Work Text:
Grace Ashcroft doesn’t get out much.
In all fairness, it’s difficult to find time for herself when she’s perpetually burdened by inevitable deadlines and avalanches of paperwork. Her nights usually consist of driving home and typing until her fingertips are numb from how often they’ve traced the same reverent patterns on her keyboard. Her weekends are much the same — hibernating beneath her duvet, wearing her laptop down to its last life, fabricating excuses to opt out of tedious plans... the usual.
(She tries to rationalise that part to herself so it sounds less sad. It doesn’t really work.)
But, in her defence, Grace likes her own company! There’s nothing less appealing to her than awkward small talk with colleagues, or conversations that she’d probably end up blocking out in favour of dreaming up a conclusion to her latest report. Grace just finds it hard to turn her brain off at work, even when people are talking at her. Scratch that — especially when people are talking at her. She’s had to learn the hard way that they don’t exactly appreciate that...
Grace digresses. Today, her department is throwing some office party for a colleague’s birthday so, without a desk to eat at in peace, she opted to spend her lunch break strolling through the rainy city.
The pavements are sodden with petrichor as she trudges over murky puddles that ripple with raindrops. Car engines hum on the roads, skirting around potholes and stalling at stop signs, as the city comes to life like a well oiled machine. There’s a unique, urban beauty hidden amidst all the clamouring traffic, graffitied walls and grime — it shines in unlikely places, tucked between the skyscrapers, concealed in the lightning strikes of cracked concrete underfoot. Even if the weather is a little miserable, wandering through the streets is a nice break from her cramped cubicle.
Though, she doesn’t get as far as she’d have liked. Grace falters when her stomach growls, making her realise that she’s absolutely starving. She huffs in defeat, deciding to make a quick pit stop somewhere before she heads back to the office for the rest of her shift.
She ends up settling for a small café on the street corner that has a fresh flowers trembling in the window boxes. It’s got a quaint, rustic feel to it, a warm tangerine glow emanating from behind the beads of condensation on the window — a little bell even rings when she steps inside.
The café is hot with steam and laughter, smelling richly of coffee beans in a way that does nothing to quell her hunger. A twinkling cosmos of fairy lights keep the room awash in golden light. Above all the chatting patrons, the wall-mounted speakers are draped in artificial ivy and crooning garbled folk songs from deep within their mechanical hearts. Soft pastries are wedged into a display case by the till, their prices listed in loopy handwriting on an assortment of little blackboards.
Grace ambles up to join the line, squinting up at the boards to try and make sense of the writing without her reading glasses.
She’s so absorbed in trying to decipher the blurry scores of chalk that she doesn’t register the dwindling queue. In fact, Grace is still squinting up at the board by the time she’s made it to the front of the line and practically jumps out of her skin when a voice snaps her out of her stupor.
“What can I get you?”
Grace blinks rapidly, a deer caught in the headlights. Her mouth opens and closes a few times. The only thing her scatterbrain can focus on is how beautiful you look beneath those sparkling fairy lights.
“…Coffee?” Grace blurts, her tone coming out more uncertain than she’d intended.
You don’t seem weirded out, though — just a little amused. Probably not the strangest thing you’ve heard from a customer.
“Any milk with that, or...” you ask, glancing up from the tablet with a teasing smile.
In a small voice, she manages a meek: “no thank you.”
“Alrighty,” you chirp, tapping away at the screen. “One americano. Is that all for you today?”
Grace orders one of the pastries as an afterthought and rocks back and forth on her heels as you total up her order on the tablet. Her eyes are darting around the room as she tries to avoid making eye contact, fearful that it’d only exacerbate the growing nervousness that’s roiling in her stomach.
“What’s your name?”
Grace short circuits, her eyes wide as saucers. You? Wanting to know her name? A mix of panic and excitement flares up inside her. She tries to school her expression into one that’s more calm and it fails miserably. Act natural, she tells herself. You’re a grown woman.
Then, she notices the sharpie poised in your hand, which brings back down to earth with the realisation that you’re only asking for her order. Grace tries not to visibly deflate.
“O-Oh,” she stammers out at last. “It’s Grace.”
“Got it,” you say, unphased as you scribble it onto the cup. “That’ll be ready for you in a few minutes.”
With her cheeks burning hotly, Grace turns to stand off to the side as she waits on her order. The café seems busy this afternoon, mobbed with likeminded workers who have ducked out into the streets for a change of scenery during their lunch breaks.
Since everyone around her seems to be paired up with someone, Grace swipes back and forth on her home screen to make herself look less lonely than she actually is. Even goes as far as to type gibberish in her notes app, occasionally, in an attempt to make her nervous staring seem more discrete. (She’s a professional, after all!)
Out of the corner of her eye, she watches you work, a flurry of movement as you skirt around the other two employees in an almost choreographed rhythm. Every time you call out someone’s order, she feels her skin bristle from the warmth in your voice, and every time you tuck a flyaway behind your ear she curses herself for how cute she finds it. God, she needs to get it together…
This same torture goes on for a few more minutes until her order is ready. When you finally call her name, it takes Grace a minute to actually register that it belongs to her. She tries not to trip over her own feet in her haste to take it from you.
“One latte,” you say brightly. There’s a piping hot cup in your hand, the milk poured craftily to form a swirly rosetta on the surface.
With all the customers thanks to the lunchtime rush, it seems that you’ve gotten your wires crossed. Though, in all honesty, Grace doesn't have the heart to tell you that’s not what she ordered. She’s a little too busy looking at you as though you hung the stars in the sky.
When she goes in to take the cup, her fingers graze your own and a little jolt goes through her, almost as though electricity sparks from your very fingertips. She catches barest hints of perfume spiralling from your collar — something floral, all powdery and sweet and cosmetic — and her breath hitches.
“Take care, now,” you say, offering her a smile bright enough to dim sunbeams.
Grace malfunctions slightly. How can she find it in herself to care about an americano lost in translation when you’re looking at her like that?
“Uh, yeah,” she says and then begins to flounder when she realises what a stupid response that is. “I mean, you too! Have a good one!”
She proceeds to turn, push the pull door, blush furiously, and then speed down the pavement without risking a second glance over her shoulder.
Your easygoing smile burns into her eyes, even when she squeezes them tightly shut. It’ll be near enough impossible to concentrate on her work with you lingering fresh in her memory.
The thought makes her groan.
⋆˚࿔
Grace really doesn’t know what her problem is.
For starters, she hasn’t spent this many lunch breaks away from her desk in... well, ever. She’s also never been one for any kind of milk in her coffee, and yet she keeps ordering latte after latte just to see what art you’ll doodle onto the foam.
Today, it’s a little cartoonish bear with complementary paws and a button nose. A small fragment of your imagination, dusted in cocoa powder, especially for her. The design is cute enough that she feels a little guilty drinking it — which, by the way, has nothing to do with her aversion to oat milk. Not at all. She’s taking the sudden change to her regular order in stride.
Steam coils from the surface in supine twists that warm her cheeks against the nipping cold. She’s snagged one of the booths next to the window, wedged in the corner with an outlet at her elbow so that she can work in peace for the rest of her lunch break. Not that she’s getting much work done with one very pretty distraction standing a mere stone’s throw away from her…
Grace may be hopeless, but she isn’t stupid. She knows that the coffee isn’t what has her coming back everyday — it’s hardly her favourite drink and the café is never quiet enough for her to focus properly. No, it’s you. You, with your perfect smile and kind eyes and pretty voice. She knows that, recognises it. Holds it close to her chest. She just… doesn’t exactly know what to do about it.
Whenever she works up the courage to say something, she gets all tongue-tied and can’t think of anything cool to say. The way you make her feel is so intimidating for no reason at all and she’d much rather bury her head in the sand than confront a torrent of emotions like that. So, here she is, sitting and typing gobbledegook in favour of staring at you for the precious fifteen minutes she has until her lunch break ends.
She feels crazy. For God’s sake, she doesn’t even know your last name and she’s pining over you like a lovesick teenager! What is wrong with her?
Though, for once, she has managed to push her tormenting thoughts away long enough to lose herself in her work. It isn’t so busy today, meaning that the background noise of the café has dulled to a gentle hum and Grace has maturely decided to ignore her feelings until this upcoming deadline has passed. (Maybe the one after that, too. For good measure.)
Grace is so absorbed in typing out this first draft that she doesn’t notice the presence lingering by the surrounding tables, clearing up discarded cups and sanitising invisible coffee spills to excuse the proximity. Even when you’re practically looming over her shoulder, observing the furrow between her brows and the way her teeth worry her bottom lip, Grace doesn’t notice that you’re watching.
You fiddle with your notepad as you watch her. It’s been a quiet shift so you have a spare minute and you can’t think of a better way to spend it. She looks cute with her glasses on. After a few more seconds of standing around waiting for her to notice you — and beginning to feel a little creepy — you decide to break the ice.
“I used to get told that staring at a screen for too long was bad for your vision,” you say in the most level tone you can manage. “Square eyes, y’know?”
Grace jolts in surprise, her wrist jerking awkwardly and knocking her coffee cup over. The foamy dregs sprawl out across the gnarled grooves in the table and she exhales, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Shit,” she breathes.
“I got it,” you reassure, unslinging a rag from your apron as though it were some kind of secret weapon.
You’re close enough that Grace can smell your perfume again. That, if she reached up and bridged the space between you, she’d be able to tuck those flyaways behind your ear and bare the slope of your side profile to the dimming afternoon light.
Your hand is braced next to hers on the tabletop, dangerously close as you lean over to clean up the spill. If Grace moved her pinkie, she could graze yours with the barest of touches. The thought makes her feel all warm and fuzzy.
“Thank you,” Grace squeaks out when she finds her voice. “Sorry. I, uh, I should’ve been paying more attention.”
“Ah, anytime,” you say, waving her off. “Don’t worry about it.”
You stop there, standing over her with your lips pressed together like there’s else that you want to say. When your eyes pass over her, taking in every detail beneath the auburn sunlight, the scrutiny burns white hot like hellfire and Grace squirms slightly in her chair.
Much to Grace’s dismay, you don’t say anything, biting the inside of your cheek as the thought dissipates. You just offer one of your go-to customer service smiles and turn away from her, pacing back towards the till to get on with your shift.
Urgency sparks along all her nerve endings at the sight of you leaving and she jolts to her feet like she’s been shocked, her chair scraping noisily against the floorboards. It makes you stop in your tracks and she can practically feel the nervousness rolling from her in waves.
“Hey, uh, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” she begins, rubbing the back of her neck. Her callouses hitch on all the goosebumps.
You turn and Grace feels a lump form in her throat. Her pulse is throbbing in her ears from sheer anxiety but she steels herself, sucking in a deep breath.
“If you’re not busy, would you wanna, uh—“ She clears her throat and adjusts her glasses over the bridge of her nose. “Would you… want to grab coffee sometime? Together.” Pausing to overthink, Grace’s rambling begins to plummet past the point of no return. “I mean, we don’t have to get coffee. You’re probably sick of coffee. Sorry. It was the first thing that came to mind. We can do whatever, only if you want to, obviously. I just—“
Your laugh snaps her out of it.
“Grace,” you say softly. “I’d love to go out with you.”
A flood of feelings unfurl somewhere deep in her chest, wedged between her hummingbird heart and the crooks of her ribcage. She fumbles with her fingers and looks up at you as if she’s waiting for the punchline, searching your face with wide eyes. A surge of energy courses through her at the approval in your eyes and she feels like she could run a marathon or scream or maybe just pass out from pure shock—
Instead of doing… any of that, Grace simply opts for a strained: “Cool.”
You procure a pen from your apron and lean over again, one hand flat against the table as you scribble something down onto a napkin.
“Call me sometime,” you say, sliding the napkin over to her. “For not-coffee.”
Grace can’t wipe the grin off her face. She watches you go, trying to pick her jaw up from the floor as she thumbs over the napkin like it’s the most precious thing in the world.
That day, in the sinking light of an afternoon amalgamating into evening, Grace walks back to the office with a noticeable pep in her step.
One that’s becoming increasingly harder to blame on all the extra coffees…