"Sorry, sorry." I mumbled absentmindedly, ignoring the ticked off looks I earned from the woman I had bumped into. Karma got her back immediately as her coffee tipped over an dspilled its foam across her navy blazer and pencil skirt. A smirk still on my face, I walked into the kitchen.
Yes, I know. Another girl at another coffee shop. How very, very typical, eh? It's a new passion of mine. My old job had consisted of answering telephones for a children's toy company and being Ashton's girlfriend. I ditched both and started over here, Megan's Mocha. I was friends with both Megan Boucher, who is (clearly) the owner, and the shops assistant manager, Hannah Lee. They both became worried at my stage of 'depression' (I was NOT depressed, just...free. Yeah, that's what I was. Free.) and Megan offered me a job. I turned her down initally, but the whole 'free' thing meant I was broke, almost ironic though. So free of cash, free of Ashton helping pay rent. Yeah, I'm glad that whole thing is over. I blew on a brunette hair that had fallen out of my lazily made braid and started making orders. We had tickets, the old fashioned way. They were clipped up on a string. I picked the next one in the row. A straight black coffee and a chocolate croissant. My kind of person. I grabbed the tongs and used them to place the croissant on a dish with the mug and looked again at the ticket. "Goregeous green gems, unruly inky waves, butter toasted". So Megan took his order. Like I said, were pretty old fashioned, but we also had a certain sort of originality. Whoever made the order delivered it, so each worker had their own way of telling who to give the order to. Hannah or Zoe, the other workers on this shift, usually wait to see which table the customer sits at and writes it down. Megan, however, was different. She was one of those quirky artist types, so she tended to use unneccesary adjectives. Alright so, green eyes, black hair, tan. Oh, Megan. How very vague. Sighing, I scanned the wooden round tables.
"Oh." I breathed. At a corner table sat a man who looked about my age, 22. I picked up the plate and started walking over to him. With every footstep my heart beat. For the first time since Ashton left, I actually found someone attractive.
'Unruly inky waves'. Check. His black hair was wind-swept from the rainy weather outside. He had sunglasses on, a bit peculiar for the weather. His skin was indeed 'butter toasted', something the cold weather had not completely robbed us of yet. I placed the plate in front of him with his order ticket.
"Here's your order. Sorry about the wait, my boss is a vague person." He looked up at me curiously and I realized I was being completely random in his eyes. "I, I'm sorry. That probably made no sense to you."
"It's fine. We all seen to be in our own personal worlds these days, don't we?" His voice was deep and flowing. I blushed at the sound of it and nodded. "Hard to tell whether it's sad or a twisted mix of dependence and independence." The words came out without a thought. "Is there really a difference anymore? Or are we just all self-praising as we repeat past glories and claim them as ours?" Well, shit. If I'm so philosophical around cute boys I should flirt more often.
"Deep." He chuckled. "But the truth. Were stuck in a downhill lane we mask as an incline." I laughed. "Well shit. That was enlightening." He laughed. "Very. I'm Garret."
"I'm Sydney. And I'm late!" The annoying counter bell was ringing. I apologised, rushing over to help the customer. Of course. It was the lady I bumped the table of earlier. I couldn't help but smirk at the foam stains across her blazer.
"I'd like to pay now." She barked.
"Of course." I opened up my hand and she placed the order ticket in my hand with her credit card. Plastering a classic waitress smile across my face, I swiped her card and stacked the ticket on top of the others where they sat, impaled by the nail they were placed on. The machine cranked out her receipt which I handed to her.
"Have a nice day!" She nodded sharply and turned to leave. "Oh, I think you got, uh, a little something." I said with a smirk. She huffed in disgust and charged out.
"I was accurate." I jumped.
"MEGAN! You scared me." She just laughed and moved to the other register.
"I saw you were flirting."
"Was not!"
"Was too!"
"You're both children. Immature, annoying children." Zoe said, pushing Megan away so she could actually take the poor waiting mans order. "But Sydney, you
were." She grinned before turning to the customer.
"Alright. Maybe he's cute. But I was NOT flirting! Right, Hannah?"
"Huh? Uh, yeah! Totes!" Hannah chirped from the back. Megan and I turned to look at her. Her long dark hair was pulled in a ponytail with a bow that bobbed as she moved around, doodling random things on the kitchens whiteboards.
"Hannah! C'mon! We have tickets to tend to!" Megan called, gesturing to the line of orders. There weren't really many, maybe three, but that's how Megan was.
"Glistening gems? Inky waves? Butter? Didn't know you cared that much." I blushed at the sound of his voice. He handed me his order ticket and winked.
"Sorry! That's, uh, my boss. She's...she's weird. We've had to explain her methods to a lot of customers."
"Oh," his seemed almost dissapointed I hadn't written it. He handed me a ten dollar bill and I passed him his receipt. "Can you sign this?" I pointed to the workers copy. "Sure." He leaned down, scribbling on the paper.
"Bye, Sydney."
"Bye, Garret."
"Hey, Sydney. We don't take workers copies." Zoe raised an eyebrow.
"Shut up." And she did. Because on the copy, just as I planned, was Garrets phone number.
