The Quiet Ever After

Fourth String - 1

Downtown, maybe fifteen minutes from Axel and Nina's home, was a small coffee shop set up on a once prominent corner where there was once a full gym, a little marketplace, and a video rental store. All but the coffee shop had been destroyed—not by a demon or the woes of time, just by an incredibly nasty storm that invited in all sorts of trouble. But...maybe a demon.

However, that wreckage didn't deter a rather maddened young woman and her partner from bringing life back to that corner, despite the onslaught of permits they faced from a reluctant city. Thus, the coffee shop was reopened under the name Generation Two.

Gen Two, as most of its customers came to call it, revived the plaza once occupied solely by weeds and the occasional bear. There was a clean area for parking, a small outdoor hangout spot beneath a canopy, and a setup for fireworks during the holidays.

The building itself was nothing all that remarkable to anyone just driving by. It was one of those buildings that looked like it could probably fit one large room and a bathroom, but stepping in revealed the true depth of its size:

A wide open room brimming with low conversations and the thick scent of coffee plus the occasional pastry dish. Gen Two breathed in the dust and debris of the nearby road and exhaled the tantalizing promise of some good brew.

Two large windows allowed light into the entire space, with LED industrial lights suspended on fancy chains to provide for late-night bookworms and sports fans.

The coffee area itself wasn't all that revealing. It was more akin to what one would think of like a bar, with a closed-in area for the baristas while organizational work hid in the back. It gave the baristas plenty of room to have their own space.

The original owner, Jen One as she was known, fostered a sense of personality within her crew. Gen Two wasn't their second home—she wasn't about that sort of toxic work culture ideology. Instead, Gen Two became a place for them to feel safe. Beneath the bar wasn't a ton of coffee ingredients or paperwork. There were pictures of the team together at their bonding events as well as in genuinely joyful, candid moments around the shop.

After five years on the scene, Jen One handed much of the oversight of the shop to her partner, Claire, who could not have had a more apt name. Claire, members of the modern team liked to joke, was short for Claire-voyant. She had a knack for predicting trends, both in terms of fashion and in the coffee world. And she was incredibly insightful per the obsession that captured the hearts and minds of almost everyone on the team.

There was one singular item in the place that came into being at the advent of Claire's tenure as primary overseer: a fifty-inch HD TV, hanging just opposite the coffee station so all the baristas and workers could have a distinct eye on it. A streaming device was connected to its primary USB hub allowing access to every single NFL game on at the moment because if Gen Two was known for anything among the working team, it was the ferocious fantasy football league that ran every season.

***

Nina arrived at work mid-Monday morning, having finally shaken off the dual trips to the Starlit Plane she'd taken with Axel. She hooked her bag on the clip in the backroom and put on the apron with her name stitched into it. With a single movement, she tied her hair up and brushed her hands down her apron.

Someone cleared their throat behind her. Nina had been dreading their confrontation.

"Have a good weekend?"

Veronica checked her nails in the doorway she leaned against wistfully. She could barely hide the smirk on her face.

"I did," Nina said. "Did you?"