Priam and His Customers

6 • of customers

of customers

In Which Priam Thinks Of His Customers: The Chapter

PRIAM NEVER REALLY bothered getting to know most of his customers at first, aside from their appearances and his first impressions of them. (Except for June. Dear Gehenna, that twink is insufferable enough to the point of being unforgettable.) He more or less knew the customers who frequent the café on a daily basis, those who stir up trouble, and those who are tame.

June obviously stood out the most. He's the only obnoxious one to swing by the café at an ungodly hour and have the gall to demand food. Though he's mostly an annoyance rather than a troublemaker. His orders are usually lattes or coffees paired with simple pastry. Priam may not say it, but out of all customers he'd met, June was the one he knew most. Not willingly, no. In fact, it was because he'd tell Priam many things about himself despite not being asked.

An elderly couple had once asked Priam who June was for him, and his response: "He's like the brother—"

"—you never had?" came June's interjection. "Aw, thank you, Priam. My heart is flattered."

"—I never asked for," he finished. Priam rolled his eyes at June's pouting face. He stared at the vampire, eyes blank, soulless, cold, as he repeated, "Like a brother I never asked for."

Anyway, Priam had no choice but to listen to June info-dumping about himself from time to time. And with listening comes knowing.

Sibyl and Emmett are a close second. They're regulars and stop by the shop many times a week. They also mutilate each other at every opportunity. Priam was quite sure that their ashes alone had filled up a whole bin by now. For retired gods who once had a hand in saving the world, they were a rambunctious pair. They'd already scourged the whole menu for Priam to tell what their preferred food was, though Sibyl usually paired smoothies with everything.

Fink comes in third, of course. She swings by thrice a week during her morning jogs. They usually only exchange pleasantries. But if she's not running late for her dance class, she'd sometimes talk fondly of her wife, Nadya, who works at the local museum, and their cat named Heracles.

Then there were the mermaids and sirens who are pleasant only if they are not within each other's radar. The ones who distinctively stood out among the sirens were Audrey Swain, who had given Priam her business card randomly, and her brother named Austin Deneb. Thankfully, Audrey Swain had recently stopped paying in pearls and was now using paiges.

Austin Deneb was a regular long before Priam even knew his name. He's always this one man wearing slacks that seemed too short for him, showing his mismatched patterned socks. Priam was mortally offended by the socks at first but got over it as time passed by. Austin, despite his poor taste in socks, was a pleasant and soft-spoken customer who sometimes does his work in the café. Though he always prefers his drinks with a concerning amount of whipped cream, be it water, frappe, or sodas.

One interaction with Austin that stood out most was when he stayed at the café for a whole day, his table full of paperwork and typing away in a laptop. He had apologized to Priam beforehand and informed him that he'd be working at the café for the day. Priam didn't mind but still asked why, mostly out of curiosity.

"I'm on the run for murder," Austin admitted casually, squinting at his laptop. Briefly glancing at the screen made Priam's head hurt. There were stickers surrounding the laptop—sigils similar to the clothes he'd seen on sirens. Must've been for protection, then. "But I didn't do it. I was framed by a coworker who's quite skilled at hiding evidence."