Slowly *Wilbur Soot*

[ 0.1 ]

✧˖*[real life third person pov]*˖✧

Trigger warnings; none

Her arms tighten around her torso as she squints her eyes against the frigid wind. The walk to work has never been her favorite thing, especially in the cold, even if the walk was only around five minutes and she didn't have to wake up too early. Sage didn't realize how cold it got until she had to start walking to work. She figured when looking at the temperature it always felt a few degrees warmer but now, walking through the wind as the tips of her eyelashes started to frost she laughed at how dumb that was.

As the girl arrived at the café she mentally thanked herself for putting on gloves this morning because she wasn't sure she would be able to handle the frigid metal of the door against her skin. She smiled as the doors closed behind her and she was engulfed in what felt like a warm hug but was just the heat of the building. Sage walked to the backroom where she had a small locker to store away her things while she worked, she took out her headphones putting those and her phone into the compartment before locking it and walking to the counter where she saw her friend, Mae, making coffee for a waiting customer. "Do you need me to take orders?" Sage asked her friend who simply gave her a nod and a thankful smile as she continued making coffee, Sage looked out at the line which only had three or four people so she hoped today wouldn't be too busy.

Mae had worked the morning shift from 6:30am to 2:00pm today so her and Sage's shift's only overlapped for about thirty minutes until the girl was left to work the next three hours alone since her coworker was out on vacation for the next week. Sage didn't mind working alone in the afternoon because it was always pretty slow considering most people would be at work. It was around 4:25pm, thirty five minutes till she closed, and Sage had spent the last five minutes walking around cleaning the tables in the empty room.

The café had some bland instrumental music that they always had on loop playing over the speakers and it never failed to make the girl drowsy within the first hour of her shift. She leaned onto the cold tile countertops as she waited for the bell above the door to ring telling her that someone had come into the café. As she awaited the familiar ding of the bell she reorganized things behind the counter and rewrote today's special four or five times. As she sat the chalk down and swiped her hands onto her apron the noise of the bell put a smile on her face as she turned to see a man walk into the café. He was tall, if she had to guess, probably around 6'4" but all she knew was that he easily towered over her 5'6" self. "Hello, what can I get started for you today" she asked with a bright smile as he walked over. He was wearing a beige crew neck with a black jacket layered over. He looked cute and in Sage's mind there was no point in denying it. "Uhm i'll have a.. Well i'll just have the special if you don't mind" he asked, taking a glance over to the board Sage had been writing on minutes prior to this encounter, "sounds good, I'll have that in a minute, oh wait and a name for that" she asked as she pulled out a cup and a marker waiting for his reply "Wilbur" was all he told her before walking over to a seat by the front and sitting down, pulling out his phone.

As the girl stood behind the counter making the coffee Wilbur sat in a booth texting the first person that came to mind, Tommy, about the cute barista at the café up the street from his office. He didn't have very many friends he would enjoy talking about this with and even though he knew his friend wouldn't stop making fun of him for months he had to tell someone. Some people would probably say it's embarrassing for Will that the friend he decided to text happens to be quite a bit younger than him, seventeen to be exact, but Wilbur thought the boy was a good friend, age aside.

A shout from across the room startled Wilbur out of his daze and he realized that his coffee was done "Wilbur, your coffees ready" Sage yelled across to the boy and smiled as he looked up at her. "Thank you so much" he said to the girl as he felt his phone vibrate in his hand, he looked down to see his friend spamming his phone with different variations of the same message, that Will should give the girl his number. The message made Wilbur let out a laugh and the girl smiled slightly at the sound, 'he has a nice laugh' she thought before walking back to the coffee machine to wipe it down. Wilbur would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about it himself, but they had just met so he decided against it and made his way out of the café with one last goodbye to the barista and made the walk back down to his office in hopes he would see the girl again.