Author's Note: The GW boys don't belong to me although everybody else, I made up. I just got tired of everyone making Quatre gay. Not that I don't like those fanfics too, but for ONCE I just wanted to see the boy be STRAIGHT. Not that many straight men would wear pink…
******
She still remembered the first time she saw him. The very first time he had been in he café according to her co-workers. He seemed to pause, unsure whether to enter with his blonde hair glinting in the winter sun.
Self-consciously, he ran a hand through his hair and closed the door behind him. It was not snowing but it was definitely cold enough to and his long black coat made his bright blue eyes seem even brighter.
"Hello…" Her supervisor, Janey, had greeted him. "Can I help you…?"
"I'm actually waiting for a friend…" He said giving the café another sweep with his eyes before they zeroed in on someone. "Ah, actually, I see him."
She followed his eyes and spotted a handsome young man with a long braid of hair flipped over one shoulder. He was waving exuberantly and grinning like a madman.
"That's fine." Janey said with a small smile. "I'll send someone by to take your order in a minute."
"Thank you." He had said with a smile that was completely and utterly beautiful.
She had watched him make his way to his seat and slowly shuck off his coat before she had to stop due to Lucy's screaming. She had poured decaf all over the counter and it was slowly trickling off it onto the floor.
******
"Come on…" Ani peered around the café impatiently making sure that her boss did not see her neglecting the counter. She knew that it was not good to ignore your job when you had just gotten it a week ago but could not help herself. She was waiting for him. The ray of light in her student/waitress/aspiring singer existence. The man, Lucy had teased her, who was probably five years younger than her.
"Oh, shut up." Ani had shoved her dark-haired friend in the shoulder.
So, what if he was five years younger? She had dated younger guys before. Okay, so maybe they had not exactly resulted in meaningful relationships, but there was something about this guy. Something special. He was not just some ordinary college kid.
"Son of a bitch!" She yelped as she burned her thumb in a spurt of scalding hot coffee. She quickly stuffed the hurt appendage in her mouth and closed her eyes with a sigh. If she thought about him anymore, she would probably end up in the nearest hospital…
"Saa…" A soft tenor said softly. "Are you alright, miss?"
Ani hurriedly pulled her thumb out of her mouth and faced the counter with very wide eyes. It was him. Her beautiful blonde angel was looking at her with genuine concern in his big blue eyes and she was staring…
"Ah…" She laughed nervously and nervously tugged at a pigtail. "I'm fine… Really… Just… umm…" She could feel herself reddening and decided she had embarrassed herself quite enough and pulled out the notepad and pen she had in the pocket of her apron.
"What can I get you?" She said trying to stop her cheek from twitching as she smiled at him.
He blinked, surprised at the abrupt change of topic.
"Ummm, okay, I'll have a blueberry muffin and some hot chocolate…"
"No problem…" Ani turned around clearly faking her jauntiness and went to make the beverage. She was just getting the muffin out of the display case when she allowed herself a sigh.
"Idiot…" She chastised herself softly.
******
"Luce!" She flopped on her flatmate's bed in despair. "I made a total moron out of myself…"
Lucy, who was chatting to her significant other, turned away from the computer monitor to study her friend who was prone on the bed looking very miserable. She sighed.
"What happened?"
"Well…" Ani turned on her stomach and sank her face into the duvet so that her voice was slightly muffled. "I had the PERFECT opportunity to talk to him… He initiated it in fact and I was going to say something…"
"So, why didn't you…"
"Because I'm a moron?" Ani looked up at her friend pathetically. "I am, aren't I?" She said meekly. "I should have said something."
Sighing again, Lucy got up from the bed and sat down on the bed next to her friend and patted her comfortingly on the shoulder.
"Yes," She sighed. "You are a moron."
******
Ani sighed and checked her appearance before taking a deep breath and trying to remember the mind-calming techniques she had learned in her martial arts classes. It was three twenty-five in the afternoon. In five minutes, her angel would walk in the door, take a seat somewhere in the small café and order the same thing he always ordered: a hot chocolate and a blueberry muffin.
'Breathe in,' She thought. 'Breathe out.'
"Oi," Jeff, her coursemate, came in and flung a tea towel at her with a toss of his brilliant, red hair. "Relax, he isn't here yet."
"What do you mean…" Ani stopped short and whirled on Lucy. "You TOLD!"
Lucy put up her hands in defense and shook her head. "No! I didn't tell Jeff anything!" Lucy blinked. "By the way, nice colour, Jeff."
"Finally, someone notices!" Jeff huffed before grabbing the tea towel back from the flabbergasted Ani.
"But… But…" She closed her mouth and looked at Jeff. "Then, how…?"
"Honey," Jeff put both his hands on the diminutive girl's shoulders and looked her in the eye. "From the way you were looking at him, the ENTIRE café knew you were jonesing for him. But," He smirked. "You better hurry up or I'll hit on him."
"Don't you dare…" Ani's expression darkened making the red-head laugh.
"God, it was a joke, Annikins… Now, go serve that gorgeous boy," Jeff spun her around for emphasis and gave her a little shove, "Before Janey starts off… You know how anal retentive she gets about customers being left waiting."
Ani needed no more encouragement. "I'm on it." She said striding determinedly to the table where the blond boy in a suit was sitting with a friend whom, she noticed, was not at all deficient in the looks department himself. She could feel the heat rushing to her cheeks but tried to look nonchalant.
"Hi," She smiled quickly trying to stop her mouth from twitching nervously. "How can I help you boys?"
"Well," The angel's friend turned one green eye towards her and leaned his elbows on the table. "I'd like a café latte and a tuna melt."
"And, I…" The angel himself spoke and Ani had to mentally will herself to remain still and not run back to the safety of the cappuccino machine screaming the whole way.
"A hot chocolate and a blueberry muffin…" She sighed before snapping her jaw shut with an audible click.
'Oh, shit,' She thought, panicking.
"Yes," The angel smiled that and gave a small laugh that lit up already luminous blue eyes. "Yes, that would be great."
"Getting predictable, Quatre?" His friend raised an eyebrow. Well, he could have raised both eyebrows for all Ani knew but the rather long fringe of brown hair flopped over one eye completely covering it. She absently wondered what his depth perception was like…
Then, 'Quatre,' She thought blissfully. 'His name is Quatre…'
"So, that's a hot chocolate, a café latte, one tune melt and a blueberry muffin?" She said repeating the order and holding up the notepad the order was 'written on' so the two boys could not see it. "I'll be right back with your order…" She squeaked as she ran back to prepare their order and kill Jeff.
Written on the pad was: 'Talk to him!' in Jeff's cursive script.
******
Once she had reached the safety of the kitchen where Jeff was getting some clean mugs and Lucy was washing out some dirty ones, Ani yelled at one of the trainees.
"One café latte, one hot chocolate, a blueberry muffin and tuna melt for table four!"
Then she turned to her friends and let her expression sadden. "I blew it…"
"Oh, honey…" Jeff began but was silenced by Lucy holding up one soapy hand.
"Wait a minute… Wait a minute!" She glared at the smaller girl. "HOW exactly did you blow it?"
"I said his order before he did…"
"So?"
"He knows I like him now! Why else would I know exactly what he orders everytime he comes here?!"
"Isn't that the point?!"
"But…" She sighed. "I wanted to play it cool."
"Ani," Lucy gave an exasperated sigh and shanghaied the tray from the very frazzled trainee Ani had yelled at and handed it to her. "You are going to go out there and you are going to introduce herself or I am going to do it for you!"
******
"Well," Trowa gave his best friend a look. "She's cute."
"She doesn't like me." Quatre closed his blue eyes and opened them again giving Trowa a pitiful look. "I can tell."
"Oh, come on…" Trowa leaned back and stretched out his long legs. "You haven't even spoken to her yet."
"You saw her!" Quatre argued. "She practically sprinted away from us!" He sank in his chair. "She hates me."
******
"Be cool." Ani tried to take deeper breaths to avoid looking like she was panting. "Calm. Calm. Be calm."
She smiled as she approached the table. "Calm…"
"Here, we are," She said with all the bravado she could muster placing everything on the table. "Will that be all?" She even chanced a quick look to study him, her angel, the short blonde hair cropped short with a slight curl, the large blue eyes, miles long brown eye lashes and the yellow light catching on the slight gold shadow on his jaw. As if sensing her eyes on him, her angel… Quatre, she corrected. Quatre looked up and smiled at her nearly causing her to stop breathing all together.
"No," Suddenly, his friend spoke, breaking the spell and she looked him.
"Huh?" She blinked. She was still recovering from the smile.
"My friend here," He gestured to Quatre. "He would like to know your name."
"Trowa…" Quatre looked nervous suddenly turning a very pretty shade off pink right up to the tips of his ears.
"And," It was scary how all this was said with absolutely no inflection in his voice. "He would like to know when you get off so that you and he could go somewhere and maybe talk."
"I… I…" Ani hazarded a look at Quatre and quickly looked back at Trowa. 'Oh, God…'
She gulped and smiled. "Well… My name is Ani and I get off at seven." She lowered her eyes. "I'll be waiting out front later…" She could feel herself blushing. "If, you know, you don't want to…"
"Oh, I do…" Quatre laughed still pink. "I'm Quatre and," He stood up and stuck out his hand. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Ani."
"And I'm glad to meet you too…" She looked down and took his hand, embarrassed and tried to ignore Jeff and Lucy dancing together in utter joy behind the counter. They managed to jump apart, however, when Trowa gave them a suspicious look.
"I've got to go back to work." She tilted her head towards the wall where Janey, her supervisor, was glaring at her evilly. "So, I'll see you later."
Quatre blanched at the evil look the supervisor was throwing them and nodded. "Yeah…" He smiled again making her heart flutter. "I'll see you… later."
As calmly as she could, Ani turned back towards the counter and mouthed: 'Oh MY GAWD!' to Lucy and Jeff.
As she placed the tray she had been holding back to Jeff, he wiggled his eyebrows at her.
"So, it's going to be a good Christmas this year, huh, Annikins?" Lucy drawled leaning on the counter with her face cupped in her palms.
"Oh, yeah," She flipped a tea towel over her shoulder. "Santa KNOWS I've been a good girl this year."
******
Quatre stared at his friend who was calmly stirring his coffee.
"Why did you do that?"
Trowa sighed and put the plastic stirrer back on the table. "I could not stand the way you were both making eyes at each other and I could do without you sighing all over my coffee."
Quatre smiled at his friend. "Thanks man."
"Don't mention it."
"So," Quatre took a sip of the hot chocolate. It was perfect. "How is the circus?"
And outside the small café, it began to snow…