Coffee and a Million Other Drinks

You and a Million Other Daydreams

Froyo’s second encounter with Hot-Blonde (Dusk has a thing for nicknaming people and Lucas wanted to know all the details, she couldn’t help herself) occurred about three weeks later, when the heatwave was filtering down. Lowering the temperature from the unbearable high-thirties to a respectable low-thirties. The guy’s been in and out, but Froyo was busy either wiping down tables or he was out back, returning to the coffee counter only to see the blonde walk out of the cafe latte in hand and his slight pout/scowl.

When Hot-Blonde first walked into the cafe she barely noticed him and his usual attire--usual because from the few times she’s seen him she got the impression that his wardrobe consisted of hoodies, sweaters, trousers, and denim jeans--but that was because the cafe was unusually packed.
Sometimes it was because of an author who was doing book signing there or a sudden flash of bad weather corralled the pavement chaser into looking for a cozy cafe to stay in for an hour or two.

This time it was because one of the machines being on the blitz and refusing to pump out hot water, so orders were taking a little bit longer than usual since they were being shunted through one machine, rather than divided by two, meaning that there was a decent sized queue curling along the floor and Froyo and Lucas dancing around one another to take orders, make coffee, and mutter a million apologies for the delay.
It wouldn’t take long, maybe five minutes at worst, for the sake of troubleshooting what was causing the machine to quit, but that would put Froyo out of working capacity and she’d be damned if she let Lucas be swamped with the workload in case there was some homophobic ass waiting his turn to try and fuck with Lucas’ self-esteem
And so, Froyo was scrambling alongside Lucas, making lattes and chillers and americanos while Lucas manned the register, their hands moving so fast you’d think they’d have no hands at all to try and appease the ever growing line of customers.

Things do calm down eventually, but instead of Froyo opening up the machine and letting her Leo Valdez emerge it’s Lucas who darts up the stairs to tell Moon so she can google symptoms to try to solve the problem. Admittedly, it would take longer than Froyo’s idea—shockingly—but it was better than having Lucas to make everything.
Coffee is what she does best so she sticks with it, finishing off the former with a dash of sugar for her favorite regular, Grandma Chiyo. She wasn’t Froyo’s real grandmother, but that didn’t stop her from giving Froyo gum ever since she found out Froyo liked bubblegum more than hard candy and giving her fun riddles to use on her friends.

Froyo helps her out to her usual table as Lucas was manning the register for a bit, setting down her drink and a cupcake she had stashed away earlier. Grandma Chiyo was predictable enough that Froyo could complete her order while sleeping, so when she spied their chocolate cupcakes dwindling down to two she kidnapped one. Froyo gets three hard candies for her effort, one for Lucas and slipping the other into her pocket for when there is no Hot-Blonde waiting at the counter—

Wait!

Froyo can’t help but smile exasperated as her eyes take note of his outfit. He’s got color this time, a bright red shirt with a dark blue zipper jacket that has his signature logo—(SCP for you information, any gamer and horror enthusiast would know and Froyo just so happened to be both)—in the corner.
There’s a beanie this time, and it’s ruffling the guy’s already messy hair but it’s not a bad look. Still a bit too warm to be wearing clothes like that, but Froyo doesn’t have to worry about him passing out.
So now she can focus on drinking in his chocolate brown eyes, high cheekbones, and sharp jawline and oh wait he’s talking and Froyo’s screwed.

“Huh?”

How rude.

He raises an eyebrow in that familiar deadpan and it sparks something—confidence, maybe?—in Froyo’s gut. “You always have your head in the clouds or am I the only one with that privilege?”
Now you must know, Froyo isn’t usually this bold and she is fully aware of Lucas’ uncomfortable pushing and prodding of the machine beside her but something about the blonde on the other side of the counter brings out a more sarcastic and confident side of her.