Chapter Text
Holtzmann brings Erin coffee every morning. Every morning. From an actual coffee shop. Which Holtzmann frequents despite the fact that she drinks neither coffee nor tea, because Erin thinks they have the best cappuccinos in Manhattan.
Holtzmann wouldn’t know, because she doesn’t drink coffee. But she takes Erin’s word for it.
In truth, that coffee excursion is one of her favorite parts of her day. So she walks the ten blocks to and from the café (“it’s not THAT out of the way”) every morning, summer or winter, rain or shine (she fashioned a tiny drink-umbrella for when it rains, so she doesn’t present Erin with soggy coffee; Abby thinks she should patent it).
And she holds The Most Important Cup of Coffee in the World like it’s made of solid gold and so much as sloshing is contents might make it explode.
It’s the most caution anyone has ever seen Holtzmann show with anything.
Kevin once asked her why she didn’t bring him coffee. (“Kev, you hate coffee.” “So?” “So, you hate coffee.” “Yeah, but so do you, boss.”)
(Holtzmann didn’t have a comeback for that.)
Abby asked her about it once, but Holtzmann just said she liked the walk. (“It’s good to get your leg muscles moving before getting your brain muscle moving.” “Holtzmann, the brain is an organ.” “Like I said.”)
Patty never asked, and never plans to. This is obviously some sort of bizarre courtship ritual and she wants literally nothing to do with it ever. Because you don’t mess with Holtzmann when she has Feelings, especially Feelings She Doesn’t Know She Has. (Abby says she learned that lesson the hard way, and it involved a medium-sized explosion and the loss of half of someone's left eyebrow. She refuses to say whose.)
But somehow, miraculously, Erin doesn’t see it at all. If she notices that Holtzmann only brings coffee for her, she doesn’t let on. For the first few weeks, everyone is pretty sure she didn’t even realize it was Holtzmann at all. She just came in one morning, shortly after what Holtzmann had taken to calling the Ghostpocalypse (everyone agrees that it’s a stupid name, but it’s fun to say), and there was coffee and a pastry on her desk.
Her favorite coffee, and her favorite pastry. From her favorite café.
And Erin was confused at first, because no one else seemed even remotely perturbed by this occurrence, because “Nah, baby, wasn’t me. Looks good, though.” (Patty); “Erin, if I brought you coffee, you know you’d know about it.” (Abby); “Ugh, I hate coffee.” (Kevin); and, “Maybe it was a ghost. Grab Abby’s cotton candy maker and check it out.” (Holtzmann).
But Holtzmann really does love it. It’s the closest she has ever come to having a morning ritual (she insists that unpredictability is the spice of life; Erin thinks it’s a recipe for disaster), and she can almost-sort-of-kind-of-understand-why-people-like-this-stuff (if she squints her eyes and turns her head exactly 47 degrees).
The café smells like roasting coffee beans, off-brand cologne, and misplaced pretention, and the cute barista with the labret piercing and the undercut flirts with her (she flirts back because honestly, is there another reaction to being flirted with?), and no one knows her name, only that every morning she orders a cappuccino and a chocolate croissant (Holtzmann doesn’t like chocolate, either). It’s nice.
But not as nice as the look on Erin’s face when she finds her breakfast sitting on her desk.
Nothing is that nice.