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Every morning Conrad got up before the sun and either went for a run or a workout in his building’s gym before grabbing a coffee and getting ready to head to the office for no later than eight. He was a man of routine and on this humid early August day he went for a run. His mind was clear when he ran and in his head he went through the things he had to do today, making mental reminders to ask his PA Erica for an update about the Morgan merger.
By the time he was nearing his apartment his heart rate has finally calmed down and he walked the last block to his favourite coffee shop. Favourite might not be the best word, perhaps convenient. It was right between his apartment and his work, making it ideal to go to before and after work. It wasn’t a Starbucks which meant there usually weren’t lines or big crowds and they did have good coffee.
True to form when he pushed open the door there was a soft chime but the café was otherwise empty. There was the delicious aroma of freshly brewed coffee in his nose and he headed straight to the register, which was totally empty. He stood there uncertainly for a few moments, irritation building. He was two seconds away from either banging on the counter or walking out when someone rushed out of the back.
“So sorry about that! We don’t get many customers this early and I got caught up sorting the new stock and didn’t hear the chime. Anyways, what can I get you?” The pretty blonde offered a charming smile but Conrad was too… caught up to answer immediately.
He didn’t even look at her face because his attention was stuck on one of the most hideous sweater’s he’d ever seen in his lifetime. It had pictures of cat everywhere and his eyes darted everywhere trying to take in the furry little faces, the truly wide range of colours everywhere. It was an abomination and he dragged his face away with difficulty to meet the girl’s eyes.
She was young but he noticed right away she was stunning and this time his attention was caught with less horror and more of gut deep feeling of attraction. She had her long blonde hair in a messy braid, she had plump pink lips curved into a smile and her eyes were this mesmerizing shade of gray only brought up by the long lashes framing them.
He cleared his throat and meant to place his usual order instead he said, “Not exactly very professional attire.”
She looked taken aback and he wanted to groan but to be fair, it was true. In fact, unprofessional was the kindest adjective he could have picked for that atrocity. Crossing her arms she arched a brow at him and returned, “Not sure about taken fashion tips about the guy in shorts and a positively ripe shirt.”
“I just finished a run,” he protesting, glaring at her totally unhidden amusement. “Do you talk to all your customers like this?”
Instead of looking chastised she only grinned wider and told him with the most faux-sincerity, “No, you’re just special. What can I get you, or did you just want to write me up for uniform infraction?”
“Black coffee, large,” he grunted, totally thrown off by her casual attitude. He hadn’t been spoken to like that in years. She rung him up and he left a ten on the counter before she had even finished and moved to the end of the bar. She went to pour his coffee and he couldn’t help it, those feline eyes followed him. Who even wore a sweater in August?
“Here you go, one large black coffee for my fashion reviewer,” she announced perkily, sliding over his coffee. She tilted her head, all sunshine as she called, “Have a nice day!”
Very grudgingly he grunted something that was vaguely close to a return before high-tailing it out of there. The whole morning he was a bit irked and when he arrived at the office Erica took one look at his face and heaved a sigh, knowing it would be a long day.
Conrad avoided the coffee shop for a few days, deciding to work out in a decision completely unrelated to the cute and very off-putting barista. On Thursday though it was too nice outside for him to resist a run. On his way back he was about to pass the coffee shop and hesitated. In the end his pride dictated he couldn’t just switch his usual spot because of a beautiful but probably insane college kid.
Once again the shop was empty and the shop was empty, which did not bode well. It was too late to back down so he made his way to the counter. The same girl as last time came out and he found his eyes going straight to her new sweater, which shockingly was as ugly as the last one and yet completely different.
This one had swirly cosmic background with a spiral of flowers and white cat faces super-imposed on each other, with one large cat in the middle. It was horrifying and he spent a solid minute he boggling at it. He didn’t know anything so ugly could be produced.
By the time he dragged his eyes up the barista was grinning at him and his cheeks heated up at the taunting look she gave him as she twirled and said with no trace of sarcasm, “Since you liked the last one so much, you must like this one.”
“It’s…. unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Thanks. So, large black coffee?”
Once he’d slid another ten over and walked to his spot she hummed a little as she poured it to him and handed it over with a positively gleeful smile. “See you next time?”
He wanted to tell her that no she would not see him, but he just grunted and pretended to ignore her chuckle as he high-tailed it out of there. Looked like it would be workouts for the foreseeable future.
Which lasted all of three days before he got fed up with the shitty coffee from the café in his office building and gave in. When he walked in he noticed immediately that someone was at the register – and it wasn’t his cat sweater wearing barista. Which he was happy about, obviously.
At the till was a college age kid with dimple, big brown eyes and dark floppy hair who looked positively beaming as he greeting, ‘good morning sir, what can I get you?”
“Where’s the other girl?” He didn’t mean to ask, but since it had come out he levelled the kid with an intense stare, willing him to answer.
Gulping the kid stammered, ‘Oh ah, Libby, you mean Libby! She ugh, she doesn’t work Mondays, sorry, I can get yoou coffee –“
Inexplicably upset Conrad turned around and left the shop. That morning Erica once again sighed, but being the awesome human being she was told him, “Well, good news, the reports came in from the Sanderson –“
Rushing into his office he threw himself into his work and decided to forget about the barista. He would probably be at the reports all day, though every time Erica brought him some Starbucks he would grump for a bit. It wasn’t as good as his barista’s coffee.
The very next morning he was at the café bright and early and when he saw his barista he felt a rush of something as he approached. It lasted until she turned around his eyes went straight to her attire.
He shouldn’t be surprised – scratch that he should have expected but no could expect this. This morning it was another cosmic background, this time a weird alien green and black with a massive hamburger and an equally massive cat curled on the hamburger and staring at him. Time ticked by and he cleared his throat as he looked at his barista, noting she looked particularly nice today, with her hair in all these intricate braids twisted around her head.
“You… like cats.”
Her lips quirked, but then totally deadpan she replied, “No not at all. What makes you think that? Black coffee again?”
She was messing with him and they both knew it, but Conrad glared to no effect. With a sunny smile she just went to pour his coffee. He watched her and despite her actually pleasant humming his eyes kept returning to the cat. With horror he noted that the eyes followed him, like some twisted freak-ish feline Mona Lisa.
She slid his coffee over and a bag, which he regarded with extreme suspicion. With a laugh she told him, “Don’t look too happy now. It’s just a muffin that was squished and we can’t sell it so lucky you.”
“Thank you,” he said begrudgingly, accepting the bag. And then she smiled at him, a real smile with soft eyes and he flushed a bit before turning and getting out of there.
At the office he walked in and Erica smiled, noting it would be a good day since he looked focus on something on his phone. He was clutching a bag and Erica looked at it curiously before asking, ‘What’s that?”
“A muffin.” Not a man of many words when it wasn’t necessary, but she already knew that about her boss. Still, he actually smiled a bit as he said it and Erica resolved to keep an eye on this new development.
She followed him in, waiting patiently until he’d settled and watched him take out the muffin. “It’s squished,” she noted. “Do you want me to run out and get you a new one?”
His frown, which had intimidated many a colleague was directed her way as he tugged it protectively closer and said, ‘No, its fine. Can you set up a meeting with Riggs in finance? I want to go over these figures.”
She let it go, but was intensely curious, especially as she watched from her desk as he ate it slowly, savouring each bite. Definitely not normal Conrad behaviour.
On Tuesday morning Conrad went into the café with the resolve to actually make conversation with his barista. Whose name was Libby but he shouldn’t know that since she didn’t wear a nametag and otherwise he’d have to admit to interrogating her co-worker.
He thought he was prepared for the sweater today but as she smiled at him and he saw her latest shirt he realized there was no way to prepare; one could only take in the sublime abomination of the shirt and then focus on anything else.
It actually wasn’t the worst of the past few shirts, he reasoned, noting the simple black background and the floating disembodied cat faces. With a heavy sigh he focused on Libby and her smiling face instead of the fashion nightmare in front of him.
“Black coffee,” he had meant to say, but what really had come out was “Conrad.” She frowned, perplexed and he added, “My name. It’s Conrad.”
“Ah, well, nice to meet you Conrad. I’m Libby. Oh shoot should I have told you that for the complaint you’re still working on about my uniform?”
“You’re teasing,” he accused, noting her laughing, sparkling eyes.
“Maybe,” she allowed. “Which is why I gave you a muffin.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t sell it?”
“I can’t,” she answered slyly. “But I could have eaten it myself. Instead I graced you with it. Did you like it?”
Despite being known for his ruthlessness in business Conrad seemed to have some sort of chronic lapse of character with this barista and found himself telling her quite honestly, “It was delicious.”
It was worth it for her pleased smile as she confided, “Thanks, I actually baked those with my own recipes. We don’t get our delivery until Wednesday and we were out so I got to sell mine.”
“Well, they were good.”
He hadn’t meant anything more than to be honest but she slid him another treat, a broken cookie that she assured him was good even though it wasn’t her personally who had made them. For the first time she wished him a good day with absolutely no sarcasm and Derek was practically perky.
It became a bit of thing in the next few weeks; him stopping by the café. Thankfully the cat sweaters became progressively less ugly and by the end of August he actually found some of them cute. It had more to do with Libby, who once she had decided to cut down her teasing was actually very sweet.
She told him about some of her co-workers, funny little anecdotes about demanding customers and always gave him a treat. When he expressed concerns she had waved it off and joked, “I take it out of the 7$ tips you leave that I definitely don’t deserve considering you order the easiest thing in here.”
He found out that she was in university, studying classics; he’d listened to her for ten minutes animatedly waving her hands as she discussed learning about ancient Roman poetry.
“No seriously, the poems were literally like hey man don’t come after me or I’ll fuck you,” she told him earnestly. “Catullus was bad, like he gave no fucks.”
Half of what she said he had no idea about, but he’d mentioned once about Alexander the Great being gay which she had looked pleased about going on a rant about how being gay wasn’t really a stigma in Ancient Greece. Some of what she said was actually quite interesting.
She also divulged that the floppy haired boy who’d been there Monday mornings was her step-brother and she spoke about Andy with such a fond time Conrad was almost jealous. She seemed to have quite a few siblings and eventually admitted with great reluctance that she did indeed love cats.
It was a getting a little cooler and summer was coming to an end when one day she slid his coffee and wistfully commented, “I’m going to miss that smell.”
“Miss it?” He knew he was just standing there with his coffee staring but why would she miss it. “Are you going on vacation?”
He was already dreading a week or two of going back to the office coffee when she dropped a bomb shell.
“Nope, I’m actually quitting. I only work summers here but when school starts I quit to have more hours to study. Plus I have another job I like better so I can’t keep both and manage to not fail out. At least Andy still works here come September so he gets me my caffeine plug.”
Her tone was casual but Conrad felt like he’d hit a road-block. He stared at her blankly until the bell chime and she waved goodbye to him before going to greet the customer. He was pleased to see she didn’t tease the man at all and was completely neutral with him. He liked being the only one she teased at work apparently.
Erica took one look at his face and let out an over-dramatic groan that Conrad glowered at. By the end of the day he’d reduced three interns to tears, destroyed his stapler and finally cracked a client into given them the reduction they’d been after for months. Oh and totally exasperated Erica who pointed one slender finger at him and ordered, “You better fix whatever it is or I will.”