Coffee With You

Chapter One

Keith's POV

I walk into the shop in the early hours of the morning, and the sun still not quite come up. The dawn gleam is kind of beautiful through the crisp, foggy air. The big window sign for the Castle of Lions Coffee House is unlit, the building completely dark behind it. There's something I've always loved about opening on fall mornings. The jingle of my keys as I turn the lock. The way the sweet aroma of espresso wafts through the walls as I brew the first pot. I pour a cup of black coffee into one of our mismatched mugs, and sit down at one of the five bar stools. For some reason, I've always sat in the red one. I guess I just like the vantage point that it gives me. The only people that ever sit on these stools are Shiro, Pidge and I, so I guess I could always take anything but black and green (their respective stools). I look up at the old retro, and for some reason cat shaped, clock and see that it's 6:57. Almost time to open up. I chuck my apron over my head, and go to the back to make sure that everything is stocked. Ready to open up. I glance at the fogged windows and can make out the silhouettes of a few college students ready for their morning coffee.

I walk up to the front window and flip the sign from "Sorry, we're closed" to "Come on in, we're open!", and dash back to the counter as the morning rush hits. It's manageable for the next half hour, but at approximately 7:35 the rush is picking up. Where the hell is Pidge? There's no way that I can make it through the rest of the day alone. And then, ten minutes late, the cheeky little shit saunters in.

"Where the fuck were you?" I hiss at them while they grab their apron. "You left me hanging through the start of rush this morning!"

"Oh," they say innocently, "I forgot to set my alarm." I didn't doubt it. They're 15, but do virtual schooling. I don't ever know what the hell is going on in that little hacker brain of theirs, but no neurons ever fire up a "set your alarm" sequence.

"Ugh," I sigh resignedly, "Whatever. Just be on time tomorrow or I'll tell Allura."

"Tell Allura what?" Shiro walks in, throwing an apron over his head as he walks up to us. He sighs. "Nevermind. Just leave whatever little squabble you're dealing with until break. Ok, I'll do register, you guys make orders."

At my lunch break I sit at the counter with Pidge and we laugh and eat and laugh some more. At some point, when midday rush calms down a bit, Shiro comes and sits with us.

"So, Pidge, how is school?" Shiro asks. He's the caring one, the one that can pick up on if any one of us needs to talk, if he needs to tell a funny story to cheer us up, or if, even though he knows that none of us are huggy people, one of us just needs a hug.

"Great!" They launch into a hilarious story about how one of the "teachers", which are just pre recorded voices, got an answer wrong, so they hacked into the system and wrote the correct answer and how to do it over the voice. It went unnoticed by the company for three days, before someone filed a complaint on how the screen wrote something different then what the voice was telling the students to do. The mistake was then fixed, and a video was released thanking the person who brought it to their attention, though asking them to use less "unconventional" methods.

"Keith?" Shiro asks, turning to me. "How's college?"

"Same old, same old." I say. "The engineering is going well, and my graphic design classes are also good. I think I might actually get my degree by the end of next year. If I can design and build my own electric motorcycles, I might be able to do something."

"Well, after all that time you spent slaving over that bike of yours, I'm glad you'll be able to do something you love. You deserve it, kid." Shiro smiles widely, and I think to myself for the millionth time that he is the closest thing I've had to a father figure in a long time.