(Taite tries to be creative with titles sometimes... It doesn't work.) Well, I lied. I won't be posting these all after I've finished the challenge. I'm too impatient :P So here's the second fic I wrote for the 24 Fics in 24 Days Challenge I decided to start a few days ago! The other three I have written but not posted will be going up tonight too, probably.
Not as proud of this as I am of Friends (which is like my favourite fic I've ever written) but I was trying my hand at a ship I've never written before so I'm at least proud of it in that regards. Enjoy!
Okay, yeah. So maybe Gideon does happen to have just a tiny little crush on the new barista at the coffee shop by his work. That's still definitely not why he keeps coming back to it multiple times a day. It's for the coffee, really, he's never had any as good. It's truly just the coffee, he swears.
Which probably doesn't explain why he's so disappointed when Sophie —as the name tag she always wears informs him is her name— isn't there when he first arrives after a long day of strenuous number crunching in the IT department at his firm, where he'd been forced to help out on account of being understaffed. It also might bring into question his immediate decision to turn right back around and head home rather than grabbing his usual order of black coffee and going to silently sip it at a ludicrously slow pace in the corner seat that has the perfect view of the counter where Sophie spends most of her shift chatting amiably with the other girl who's often on at the same time as her. Moreover, it could cast a variable amount of doubt on the fact that he does, in fact, know the barista's schedule down to the minute. Still, he really only comes here so often for the incomparable flavour of their rich and savoury coffee.
And also maybe the girl who works the counter. Just a tiny bit, though.
It's mostly just the coffee.
He almost has a heart attack when he turns around, fully intent on letting the glass door swing lonesomely shut behind him and making the long trudge all the way back to his apartment without his usual mood booster, only to find Sophie standing right in front of him with an amused expression dancing across her face. Feeling all the blood in his body rush away from his face in a bout of cold, hard shock and then right back up to send him into a fiery inferno of horrendous blushing, Gideon stands frozen under her now raised eyebrow and indulgent smile.
"Were you going to go in or just stand here all day?" she asks kindly, not without a faint trace of humour lingering underneath. He stares at her blankly for another moment before managing to shake his head and therefore himself out of his idiotic stupor. God, she must think he's such a loser now.
"I, um, right. Going in, yeah. That's what I was, uh, going to do," he stutters back, wincing at the words falling stupidly out of his witless mouth. Jesus christ, as if it hadn't been bad before.
Contrary to what Gideon thought would happen, though, Sophie merely smiles sweetly at him and reaches around his frozen figure to push the door back open behind him. Holding it there, she gestures expectantly into the shop, clearly indicating that he's supposed to walk through now. He does just that, still feeling like the biggest moron ever to disfavour the earth with his horrifying existence, and then stands dumbly in the doorway as she slides easily around him to head off towards the counter.
She's removed her winter coat, revealing the long sleeve and uniform apron underneath, and is halfway through serving her second customer of the shift when she finally seems to take note of his presence still just inside the doorway. Raising an eyebrow again, Sophie easily passes her customer off to the other barista in favour of calling out to him with a voice that resounds sweetly through the echoey shop. "The usual?" she inquires, already moving towards the large coffee machine at the back. Gideon can't do much more than nod dumbly and wish he could sink away into the stupid cracked tiles of the floor or hop into a time machine and redo his horrendous first meeting with the love of his— with his tiny crush.
He manages to finally snap out of his torpor only after she's pressed the hot beverage into his clammy hands and patted him reassuringly on the arm, cleary at a loss as for what to do next. Clearing his throat and ignoring the sudden temptation to throw himself off the nearest cliff, Gideon decides to try for a conversation.
"So, um, you work here?" Oh God, someone kill him now.
Sophie laughs brightly, patting down her green apron in show. "You think I'd be caught dead in this if I didn't?" she teases, glancing haphazardly back over to the counter, most likely to check that she's not needed yet. He chuckles nervously in response, clutching the scorching cup in his hands even tighter.
"Right, yeah. Of course not, sorry." He pauses, searching for another line of discussion to pursue. "When did you start?" Admittedly, he already knows the answer to that one down to the first hour she ever worked the register, but he's not quite socially inadequate enough not to know that informing her of that would be incredibly creepy at best.
"About two months ago," she offers nonchalantly, a feat Gideon has yet to accomplish in her presence. "You've been in here every day since, though, so I'm betting you'll know that already."
Having just managed to take a sip of the black coffee in his hands, Gideon immediately spews it back into the cup, choking on the few drops that had managed to work their way down his throat already. "That's, um— That's—" Thankfully, his stuttering is cut short by the barista's amused giggle and he's saved from further embarrassment at the sound of much more put together words falling out of her perfect mouth.
"I think you could've probably singlehandedly kept this shop afloat with how often you showed up, sitting in your little corner for hours on end until, coincidentally of course, my shift ended and then you'd be on your merry way until the next time I was on." She pauses, taking in his expression before continuing on. "Oh, you didn't think I'd noticed? Honestly, I'm just surprised you never came up and asked me out in all that time. I was waiting on it, you know, was all ready to find a nice place to eat and everything but, well, clearly that never happened. I'm glad I ran into you outside just now, though, really. Lord knows you wouldn't have said a word to me edgewise if I hadn't."
Staring at her dumbly for what must be over a minute, Gideon takes an admittedly embarrassing amount of time to realize that she's quite obviously giving him the chance to finally ask her out. Never one to waste a good opportunity like this— okay shut up —he resolves himself to take full advantage of it and reign his voice in enough not to stutter this time.
"Will you go out with me?" Ah, yes. Thank God even he couldn't mess that one up.
Grinning widely at the nearly rhetorical question, Sophie nods her head in affirmation before rushing over to the counter to grab her pad and pen from the other girl, whom Gideon realizes has been giving them thoroughly bemused looks for a while now. Scribbling over it for a second, his longtime crush then tears the sheet of paper off and stuffs it unceremoniously into the hand not desperately clutching at his still scalding coffee.
He glances down in confusion, eyeing the numbers scrawled beautifully across the stark whiteness of the page, before realizing what she's just given him. By the time he looks up, however, she's already diligently returned to her duty at the register, ringing another customer up and heading off to concoct the requested beverage. He stares after her for a long minute before grinning to himself, shaking his head and turning around to head back out the door.
Okay, so maybe he hadn't been coming for the coffee.
Let me know what you thought?