Chapter One #2
All right, fine. She was an excellent barista. Maybe she wanted to show off a bit.
Maybe she could tempt him to drink it this time.
“Here you go, Theo. Just for you.”
“Thank you,” he mumbled, his fingers just barely grazing hers as he took the coffee in his hand. At her touch, he nearly dropped the drink and yanked his arm away as if he’d been electrocuted.
“Oh, s-sorry,” he stammered, reaching forward again. “So sorry.”
She pushed the coffee across the counter to him and drew her hand back, stifling a look of concern and replacing it with a soft smile. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“Thank you, Audrey,” he muttered, retreating to the same corner as last time.
She postponed her break in favor of keeping an eye on him.
Once again, he took a small black leather notebook out from his pocket and scribbled into it with a gold-tipped fountain pen.
Once again, he pulled the brim of his baseball cap low over his face.
And once again, he never removed his mask and never took a single sip of coffee.
At precisely 9:00 a.m., he gathered up his things, took his coffee cup, and left in a rush, without giving her so much as a backward glance.
Audrey checked the tip jar.
Just like last week, he’d left all of his change inside.
She started looking for Theo every day that summer.
The third week, he came in on Tuesday at exactly 8:17 a.m., just like the previous two weeks.
But then he also came in on Thursday.
And Friday.
Always at 8:17 a.m.
He always paid in cash.
And he always left the remainder of his broken twenty-dollar bills in their tip jar.
Theo began coming in three times a week, but little else changed.
He barely spoke, struggled to order the same coffee every time, and never once removed his mask to drink it in the café.
Instead, he claimed the same table for exactly forty minutes, clutched the warm cup in one hand, and wrote in his little notebook with the other, his leather satchel resting faithfully against his long legs.
He always wore black, and Audrey could only ever see the upper left corner of his face.
No matter how hard she tried, no matter what she said at the register, she never got him to laugh.
It was hard not to fixate on such a goal.
He looked like he could use a laugh.
He was so sweet, Audrey ached to give him one.
He’d been coming in regularly three times a week for a month when the fall semester started at the tail end of August and time went strange. It was always like that when she shifted mindsets from just work to work and school, but she only had to do this one more time.
The Tuesday of her second week of classes was already an odd day. Monday had been so crazy, she was almost late for her capstone course after her shift, but this morning was practically dead.
“We haven’t seen Pattycakes yet, have we?” Josh tamped freshly ground beans into the group head and clicked it into place. “Think she died?”
Audrey snorted at the nickname and shook her head. “Fat chance.”
The lack of Patricia meant one of three things: she was running late (unusual, but most likely), she’d taken a vacation (god, Audrey hoped so), or she’d finally chosen to go get her goddamn Frappuccino at an actual Starbucks for once (wholly wishful thinking, but a girl could dream).
A few of the usual suspects sat with their ceramic cups over in the lounge area, typing quietly away to the inoffensive lo-fi playing over the café’s sound system, and Audrey drummed her fingers against the counter while Josh experimented with perfecting a ristretto.
“Hey, Auds.” She glanced over her shoulder as he slid a shot to her. “Taste this, will you?”
“Sure.” She sipped and thought for a moment as she rolled the coffee around on her palate. “You waited too long on that pull—it’s a touch bitter.”
“Damnit.” Josh turned back to the machine to try again, and that’s when Theo finally slid into the café, looking mostly like he normally did. But this time, his cap wasn’t pulled quite so low, and Audrey could see a bit more of his face and eye than usual as he stepped up to the counter.
“Hey, Theo! Happy Tuesday.”
She leaned forward on an elbow and bit her lip as she grinned even wider at him.
Now that she was getting a better look in better light, she could see his skin was speckled with freckles, dotting across his face like stars in the night sky.
His eye also wasn’t exactly brown, like she’d initially thought it was, but rather a more mottled hazel with dark brown clustered around his pupil and a lighter, greener color hovering around the edges.
Well.
That was interesting.
He was striking.
“Hi, Audrey,” Theo replied softly, glancing around at the rest of the shop and looking even more nervous now that there were fewer people around. Perhaps it was because it might be harder for him to try to meld into the wall. “Slow day?”
“Yeah, you came at a good time. It’s weird, but I’m not sad about it.”
His eye caught on the shot of coffee she was still clutching between her fingers. “Wh-what are you, uh, dri-drinking?” he asked hesitantly, almost as if he was unsure if he should even try. His throat bobbed as he swallowed and tried again. “Well, I mean, what’s—what’s your favorite drink?”
Oh, so he was chatty today?
This was more words than she’d ever been able to wheedle out of him before.
How cute.
A slow smile crept across her lips while Theo fidgeted in front of her. He was about to wring those large, anxious hands together, and if she didn’t know better, he might have even been sweating under that hoodie.
Actually, he might have been. It was a lot to wear out in the city in September when it was still this hot.
She folded her hands on the counter. “I’m drinking Josh’s awful failed attempt at a ristretto.”
“I heard that!” Josh snapped at her from the machine, and she giggled. Theo’s eye crinkled, and his mask tilted upward over his cheeks.
There it was.
Finally, a smile.
Audrey beamed even wider at her victory.
“What’s that?” Theo asked. “I’ve never heard of a ristretto.
” He winced and his mask shifted back down over his face, but it was so quick Audrey almost didn’t notice.
The door opened again behind him and another customer stepped up in line, but she couldn’t see who it was.
Theo was far too broad, and she was far too pleased at having made him smile to care. Whoever it was could wait.
“It’s like an espresso, but ‘restricted.’ Pulled for less time, so it’s sweeter, lighter.
I like to put mine in a flat white. You can make some nice designs in the foam of a flat white.
” She rolled the glass between her hands.
“I don’t always have time to do it, but when it’s slow, we like to practice that sort of thing.
It’s really fun, and a nice change of pace from the kind of stuff I study in my classes. I like the art of it.”
“Oh, are you in school?” He raised a dark eyebrow. “Do you study art?”
“No, I’m an electrical engineering major. A super senior, actually.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Audsbodkins,” Josh shot from the Marzocco as he worked on another ristretto. “You’re graduating this December from NYU. That’s nothing to sneeze at.”
“ ‘Oddsbodkins’?” Theo’s brow furrowed.
She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. “Yeah, theater nerd over here’s auditioning for the Scottish play, so he’s working in Shakespeare puns wherever he can.”
Josh lifted the fresh ristretto and struck a pose, holding it aloft as though it were a skull.
“ ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow!’ ” He clenched his free hand into a fist and sighed dramatically before opening one wry eye and straightening.
“The audition is tomorrow and I’m hoping I at least get cast as the Porter this time.
Hell, I’d even take Background Player Number Three if I could. ”
“Oh. Uh…break a leg, I suppose?” Theo huffed a laugh and turned his attention back to her. “That sounds like a nightmare to me. Acting, I mean.”
Audrey’s grin widened. “Me too. I could never. Too much attention. I don’t think I’d like that, all those people looking at me.”
“Exactly.” What little she could see of Theo’s expression softened. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who—”
An impatient finger jabbed at Theo’s shoulder, and he nearly jumped out of his skin at the contact.
“You can flirt with her some other time, sir,” snapped Patricia as she shoved forward to the head of the line, obviously running late (the worst of the three options), and obviously salty about it.
“I need to get my coffee and I need to get it now.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Theo’s shoulders slumped and he started to shuffle aside to make room for her. “You can go ahe—”
“No, Theo, you were here first.” Audrey let her usual mask fall and glared at the woman before turning back to him. “What would you like?”
He held up a trembling hand. “No, it’s fine, I can wait, I’ve got time. I—”
Patricia shoved him fully out of the way and stepped up to the register, and Theo stumbled back with an anguished grunt, grabbing on to the counter with his left hand and barely managing to stay on his feet.
His right leg buckled. “I want my usual.” She jammed her finger onto the counter. Demanding.
No.
Absolutely not.
“You don’t have a usual, Patricia,” Audrey snarled, “you order something different every time. And it’s not your turn.”
“Then I want a venti caramel macchiato Frappuccino, upside down, extra shot, three extra pumps of vanilla, and made with heavy whipping cream.”
“It’s not your turn and this is not a Starbucks, we don’t have ventis or make Frappuccinos,” she hissed.
“Well, I’m friends with the owner and you need to make me the fucking coffee I ordered, you little bitch!” Patricia shouted.
“HEY.”
Theo rested a hand softly on Patricia’s shoulder. “Don’t talk to her that way,” he growled. “I think you need to leave before—”
“Is that a threat?!” Patricia shrieked as she whirled around and pointed a finger in his face. “How dare you touch me! And why are you still wearing a goddamn mask? Get that off your face so I can see who you are to report you!” She reached up, grabbed his mask, and yanked.
“Hey, don’t you touch him! That’s assault!” Audrey cried, running for the gap in the counter to get to the front of the café. Josh was already in the back calling the police.
Theo jerked away from Patricia’s hand, but she had too good of a grip on the mask between her clawed fingers. The elastic ear loops snapped, and it fell away from his face. His eye widened in horror and he scrambled to catch it, but it was too late. It dropped on the floor and everyone froze.
And Audrey finally got a good long look at him.
He was handsome. Really handsome. He had a wide mouth, and full, plush lips, with deep indents carved around it where dimples might appear if he smiled.
Large moles intermingled with the delicate freckles skipping across his cheeks, more constellations of beauty marks contrasting brightly against his pale skin and high cheekbones.
But those features were all overshadowed, all marred by the thick, red, vicious scar crackling violently across his face, not quite healed and obviously devastatingly fresh.
Whatever had wounded him had cut deep—very deep.
His skin was still puckered around the edges of the scar where some of the dozens—no, hundreds—of stitches had only recently been removed, and parts of it were still scabbed over.
It crept up from under his collar along his neck, and her eyes traced the length of it. The part that disappeared under the thick, dark waves covering his right eye was still stitched closed with black sutures twisting deep into his skin. He must have been split open to the bone.
Whatever happened had hurt, in more ways than one, and that hurt was reflected now in the way his lovely mouth dropped open in fear and how horror darkened the one eye fixated on Audrey’s face.
“Theo—” She stepped up to him and tried to put her hand on his shoulder, but he stumbled away from her touch.
Patricia stayed silent and rooted in place, gaping openly at him as if he were some sort of freak.
As if he were a monster. The look of disgust on that woman’s face made Audrey feel sick. “Theo, are you okay? I—”
He couldn’t look at her. He covered his face with his arm and bolted for the door, shoving it open with his free hand and disappearing out into the street.
The café was completely silent. Everyone had seen.
Audrey looked down at her feet. He’d dropped his little black notebook. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he’d leapt away from Patricia, and she picked it up and clutched it to her chest, fighting back tears for him.
Josh had Patricia arrested for assault. The whole thing was caught on the café’s security cameras and by the customers working in the lounge on their phones. At least one of them posted it on social media, and it caught like wildfire. The incident even briefly went viral on TikTok.
Tim, the owner of Déjà Brew, called both Audrey and Josh into the admin office in the back the next day.
He was mortified by the kind of attention the café was getting online and had already written a scathing response to someone on Reddit about it—particularly since Patricia was, predictably, a liar.
They weren’t friends, he had no idea who she was, and while he wasn’t thrilled with how Audrey had escalated the situation, he wasn’t going to hold it against her.
He permanently banned Patricia from the premises for the assault.
She didn’t try to come back to Déjà Brew after that.
But neither did Theo.
He didn’t return to the café the next Tuesday.
Or the Tuesday after that.
Or the Tuesday after that.
Or the Tuesday after that.