’re just as bad when your nutty professor comes in.”
“He’s not nutty. He’s just a bit absent-minded.” Trisha could feel the colour rising in her cheeks, and she realised that she truly did not have a leg to stand on when it came to the romance stakes. “Ok, you’re right. I guess I am just as bad.”
“You have it lucky though.” They finished arranging the chairs and went back behind the counter to await the first customers coming through the door and keep an eye on the baking pastries. “At least the professor isn’t as likely to notice you acting like a complete idiot every time he comes in. Riza definitely knows that I act like a complete idiot.”
“Everyone knows that you act like a complete idiot most of the time, but I’m going to put that down to you being a secret agent undercover as a barista.”
Roy shook his head in despair and Trisha just smiled benignly. If there was one thing that she got to do a lot of in this job, it was people-watching, and making up interesting narratives about their lives was something she indulged in a lot, to the extent of doing it to her colleagues as well. True, she knew Roy enough to know that he was probably not a secret agent, but at the same time, the very nature of secret agents was that they weren’t supposed to tell anyone what they were, so she could very well be onto something.
The bell above the door chimed as the first customer came in, and on seeing it was Riza, Trisha duly went to man the cash register so that Roy was spared from spouting complete nonsense and making a fool of himself.
“Hey Riza. What can I get for you today? The usual?” Riza was a frequent enough visitor in the shop that all of the staff knew her by name and would sometimes reserve her usual table for her if it looked like she was running later than usual.
“Yes, thanks, but I’ll have it in the largest size you’ve got. And a croissant as well for sustenance.” She indicated the thick stack of papers under her arm. “Today, I start editing.”
“Ah, congratulations!” Trisha gave a little round of applause. “Does this mean that it’ll be ready for reading soon?”
Riza grimaced and shook her head. “No way. I reckon about ninety per cent of this is going to get scrapped and rewritten. That’s what happened the first time.”
Riza was writing her ‘difficult second novel’ (her words), and had ended up in the coffee shop as a change of scene, and then kept coming back because the coffee was better than she had at home and she enjoyed the atmosphere. Privately, Trisha thought that she also kept coming back because it gave her the chance to talk to Roy, but she would never voice that thought to anyone. She could just quietly work to bring the two of them together.
“How are you, Roy?” Riza asked, causing Roy to bang his head on the cake display cabinet where he had been carefully stacking blueberry muffins and just as carefully avoiding eye contact with the object of his affections.
“He’s been rescuing stray dogs and generally being adorable,” Trisha said.
“What?”
“Nothing!” Roy said hastily, rubbing his head. “Kain found a dog, we’ve sort of been hiding it, it’s nothing!”
“I’ve been thinking about getting a dog,” Riza said wistfully. “I think I need to get out of the house more. And not just come here instead. Not that I don’t like it here,” she added quickly, looking over at Roy, and Trisha could swear that the tips of Riza’s ears had gone slightly pink. “I just feel like I need to spend more time outside in general. And it can get lonely on my own sometimes, and…” Trisha brought over her coffee and Riza beat a retreat from the counter, muttering about getting on with work.
Roy narrowed his eyes. “Thanks, Trisha. Thanks a bunch.”
Trisha just shrugged. “Just trying to help true love along its bumpy path.”
“Very bumpy.” He rubbed his head again as if to make a point. “I’m going to get you back for this, you know.”
“I know, I know. Just invite me to the wedding.”
“Trisha!”
Roy’s revenge came a couple of hours later. The normal morning rush of people grabbing coffee before their working day started had died down, and Riza was now on her second large cup. Trisha was beginning to wonder if maybe she should switch her to decaf. As it was, she was on her hands and knees under the cake display cabinet hunting down a dropped chocolate chip shortbread when Roy nudged her.
“Hey, Trish. Tall, gold and handsome on the horizon.”
“What?” She looked up, bumping her head on the display cabinet and hearing Roy’s little snigger. She glared at him, but he was in fact telling the truth as the professor whose name she did not know was entering the coffee shop. Truth be told they didn’t even know that he was a professor, but he looked so much like an academic that Trisha thought he couldn’t have been anything else, and so the nickname for him had stuck.
He came over to the counter and was about to order when he caught sight of Trisha, still crouching down behind the cabinet with just her eyes showing, peeping out from behind a carrot cake.
“Erm… are you all right?”
Trisha nodded, and then stood up since Roy had chosen this exact moment to disappear into the back room and leave the two of them alone at the counter together. This, she felt, was disproportionate revenge. At least she had never made Roy serve Riza like this.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine, thank you. What can I get for you? The normal?” She was already reaching around behind her for the teabags, flailing about because for some reason she really couldn’t take her eyes off him, or rather, didn’t want to take her eyes off him. It was probably something to do with the fact that his tie was a bit loose and the collar button of his shirt was undone. This wasn’t unusual for him, but for some reason, today her brain had decided to focus solely on that small triangle of skin at the base of his throat and…
She managed to knock the caddy of tea bags off the counter and sighed. In the back room, she was certain she could hear Roy laughing at her again even though there was no way that he could have seen what had happened.
“Yes, please.”
“Right, yes, ok. Tea. Coming right up. Can I interest you in a pastry today?”
“No thank you.”
Trisha rang up the order and had to tear her eyes away from him in order to retrieve the tea caddy. Luckily none of the teabags had actually fallen out, or that would have been a very embarrassing ten minutes on her hands and knees retrieving them and throwing them out because she couldn’t exactly serve him tea that had been on the floor.
“Hi, Hohenheim.”
“Hello, Riza. I see you’ve made a start on the big edit.”
Trisha spun around to see that Riza had come up to the counter with her empty croissant plate and was now engaged in small talk with the professor.
“Wait, do you two know each other?”
“We’re at the same literary agency,” Riza said, completely matter of fact. “We share an editor.”
“So, you’re a writer too?” Something in the back of her mind helpfully reminded Trisha that she really ought to be making a cup of tea right now, but she ignored it. “What do you write?”
“Hohenheim is the master of historical fiction,” Riza said. “You should try one of his books. They’re really good. Although he did have to come to me for advice on writing the sexy bits.”
Hohenheim sighed, burying his face in one hand. “Thanks, Riza,” he muttered.
“Any time.” She patted his arm. “Say, Trisha, where’s Roy got to? I was really hoping to speak to him about that dog.”
“He’s in the back.” Trisha looked over her shoulder to see that Roy was now peering out of the back room, no doubt on having heard that Riza and the professor knew each other, and that the professor now had a name. “You can head on back there, I won’t tell if you won’t.”
The tips of Riza’s ears had gone rather pink again, but she nonetheless scuttled behind the counter and into the back room, leaving Trisha and Hohenheim staring at each other over the counter.
“So…” Hohenheim began.
“Yes, tea.” Trisha busied herself with preparing the drink, trying to get her head out of the clouds and into the coffee shop. She should really not be thinking about historical books with sexy bits in and she really should not be thinking about Hohenheim writing the sexy bits. Or phoning Riza, steamy romantic novelist extraordinaire, for help with them. Or thinking that she could offer some practical help so that he could write from experience.
Unfortunately, unlike most of the other fancy barista-brewed beverages, tea did not require much preparation or time and very soon she was back to staring at him as he paid.
He didn’t take his drink and find a table straight away, though, and there was a moment of silence as both of them tried to think of something to say to prolong the moment before it just became even more awkward than it already was.
“You know, Roy and I were convinced that you were a professor at the university or something,” she blurted out. “We just used to call you ‘the professor’ before. But now we actually know your name. Which is nice, because we do see you in here quite a lot, and we like to get to know our regulars. Like Riza. And you know Riza, which is fun. And… I’m rambling I’ll shut up.”
Hohenheim smiled. “If it makes you feel better I was a professor at the university until I gave it up to write full time.”
“I knew it!” Trisha just about managed to resist punching the air. Hohenheim had picked up his tea and was about to move away from the counter. “Wait… You’ll keep coming back, right?”
He looked at her. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I just thought I might have weirded you out.”
“No. I’m used to weird. Usually I’m the weird one.”
“Well, it was nice to meet you properly, Hohenheim.”
“It was nice to meet you too, Trisha.”
He went off to find a table, and Trisha was left standing behind the counter, rocking back and forth on her feet. Had that just happened? Whether she was dreaming it or not, she didn’t care. Progress had been made, and even though she’d made a complete and utter fool of herself, she had a feeling that things were going to turn out for the best.