Work Text:
Lily had spent most of her morning stressing. First, her keys seemed to have decided to take a nice walk away from the side of her door, so she had to spend 10 minutes trying to find them. (They were by the fridge.) Then, her bus was running late in traffic, leaving her wondering if it would be faster to run the 5 miles remaining to get to work. When she finally got to work, she found out her favourite co-worker, Remus Lupin, wasn’t on the rota today, so she had no one to talk about customers to. Especially this one. The lady in front of her was demanding to use a gift card to pay for her coffee. A Starbucks gift card. So, Lily was stuck patiently trying to explain to the woman that this wasn’t a Starbucks and that if she walked just a few meters, she would probably be able to find a shop that would take her gift card. After several minutes going back and forth with the woman, she stalked off, mumbling about this generation and their terrible work ethic. It took all of Lily’s willpower not to stick her middle finger up at her, but she didn’t really want to lose her job over a Karen. She turned her attention to the next customer and that’s when she saw her.
The woman standing in front of her had platinum blonde hair and multiple brightly coloured hair clips in. Her hair fell in waves and reached her mid back. She was beautiful. She was on the phone with someone called ‘Reg’ and telling him that ‘he should take his chance with James while he still had it.’ Lily stared at her for probably longer than she should have, but the woman didn’t notice so it was fine.
“Okay, Reg, I have to go, I’m at the front of the queue, but think about what I said. If Barty can take his shot with Evan, you can do the same with James.”
The woman tucked her phone into her jean pocket and turned to Lily, grinning.
“Sorry about that, my friend’s being in denial.”
Lily laughed. “Oh, it’s okay. Happens to the best of us. What can I get for you today?”
“Can I get a black coffee with a shot of blueberry?”
Lily’s pen paused in the air and glanced up at the blonde in front of her. She looked serious and that concerned Lily more.
“That’s definitely the… strangest coffee order I’ve ever gotten.”
“I get that a lot. I have some strange tastes, or so I’ve been told.”
“Can I get a name for your order?”
“Pandora.”
“Alright, that should be out in a few minutes.”
Pandora started to make her way over to the waiting area when she paused.
“Don’t I have to pay?”
“No, it’s on the house, as my weirdest coffee order.”
As soon as Pandora was over at the waiting area, she whipped out her phone and opened the group chat. She sent a message reading, ‘HOLY SHIT THE COFFEE LADY IS SO HOTTTTTTTTT WHAT DO I DO,’ and waited for her friends’ opinions on the situation. Almost immediately, a message from Regulus popped up.
‘Maybe you should take your own advice and take ur chance’
Pandora ignored that message and waited for Dorcas to finish typing, seeing as she was the only one who was in a relationship outside of the group. She looked up briefly to see Lily, according to her name tag, was almost done with her coffee. She willed Dorcas to finish typing quickly. Just before Lily was done, Dorcas’ message was sent through.
‘when she gives u ur coffee try to briefly touch her hands and then go from there’
“Coffee for Pandora,” Lily called out.
Pandora mentally hyped herself up and made her way over to the pick up counter.
“Thank you,” Pandora said and lightly brushed her fingers against Lily’s. She went over to a table in the back and pulled her laptop out of her bag. Mentally counted down 5 seconds in her head, Pandora turned to try and gauge Lily’s reaction. A light blush was spreading across her face, which Pandora found unbelievably cute.
Lily was fighting to try and keep her composure, so when Emmaline came out from her lunch break, Lily didn’t even wait 5 minutes to go on her’s. She had 30 minutes and she spent the first 5 sending Remus a freak out message and yelling at him about why he wasn’t in. She then spent another 10 actually eating lunch and trying to convince herself to go out and sit with Pandora. Eventually, she made her way over to Pandora’s table and rehearsed what she would say in her head.
“Hey, can I sit here? All the other tables are full.”
Were there about 12 open tables in the shop? Yes, absolutely. Did Lily care? No, she did not. And apparently Pandora didn’t either because she nodded and smiled. Lily sent yet another freak out message to Remus and tried to look like she was doing something. Before Lily could ask Pandora any questions, Pandora said, ‘You’re really pretty.’ She paused for a moment like she was thinking over what to say and Lily simply stared at her.
“Can I get your number?”
Lily blinked slightly as her mind was trying to catch up with what she was hearing. She could practically hear Remus yelling at her to get it together and she was trying, but it was hard.
“Absolutely, you can.”
Pandora grinned at her and it took every atom in Lily’s body not to absolutely melt. She passed her phone over and watched as the woman opposite her typed her number into her own phone.
“Let me text you to make sure it’s working,” Pandora said, already typing out a message.
A few seconds later, Lily’s phone pinged with a message from an unknown number.
‘You’re staring darling.’
She could feel her cheeks flushing with blush and grinned sheepishly at Pandora.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t worry, love.”
“How many nicknames are you going to give me?”
“As many as I can.”
Bonus:
Ginger: REMUS JOHN LUPIN WTF
Ginger: WHY ARENT YOU HERE
Ginger: TGHERE IS AN INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL WOMAN HERE QND IM HAVIG A MAJOR LESBAIN CRISIS
Ginger: WHAT DO I DO
Ginger: IM SITTING AT HER GABLE I CANT BELIEBE YOU DECIDED TO STAY HOME SO HOU COULD SHAG UR BOYDRIEND
Ginger: KETS FUCKING GO I GOT HER NUMBER
Ginger: SHE CALLED ME DARLING IM DYING INSIDE
lupin🐺: that was a rollercoaster
lupin🐺: well done
lupin🐺: don’t combust