Barista Benito y Amigos: The Tales of "The Chipped Coffee Cup" Crew

A First Love Fairytale

Written By Alixx Black

Cultural Advising & Editing By Melissa Villove

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Chipped Coffee Cup was always more beautiful during the winter season. The holiday lights, candles, and the specialty scents from the seasonal drinks. Being an immigrant made Benito's uncle's menu unique when compared to other cafés around the city. He had a deep appreciation of everyone's culture and all the winter holidays different people celebrated. He made sure that as many of the major holidays were represented in his holiday menus, even discounting the specialty recipes on the matching holidays if the shop was open. The success that he'd seen because of this cultural diversity and inclusion was nearly impossible to describe. When first opening, the café was only open for mornings and early afternoons, but it was only a couple of months before Tío Carlos had to extend the hours. The business flow continued to increase, prompting his tío to open on Saturdays and Sundays. What was only meant to be a full-time job to Tío Carlos had turned into a full-time job with a crew of ten people who enjoyed the work as much as he did.

Everyone loved going to tío's café. Parents grabbed their morning coffee before getting their kids to school, and high schoolers came for "study" groups when school was done. Benito was familiar with the lie of studying, though it was never a lie to his family. More than a few times Benito had brought a boy to the café to work on homework when it was secretly a date, the kind of date that is so unique to teenagers. Flirting across the table and hanging out after school but never on the weekends because that was too scandalous. At least, that was how it was for middle school dating. High school relationships started to blur the lines between casual dating and serious partners.

When Benito started dating a soccer player, his whole family was thrilled. 'Lalo el fútbolista' is what everyone called him, using his family nickname as comfortably as if he were already their second son. It would be dishonest to say that his family wasn't equally excited to learn that Eduardo's family had immigrated from Mexico too. Their joy grew even more after one date turned into two, and two became three and four. After six months, it was clear that Benito and Eduardo were a serious couple. It took some time for them to admit they were boyfriends to Eduardo's family. They were actively practicing Catholics. There was a fear that they would reject him, stop him from seeing Benito, or even send him to therapy to be "fixed."

It was strange to them at first, and there were many times where they were quite rude in their line of questioning. After a few hard weeks, though, they came around to the idea of having a gay son. When they finally made peace with Eduardo's sexuality, they welcomed Benito into the family. Being a part of two families was cool to Benito and he couldn't have imagined his life any other way once he had it. Over a year later, Benito would invite Eduardo to The Chipped Coffee Cup on the last day of school before the winter holidays. Both young men had families traveling to visit. Time would slip by quickly and they wouldn't be able to spend much time together away from the craziness of family time.

With no homework to worry about, Benito and Eduardo took card games and board games to the coffee shop to hang out for a few hours. Little more than an hour into the night, Eduardo's phone started to ring. The first time it happened Eduardo silenced the call. It didn't matter since only seconds later it buzzed across the tabletop again. Benito pulled the game of checkers away from Eduardo, questioning his boyfriend sharply. "Quién es?"

"Mi mami," he sighed in defeat. He stared at the screen of his phone with her name blinking on it. Benito reached across the table and put the phone directly in front of him, almost touching his chest.