Cas turned slowly to face the rest of the shop, and was tempted to whip back around when his fears were confirmed: there he was, lounging at the window seat right next to the couple that Cas had been watching earlier, and right in Castiel's field of view. Absolutely unavoidable.

Shit.

He couldn't quite bring himself to look away, though, now that he was at a semi-safe distance and the man seemed absorbed in his coffee. The way that the sunlight from the window illuminated the edges of his profile and landed on his hair and eyelashes made him look almost angelic.

Right at that moment, the man's head lifted and he saw Cas looking at him, and what felt like a thousands volts of electricity ran sharply down Cas's spine, knowing that he had been caught. His face was definitely flushing, but all he could do was stand frozen like a deer in headlights. Green eyes found his own, and stayed, searching, crinkling at the corners from what they found there.

After approximately 30 seconds of paralysis, Cas forced his head to turn away. He stared resolutely at the entrance, pointedly ignoring the fact that Dean was still in his peripheral vision, and praying silently for someone, anyone, to come through the door and give him something to do other than nervously sweat.

Unfortunately, the universe seemed determined not to give him a break, and almost 15 minutes passed in that same manner, until Cas saw a movement out of the corner of his eye, alerting him to the fact that the man was gathering his things and leaving. Cas did his best not to track the movement across the room, to pretend this man was just like any other customer. On his way out the door, he paused, looking over his shoulder, and called back to Cas: "Thanks, man. Have a good one," giving a casual wave of his hand.

Cas gave a very uncasual, unnatural wave in response, and heard his practiced response more than consciously producing it: "Thanks, you too. Come back soon!"

It was the same thing he said to every customer on their way out the door, but in this case it sounded wrong to his ears. It was too quiet, too earnest, and suddenly the friendly and offhand request for a repeat visit seemed much too revealing, too true to his own desires. He tried not to betray this in his face, but the crinkle in the other man's eyes only deepened, and he turned back around as he replied.

"I might just."

Cas could've sworn he could hear a smile in the tone of the reply, but the man didn't turn back around to confirm that, and all Cas could do was try determinedly (not completely successfully) not to stare at the man's (very well-shaped) backside as he walked out of the door, the bell ringing again and snapping Cas out of the trance he had fallen into. He blinked and straightened, brushing the sleeves of his shirt and pulling his apron straight, attempting to regain his composure, and after a couple of seconds he had convinced himself that he had completely recovered. Back to normal Cas. Then, though, the bell rang again, and his head whipped, seemingly by its own volition, to the door, to see if Dean had come back. His half-formed hopes were unfounded; the bell had signaled only the approach of a regular customer, a woman with dark brown hair whose countenance sparked nothing in Cas, like every other customer until that day.

He pushed his disappointment aside as the dark-haired woman who had just arrived walked to the counter, slipping back into his professional smile and playing out the simple interaction like nothing had happened. He resolved to put the gorgeous man out of his mind, but still, as he turned to make the woman's espresso, he found himself smiling to himself. The feeling in his chest, the tightness, buzzing, floating sensation in his heart that this meeting had left behind, was both completely alien and unbelievably familiar. It was the sensation he had read so many times in books, had seen a hundred authors attempt to convey in a thousand different ways. Now, he understood. None of them had even come close to the real thing.

'Dean', He mused to himself as he waved the woman goodbye and returned his head to its perch on his hands, elbows braced once again against the cool stone of the counter. Hmm. It's something new, at least. Maybe now I'll finally understand what some of those sonnets were talking about.