Sonia was probably doomed from the moment she saw the sign. She was on her way to work, already thinking ahead to the ten o'clock meeting and making vague plans for lunch, when she saw that the storefront on Person Street had a new tenant. Normally, that would have rated only a minor flicker of interest, and that only if traffic was moving slowly, but the new business was called 'Roasted and Ground'. And a chalkboard out front said, in impressively large letters, 'FREE COFFEE! TODAY ONLY'.
Before she could even consciously skip backward from lunch to breakfast, Sonia had hit her turn signal and was pulling into the small parking lot. It was practically a no-brainer-even if the coffee wasn't free, skipping her usual detour onto Lafayette would save her about fifteen minutes on her daily commute, and if they had food she could skip the morning cafeteria run too. Unless the lines were crazy, this could get her to work early and fully caffeinated, and the parking lot looked to be about ninety percent empty. Sonia picked a spot, thumbing her nose at the usual ominous parking restrictions ('Roasted and Ground Parking Only, Twenty-Minute Time Limit, Violators Will Be Towed!') and headed inside.
It was a little more crowded than she expected, but thankfully the line was short. Most of the people she saw through the frosted glass partition that separated the dining area from the counter had already been served. They were sitting in rows on long benches, sipping their coffee with their heads down. The room was surprisingly quiet, but Sonia understood what that was like all too well. At 6:45 AM, she wasn't exactly a conversationalist either. She scanned the menu while she waited, pleased to see that the drink selection mapped pretty well to her usual taste in addictive stimulants.
The line moved quickly-it looked like they had a pretty full staff for a small business, with a number of people moving briskly and efficiently behind the counter to fill orders. Only one of them, the woman at the register, looked like she really belonged in a coffee house, though. The rest of them didn't have nearly enough tattoos, piercings, or colors in their hair to fit Sonia's mental image of baristas. "Hi," the cashier said, fixing her with a confident grin, "I'm Skye, and welcome to Roasted and Ground. What's your drug of choice?"
Sonia let herself smile a little at that. "I'd like a venti-um, twenty ounce dark roast, no sugar, half cream, shot of vanilla if you've got it, and if you can serve it to me intravenously that'd be great. I've got a ten o'clock meeting and the boss is a slow talker. Oh, and one of those sausage and egg biscuits, too."
Skye punched in the order with professional ease. "Venti, huh? Coming over from the dark side?" She sounded more amused than anything.
"You made me an offer I couldn't refuse," Sonia said, nodding back in the direction of the sign. "Oh, shit, I should have asked-is that deal just for a twelve-ounce, or...?" She didn't mind paying, really-it was the same money she would have spent over at Starbucks, give or take a quarter. But it felt kind of silly, stopping at a place that was miraculously offering free coffee and then not taking advantage of it.
But Skye just waved a hand dismissively and said, "Nah, we're good. I figure it's worth it if I get you addicted, right? It's just three-fifty for the sandwich, and you can pay me tomorrow for the fix." She took Sonia's cash and tapped a few buttons on the register. "Can I get a name?"
"Sonia," she replied, unable to resist widening her smile into a conspiratorial grin. "And I've been addicted since I was fifteen." She stepped aside to let the next person order, and Skye let her alone with her thoughts for a few minutes while she handled the rest of the line.
Most of the thoughts were about Skye, and the way she kept glancing over at Sonia with a little half-smile on her face even while she took other orders. Sonia always felt like her gaydar was a little bit staticky at the best of times, and that went double for the service industry-when someone had to be friendly for a living, it was easy to read that as 'yes, I too am bisexual and find you adorable' when it really meant 'my livelihood depends on fostering an atmosphere of casual intimacy and friendship with you'.
Sonia dropped three bucks in the tip jar anyway, just in case. Flirting or not, Sonia didn't mind being stared at by those pretty eyes. They were green, the color of sea foam, the color of Skye's hair (had she dyed it to match? The effect was stunning...) and they seemed to sparkle every time they flickered over in Sonia's direction. Sonia glanced down at her watch, and decided she had time to eat in before getting back on the road.
A few minutes later, one of the smiling, clean-cut baristas that seemed so personality-free compared to Skye handed her a large cup of coffee and a biscuit that wafted up a tiny cloud of steam like it was still fresh from the oven. She took it gratefully and found a spot on a bench. Not exactly the most atmospheric seating arrangements, but Sonia supposed that they had to do the best they could with the limited space. The people on either side of her stared down into their coffee with grateful smiles on their faces, not acknowledging her presence.
After her first sip, Sonia was even more glad she stopped by. The coffee was perfect, roasted just enough to bring out the flavor of the bean without tasting muddy or bitter. The barista had put in just enough milk to give it a rich, silky texture, and Sonia downed half of it in about three big gulps before she even noticed how good it was. After that, she slowed down a bit to savor it, but a few bites of flaky biscuit and salty, spicy sausage had her gulping all over again.
She was down to about a quarter of the cup when she felt a tap on the shoulder. "Hi," Skye said, beaming down at her. "I just thought I'd stop over and see how you were doing." That pinged loudly, even on Sonia's wonky and unreliable gaydar, but she still didn't want to jump to any conclusions. "Was the service okay, is the food good, how's the coffee..." She shrugged. "You know, that kind of thing."
Sonia looked down at her plate. "Food's gone," she said, looking back up with a warm smile on her face. "Coffee's going right along with it. I might order another one to go, even." She glanced over at the line, which appeared to be in the middle of a lull. "A couple more like this and I might even be awake enough to face a day at the office."
Skye laughed hard at that, swaying so hard with amusement that she almost bumped into Sonia's back. "Oh, you have no idea how funny that is," she said, resting her hand on Sonia's shoulder in a way that definitely made Sonia's libido sit up and take notice. "So what do you do at this office of yours?"
Okay, this was definitely flirting. Sonia's smile spread broadly across her face almost of its own volition, and she felt a pleasant warmth flow through her chest that had very little to do with the coffee. "I'm a project manager for the development team, we run the primary web app that the company uses to track orders. Really just your basic middle management stuff," she said with a touch of self-deprecation in her voice.
"Oh, don't sell yourself short!" Skye replied, leaning in a little closer with a familiarity that was instantly warm and comfortable. (And, Sonia couldn't help but notice, one that put Skye's breasts about two inches from Sonia's forehead.) "It sounds like they couldn't run the place without you! Do you even get to take days off?"
