When Tahno stumbled into the cheap café in the middle of god forsaken nowhere, he was not in the mood to be trifled with. It had been a hell of a weekend at his rugby tournament and he had enough bruises to make him nervous about the extent of his internal bleeding, joint pains that would rival those of the most elderly, and a bruised nose that was slowly coloring his already heavily bagged eyes a dark hue of purple. Ming had snickered and asked if he'd forgotten where to put his eye shadow. Soon after Ming found himself with a match.
Tahno was in the mood for no bullshit. He wanted his caffeine in a faction of a second or he'd combust. He looked around to search the place for any threats. He'd spent the last forty-eight hours being pummeled, tackled, punched, kicked, and even bitten by other seventeen year old boys and he wasn't about to take any more chances.
It was a tacky little place covered in cheap looking paintings of deer and bears. It smelled like coffee and gunpowder, probably from the middle aged hunters that were the only ones absurd enough to venture out to the middle of nowhere for a cup of what was probably very mediocre coffee. There was a worn counter across the room where a girl his age sat. Her skin was tan against her grey workout gear and a curly brown ponytail hung off the side of one of her hunched shoulders. She was scrawling what must have been answers into a notebook next to a giant textbook.
"Hello," Tahno called irritably, walking further into the café. "I'd like to make an order."
The girl's eyes flicked up and he was surprised at how blue they were. They narrowed, looking him up and down, lingering on what he sure was his very red nose and mauve eyes. A hint of a smile tugged at a corner of her lips and Tahno suppressed a hiss of indignation.
"What can I get you," she asked, leaning back from her stool. Her voice was falsely bright and it only exacerbated the pounding behind his temples.
He made a point of giving her a dirty look before curtly replying, "Venti, non-fat, no foam, no water, six pump, extra hot, chai tea latte."
She blinked long and slow several times, her mouth drifting open a bit. "You want a what?"
"I just told you," he snapped, shifting his weight in frustration. If he stood in this stinking café another instant he'd inhale enough gunpowder to make him an explosive. "Were you not listening, or are you just slow?"
The girl raised her eyebrows high, giving him another once over. "Oh no, I heard you. I'm just wondering what the hell a venti, non-fat, no foam—"
"Is this not a coffee place," Tahno took a step closer to the counter pointed at a rusty looking coffee maker to the right of her.
"Yeah, but I sure didn't hear you say coffee—"
Tahno threw his hands up to the sky as she rested an arm on the counter, propping her chin up to watch his temper tantrum. "Is it not implied that coffee places serve lattes," he said, gritting each word out like the dirt he'd had to cough up all weekend.
The girl snickered and Tahno felt his eye twitch. "First of all, does this look like a Starbucks to you? We don't have a venti anything. Either you want a Starbucks or you're a confused bilingual. Second of all, six pumps of what? Thirdly, how am I even supposed to make anything without water. And—"
She stopped as Tahno began to advance and she snatched up a mug from underneath the counter, holding it back to throw like a baseball. "Don't even think about—"
He ignored her, veering away from her to walk around the counter. He crouched down to examine the shelves below, ignoring her protests. There were lots of coffee-stained and chipped mugs that looked old enough to be put in a civil war museum. What looked like shotgun shells were scattered about in between them, glinting in the dull light of the ceiling lamp. He straightened and turned to the counter behind. There were a few plastic containers of muddy looking coffee grounds, a dusty blender, a rusty-looking coffee maker, a box of lipton black tea, and a refrigerator that he was sure contained something utterly ridiculous like bear stew.
Suddenly very tired, he groaned and leaned back against the counter. "What did I do to deserve this," he moaned, his hands unsuccessfully trying to massage his scalp through his hair gel.
The noise that he realized had been the girl hissing at him stopped and he watched out of his peripheral as she moved in front of him, her eyebrows knitting together. "Hey, you ok, buddy?"
Tahno's eyes narrowed with a vengeance. "I am not your Buddy. Go back to your little stool and mind your own damn business and reconsider who you decide to christen with a golden retriever name."
The girl gave him a affronted snort, her gaze becoming heated. "At least I don't look like I just got run over and sprayed with a hair gel hose." She stomped back to her stool. "By the way," she snapped, as she aggressively realigned her notebook, "Your eyeliner is smudged."
For a few moments, the only sound was the angry scratching of her pencil across paper, punctuated by the slam of what he was sure were very bold periods. He found that he didn't have it in him to fight back. His head hurt, his nose hurt, his arms hurt, his legs hurt, hell— he wondered if there was a part of him that didn't hurt. He let himself slide down the counter till he was sitting on the floor and looked up at the girl, watching as she pursed her lips and continued to write.
"What are you working on," he asked before he could stop himself.
Her eyes flicked down to him, and he stared back up, cocking an eyebrow. She glared. "A research paper on oxidative phosphorylation."
Surprisingly, he knew what that was. "You're in AP Bio?" Her eyes went back to her paper and she nodded, obviously determined to ignore him. Tahno couldn't help but smirk."Are you as good at it as you are at making shitty coffee?"
"Listen," she snapped, looking down at him. "I don't know what hell hole you crawled out of or what your problem is, but I don't have time for twenty questions. Until you order some of my shitty coffee, you can shut up." She looked away and Tahno let out a long, low whistle.
"You're a wild one, aren't you," he said with relish. She began to radiate waves of fury. "It's fine. Makes you less generic." Her eyelid began to twitch. Nothing made Tahno feel better about bad mornings than pissing someone off and this girl was just making it too easy. "There's something wrong with your eye, Forest Girl—"
"Shut. Up."
"Make me."
She looked down at him again and let out an unladylike snort. "Was that supposed to be seductive?"
Her eyes twinkled and without thinking he suggestively replied, "Maybe." He let the word stretch out into the dusty air and she tossed her ponytail over her shoulder.
She went back to her paper, the hint of a grin on her face. "Keep trying, Punk."
"I will," he drawled, settling further back into the hard wood that pressed up against his back. "So you want to be a scientist?"
"Something like that."
"Me too. I've got it all planned." She cast him a curious look as he continued. "I'll major in organic chemistry and minor in biophysics just for fun. Get my PhD and buy myself a lab. You got a plan, Forest Girl?"
She chuckled, crossing something out on her paper. "For someone who throws a temper tantrum when they don't get their nine dollar latte, you sure have detailed goals."
"I don't settle."
"Neither do I." She allowed herself a little grin before shooting him a glare. "This doesn't mean I forgive you for being a first class asshole."
He raised his eyebrows and said in mock confusion, "Why, I don't remember asking for your forgiveness."
The girl leapt from her seat, snatching up a mug as she went. Tahno's rugby instincts kicked in and he was rolling away from her across the bumpy wood floor, swearing as he went. "You'll be begging for my forgiveness when I'm done with you," she yelled as he continued to barrel roll his way to the door.
The door opened and the action in the room stopped. Tahno stopped his journey mid-roll, groaning as his bruises began to smart. The girl froze, one foot on the seat of a chair, poised to leap on to a table in pursuit of Tahno. Ming stood at the door in his sweats with his Wolfbats Rugby t-shirt on backwards. His hair was rumpled and his eyes were open wide at the scene before him. A slow grin split his face and his eyes sparked, "Now who is begging for what now, Tah-"
"Shut up," Tahno snapped, trying to push himself to his feet in the most dignified way possible. The girl's leg (Tahno realized it was a very nice leg, indeed) slowly moved back down to solid ground.
"Great," she grumped, marching back behind the counter. "Another one."
"Sweetheart, I'm an original," Tahno called from the ground as he gave up and lay back down. Tahno knew how to choose his battles. He heard her incredulous laugh and Ming's snicker and sneezed up dust and gunpowder.
"Could we have fifteen coffees please," Ming asked. Tahno listened as Ming's footsteps made their way to the counter. "We've got a full team in the van. Our coach is just getting directions to get back on the highway."
The girl said something and Tahno groaned as his shoulder, which he'd thought was ok after he'd iced it, began to pulse. "Has he been giving you trouble," Ming asked in a mischievous voice. Tahno could practically feel the cheesy eyebrow wiggle from the ground.
The girl said something again and Ming began to laugh, far too loudly for Tahno's head ache. Tahno reached up and grabbed the knobby arm of a wooden chair and yanked himself up to a sitting position before slowly inching himself up to a crouch. He pushed up and groaned again as his bones popped into place and his joints protested. He sauntered as well as his muscles allowed him to the front counter and leaned against it. "I'm nothing but trouble, Sweetheart," Tahno purred, staring into her narrowed eyes. She slammed a lid onto a coffee cup and shoved it into his chest where it sloshed onto his shirt.
"Enjoy, you little piece of—"
"Time to go, Tahno," Ming said hurriedly as he snatched the tray of coffees that had been laid out. Tahno's challenging smirk and the girl's blazing glare didn't waver. "I think we've outstayed our welcome," Ming continued, latching onto Tahno's arm and yanking him away from the counter.
"Bye, Forest Girl," Tahno called out as he was hauled through the maze of tables.
"Get lost," she yelled after him, fire blazing in her eyes and her voice.
The door swung shut behind them with the tinkle of cheap bells and Ming began to cackle. "Leave it to Tahno the wolf to find the only hot girl in the whole county. We should get lost in the wilderness more often."
Tahno rolled his eyes, but he wasn't thinking about her nice legs (that he hadn't noticed at all from his seat on the floor), or her blue eyes. No, he was thinking about that challenge in her voice and the scrap of paper with his number that he had left on the counter. He'd never met a girl who tried to throw coffee mugs at him or one that had ever told him off so thoroughly. Or at all. He was curious.