Chapter Text
Susan Cooper would never have walked into the murder shed of a coffee shop if she hadn't been desperate. Fine's mission in Sydney and the resulting time difference was quickly sapping her perkiness. The coffee maker in the basement was broken. Sharon, poor sweet Sharon, had sampled the bilge water that the coffee maker had produced last week and was still in the hospital. Susan had signed the card.
Also, the line at Starbucks had been too long. Susan had been ready to decapitate the 30 plus people in front of her, who apparently had been competing in The North America Most Complex Coffee Order Competition. If Fine didn't need her to watch his back, all of those assholes would have been dead. Her potential decapitation spree was cut short when she remembered the coffee shop that Nancy mentioned that Leon in IT had been complaining about last week. At least the line would be short, right?
As she stares at the glass door with a piece of printer paper taped to it, she begins to have second thoughts. "Coffee Here" is scrawled on the sheet in Sharpie. She tries not to cringe when she steps into the building and holy crap, it looks murder-y. Just enough room to roll out a tarp and hack up a body, it's just a cement floor and a counter salvaged from a dumpster or the bottom of the ocean - it's that rusty.
A bald man frowns at her from behind the counter. Susan mistakenly makes eye contact and now she's committed herself to ordering something. She walks to the counter, completely self-conscious of how loud her footsteps echo in the cement cavern. Susan stops at the counter and tries to find the menu.
"What do you want?" The man demands with an English accent.
Susan points to the blank wall timidly. "I'm just looking for the menu."
"Well that's easy. Don't have one."
"Oh," Susan says slightly stumped on how to proceed.
"Your choices are coffee." The man crosses his arms. "Or fucking coffee."
"Well, I'm guess I'm having the coffee then," Susan says tacking an awkward laugh onto her statement. "I mean fucking coffee would be a little awkward. What with it being hot. And a liquid. Not advisable ... I would think."
"Name for the cup?"
Susan looks around at the empty shop. "Uh. Susan?"
The man uncaps a Sharpie with his teeth and scrawls on a paper cup for an obscenely long time.
"The name's Ford," he mumbles around the cap before puttering around the counter.
The mechanical whirring of a coffee grinder drowns out anything that Susan begins to say in response. The coffee grounds then go in a paper filter suspended in a glass contraption. Ford pulls a kettle off its hot plate and pours a little hot water into a paper filter. Susan's only watching the process in such detail because there's literally nothing else to look at in the shop, but watching the rest of the water follow in a spiral pattern is kind of mesmerizing. As she waits for her coffee, Susan tries to fill the silence.
Susan looks around the empty space. "So have you been open long?"
"Yes."
And then they just stare at each other for three minutes.
Once the coffee meets Ford's approval, it's poured into a paper cup. "Coffee for Susan."
"Yep. That would still be me."
"That will be $6."
Oh geez that's a little steep for eight ounces of coffee Susan thinks to herself as she roots around in her purse. She extracts her wallet and says, "Do you take debit cards?"
"No."
Susan tries not to freak out. Does she have any cash on her? She thankfully discovers two long-forgotten five-dollar bills tuckered away in a zippered pocket. Probably remnants from that one time that Nancy convinced her to go clubbing after she broke up with Jerry. Susan offers the money to Ford, who subsequently pockets it in his pair of too tight pants.
"Um, can I get some change?"
"No. I don't have any."
Susan wrinkles her nose in confusion. "Uh." She feels like she should look around for the hidden camera.
Ford crosses his arms. "I tell you what. Next time? Next time, your coffee will be 66% off."
Susan wants to burst out laughing. "How do you even know I'm coming here again?"
"Oh, you'll be coming again." Susan raises an eyebrow. "Because my fucking coffee is fucking amazing," Ford proclaims.
"And here I was thinking I just ordered the coffee."
Ford hands her said cup. Susan looks around the shop. "You wouldn't have sugar or milk hiding somewhere around here, would you?"
Ford just glares at her.
"Yeah, I didn't think so. Just thought I would ask. Yep. Well thanks, I guess."
Susan leaves Highway Robbery Coffee Shop as fast as she can. It's only when she's in her car does she pay any attention to her cup. Instead of Susan, there's a 10-digit number and "Caution: You're hot." Did that asshole give her his number?
She's already convinced herself that the coffee can't possibly be good enough to warrant her to step foot in that shop again, 66% off or not.
Susan nonchalantly takes a sip as she puts her car in reverse, but then stills. “God damn it.” She puts her car in park and takes another sip, hoping that the mouthful of strong, smooth and mellow caffeine was a fluke. She frowns down at her coffee cup when that isn’t the case. “Why?”
Her tirade complaining about the injustices in the world lasts until the office. Susan swears that even though it’s the best coffee she’s ever had in her 40 years on this earth, she is never, ever going back to that stupid coffee shop. Does Ford even have a business license? Did she just order coffee from an off-the-grid caffeine peddler?
Her resolve lasts for one day. It’s for Fine, okay?