You Taste Better

Based on the prompt I received from sanyumi: "Why do we keep running into each other when we live on opposite sides of the country?" cos connor makes business trips to oliver's country and even though they had a one night stand, when connor returns again like, half a year later, they run into each other in a coffee bar or something simple and still remember one another.

...

Connor runs a hand over his face as he shuts the door behind him with a loud, echoing slam.

He had just spent half an hour in Starbucks waiting in the seemingly never-ending queue only to eventually give up because the place was so packed that he probably wouldn't get his order taken for another twenty minutes.

He has only been to Philadelphia a handful of times so he doesn't really know where he's going but somehow he ends up on a quiet side-street and on the end of it there's a small sign sticking out of a building with a small coffee cup on it.

Connor praises whatever god exists because it's almost midday on a Saturday and if he doesn't have an espresso soon, he thinks he might implode...or fall asleep.

Connor breathes a sigh of relief when he opens the door to the quaint coffee shop and finds that it's only half filled with people.

He sneaks into the queue where only two people stand in front of him and he subtly looks around the coffee shop in curiosity while he waits.

It's quite big yet it has a sort of homely feel to it.

There are couches along the back wall where a group of elderly women are sitting, no doubt gossiping about their riveting lives. Connor spots a young blushing couple at the secluded table in the corner and two tables away from them, sitting in the window seat with a cup of coffee and a laptop on the table in front of him is a somewhat familiar face.

Connor does a double take when he sees him.

The man is about the same age as him except perhaps a few years older. He's wearing a maroon sweater and jeans and his face trained into a frown as he types rapidly on his laptop. He pauses his work to take a sip from his coffee and Connor has to snap his head forward so he isn't caught staring.

Connor wrings his hands and wills himself to calm down.

That guy probably doesn't even remember him. It was over a year ago, their drunken one night stand. Sure Connor stayed the night which was pretty rare for him but at the time he had blamed that on not wanting to return to his shitty hotel room that his boss had paid for and Oliver hadn't complained.

That was his name. Oliver.

Connor feels like he shouldn't remember the name of someone he slept with over a year ago when he forgets most of his one night stands names the following morning.

About a year and a half ago Connor's boss Annalise sent him to Philadelphia to try and find a witness for a case. She had packed him off for three days, booked him into the cheapest hotel she could find and that was that.

Connor had loathed but respected Annalise so he went along with it. He found the witness, got her to agree to come back to California with him and later that night he went out to the closest gay bar he could find to celebrate.

The memories were foggy but he remembers that face, he remembers a dorky laugh that Connor turned into loud, delirious moans in the darkness of an unfamiliar, tidy apartment. He remembers staying the night and waking up tangled in fresh sheets, pressing against a warm, lean, comfortable body next to his.

The morning was the most clear though, Oliver clearly wasn't as accustomed to having one-night stands as Connor, or maybe he was but he was just that nice to everyone. He made Connor breakfast, let him have the first shower and when Connor left, he simply smiled and didn't do that pathetic 'will I see you again' thing that made Connor cringe.