Work Text:
“That’ll be five dollars fifty-five,” I said, quickly scribbling the name Elliot on a to-go cup. A hassle to do with one hand, but I’d got the technique down about seventy Elliots ago. Chicken-scratch thoroughly scratched, I passed it off to Milly—who was working the espresso machine like it was late on paying its protection money.
“That’s a lot of fives,” said Elliot Seventy-One with an awkward chuckle.
I gave him my best customer service smile, which I’d been told wasn’t very good. “Sure is,” I said, and pushed the card reader a little closer to him. Thankfully he seemed to get the picture, and swiped his card through. “It’ll be with you in a moment.”
After Elliot the Seventy-First vacated the line, a woman stepped into his place. I’d taken to guessing peoples’ names, about three shifts in. So far, I’d gotten a surprising amount of them right. A ratio of one-in-forty wasn’t particularly great, but still. A small bit of fun when I managed.
Choppy blue hair, brown eyes, almost exclusively green clothes, not more than a cursory glance at the lack of arm. Let’s go with… Alexandra. Alex.
“How can I help you today?” I asked, giving her a more casual take on the customer service smile. Again, not very casual. I felt pretty good about Alex, still, when she ordered a drink with oat milk in it. Felt like an Alex thing to do. Moment of truth. “Can I get a name for that?”
“Hailey,” said not-Alex. Another swing and a miss.
Before I could stop the reflex, I clicked my tongue in mild disappointment. Obviously Hailey looked at me like I was a weirdo, because I was. As non-pointedly as possible, I went through the rest of the transaction without really looking at her face too much. I passed the cup to poor Milly, rang up Hailey’s total, and sent her on her way.
I stayed on the till for another fifteen minutes before trading places with Milly—which was short for Millicent, but she didn’t like people knowing that. Only reason I knew that was because they’d put me in charge of the shift rota, and everyone had their legal names on there. I’d always found that a bit odd, since about half the staff didn’t go by their legal names—or, at least, not the full versions of them.
I’d tried getting that whole thing changed, if only because our coworker Isaiah’s legal name wasn’t right by his whole gender thing. Corporate being what it was—which is to say, shit about these things sometimes—didn’t let me. Fortunately for him, I had a lot of experience in keeping information about identities secret.
Sometimes being a former supervillain, superhero, and supermonster came in handy. Who’da thought?
For fairly obvious reasons, I wasn’t quite as fast on the beverage-making as most of my coworkers. Eddie was the exception, but only because being stoned seemed to be his natural state of existence, and that didn’t tend to lend itself towards speed and efficiency. Still, I was pretty good at it—and in my own humble opinion, made better coffee than like half of the others. I didn’t even like coffee all that much, which possibly made it a little more impressive.
After a couple hours of switching back and forth behind the bar I took a break for lunch. Slipping out of my apron, making myself a chai and nabbing a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, I ambled over to a free seat by the window. Then I sat there, ate and drank, and listened to an audiobook.
Almost every day, for the last six months, had been much the same. Wake up early for a jog, have breakfast, go to work. Work, lunch, work. Go home, make awkward conversation with dad, try to figure out university applications, eat dinner, go to sleep. Sometimes I’d hang out with Isaiah and Milly after work. A couple of times I’d joined Eddie and his sister for a smoke. Nothing, literally nothing, more exciting than that.
I killed the closest thing there was to a god, and now the most interesting thing I’d done in months was smoke weed with an obligate stoner. Contessa’s idea of a retirement for me was this. A normal life. An empty life. I did nothing, and I was nobody. Taylor Hebert did not exist in this world until I showed up. Almost literally, I was nobody of any importance.
Not to think too highly of myself, but that wasn’t something I was used to anymore. It felt like I was fifteen again, that I had once again become that dull and lonely girl whose daily highlights consisted of not being bullied as badly. No, that wasn’t entirely fair. My life was a little better than that, at least. I kinda had friends, and higher education wasn’t a distant, unreachable prospect.
“Ah, fuck,” I mumbled to myself, pausing the audiobook and winding back to the start of the chapter. Saff and Maddie finally kissed, and I’d spiraled enough that I almost completely ignored it. Shit.
At least I’d finished my lunch. I got up, and got back to work.
The rest of the day went on much as the morning did. Some turns on the drinks, some on the till. A lot of consecutive whiffs on the name-guessing. I felt good about this next one though. White guy with short brown hair, hazel eyes, lazily dressed but still somewhat handsome. Now that’s a Jake if ever I saw one.
“What can I get you today?” I asked, giving him my very own mildly approachable customer service grimace. I wasn’t sure what I’d expect a ‘Jake’ drink to be, but let’s say it was the americano he ordered. Don’t screw me over here, Jakey. “Can I get a name for that?”
“Josh,” he said, and I damn-near cussed him out. So close.
What I did—again, without my higher brain processes’ consent—was click my tongue in mild disappointment. He frowned at me, because of course he did. I rang him up, wrote ‘Jake’ on his cup, and passed it to Mitch, who’d taken over after Milly. Idly, I started spinning the pen between my fingers. It was something of a habit I’d picked up during the horrendously boring stakeouts during my time with the Wards. The pen wasn’t weighted like my knife had been, but it worked well enough.
I turned to face the next customer who stepped up to the counter, and almost threw the pen at her when I did. Almost, since it ended up slipping out of my fingers and clattering against the screen of the till instead. Another almost was the hysterical laughter that bubbled up in my throat and thankfully stayed un-laughed. These were the best odds I’d ever had on a name.
A solid fifty-fifty.
She was a year older than me, with long, blonde hair and dazzling eyes—green as fresh grass. Freckles dappled her face, like sunlight through the crowns of trees. God help me, she looked at me and she grinned.
“Something wrong with his order?” she asked me surreptitiously, leaning in a little to keep it between us.
“Huh— Whuh, what?” I said, intelligently.
“You ‘tsk’ed him,” said the woman, pausing to read my name-tag. She said my name, and it felt like the first time she said it. It was the first time. “Taylor.”
Because I couldn’t lie to her, I wasn’t used to that working on her, I actually explained. I’d never mentioned my thing to anyone, before. “I-I have this game I play,” I told her, and her grin broadened in a desperately familiar way. “When someone comes up and orders a drink, I try to guess what their name is before they tell me. I’m not really that good at it, but I had a good feeling about his name being Jake. It wasn’t, it was Josh, which was just close enough that it annoyed me. So I wrote Jake on his cup anyway.”
Then she laughed, and I didn’t really notice how much I’d missed it until then. It felt more like home than home did.
“Well, shit, now I gotta know what your guess is for me,” she said through the tail-end of her laugh. I’d already started ringing up her order before she’d asked for it, and I wasn’t sure she noticed. How odd that she didn’t notice.
I picked my pen back up. It felt like cheating, but… I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by. “How… how about this? I get two guesses, and if either of them are right, uh…”
“If you get my name right,” she said, a lilt to her voice, “you also get my phone number.”
For reasons that were surely not because it was her implying that, heat shot up my spine and rested visibly in my cheeks and ears.
“Sure,” I managed to say, years of practice in keeping my treacherous intonation level paying off in a major way. Despite it all, I was fairly certain she noticed something was up. I wrote one name down on the cup, and cleared my throat. “One caffeine monstrosity for Sarah.”
There was an immediate shift in her, which I felt might be more subtle than most people would be able to catch. As—fuck, what a cheesy thought, but I was having it anyway—as fate would have it, she was not just anyone to me.
Her eyes narrowed just the slightest, and her grin turned with intrigue. She snapped her fingers, and rolled her bottom lip along her teeth. “Close but no cigar, Taylor,” she said. “Maybe I’ll—”
I turned the cup towards her, and watched as she read her name steadily written in black sharpie across it. Her narrowed eyes widened, and she looked back up to stare at me. Shock, amazement, immediate suspicion. The inescapable need to know how I knew that. She covered it all with a broad grin, as she had always done.
“Second time’s the charm?” I suggested.
“You have a secret, Taylor,” she told me, her voice low with wicked curiosity, “and I aim to find out what it is.”
Most people I knew would feel something like dread or terror if this woman spoke those words, but I could only feel giddy. For the first time in a good long while, I felt excited.
“Let me get you that coffee, first,” I said, and I smiled, and then walked over to the drink-making station, ushering Mitch over to the till. Good sport that he was, he let me have this one. I’d never actually done it with the currently available machinery, but I had made her coffee many times before. Having one less hand was no obstacle, here.
A couple minutes later I stepped to the counter where she stood, waiting for me. I slid the coffee her way, and she passed her receipt right back. She lifted the drink to her nose, and took a sniff of it. Over the top of her cup, our eyes met again. They were as captivating as ever. I was caught on a baitless hook.
She said, with that grin of hers; “You’re an intriguing girl, Taylor.”
Because I believed it, I replied; “You’ll figure me out, I’m sure.”
Casting one more glance at her receipt—which I immediately picked up and stuck in my pocket—she turned and headed for the door. I had to say it, because I hadn’t been able to last time.
“Bye, Lisa.”
She turned to me, and maybe she saw something, or maybe she didn’t. Everything was so new, somehow.
“Bye, Taylor.” The girl who had never been so very much to me got her phone out, and wiggled it at me. “See you soon.”