A/N: In which Niall works at a coffee shop.
Somedays, Niall was absolutely certain that she was doing it just to drive him insane.
Niall met her his very first day at work. He'd managed to score a part-time job after school as a barista at the local coffee shop. He'd completed all of his training and was quick to get the hang of taking orders and preparing drinks with a smile on his face at all times. (He'd always been a rather social kind of guy, after all.) He knew at once that he would love this job.
But then she walked in.
Their eyes met, and Niall's face froze. His entire body froze. This was no ordinary customer; this was an outright princess. She had artfully styled hair, beautiful eyes, thin pink lips, and a cute frame clad in something Niall was sure would be on a catwalk. Keep it together, he warned himself. Don't hit on the customers. That's totally inappropriate. I'll get fired. Just stay cool...
"Hi!"
His resolution promptly went up in flames the second he heard that angelic voice.
"Hey," he returned cheerfully, mirroring the girl's bright smile.
"Can I have a grande nonfat mocha, please?"
"I- uh," was Niall's intelligent response. Oh god. Snap out of it! He cleared his throat. "Of course. That'll be four-fifty." He rung up the order and grabbed an empty cup and Sharpie. "What's your name?"
"Eponine," the girl answered, handing over the correct amount. Niall scribbled the name onto the cup - feeling a little conniving without quite knowing why - and quickly put the money into the cash register before turning to make the mocha. I had to ask her name, he defended. I wasn't hitting on her. It was part of the job description. That's all. It's not like I asked for her number, too.
He turned to find Eponine still standing there, smiling expectantly. It made his heart flip. Ignoring his body's reaction, he flashed back a smile of his own and handed over the drink with a cheerful, "Here you go! Have a nice day."
"You, too!"
And with that, Eponine spun gracefully on her toe and all but drifted out of the coffee shop. Niall stared after her with what was probably an idiotic, dazed expression, only snapping out of it when his coworker Carry appeared from the back room with the new coffee beans. He returned to the cash register.
But Eponine kept cropping into his thoughts for the rest of the day.
...
The following afternoon, a Tuesday, Eponine returned, flashing that same brilliant smile at him as if she was actually glad to see him or something. It took all of Niall's efforts to keep himself from beaming at her like a complete fool.
"A grande nonfat mocha?" Eponine ordered again.
"Sure thing. That'll be four-fifty." He took Eponine's money and grabbed a cup, adding, "Name?" even though he already knew the answer. He didn't want to come off as a creep, though, so he pretended he didn't remember.
"Hermione."
His Sharpie - already beginning the 'E' - faltered. What? His smile twitched as he turned to study the girl's face closely. It was definitely the same girl from the day previous. What the hell? Deciding to think about it later, he scribbled down the new name and handed it off to Carry to make, returning to the cash register to ring up the next customer. He watched from the corner of his eye as Carry handed over Eponine's - Hermione's? - drink, and the girl nodded her thanks and departed. Niall almost missed what the elderly man in front of him was ordering, too fixated as he was on watching the retreating back. Who are you?
...
The next day, the same thing happened, only this time the name on the coffee cup was 'Jeffrey.' He could take it no more. As soon as she left, Niall sidled up to Carry and asked her if she knew what the deal was.
"Oh, her?" she smirked knowingly, nodding towards the closing door. "Nobody knows her name. Most of us refer to her as Mocha Girl. She's been coming here for like a year now, always getting the same friggin' mocha but never giving the same name twice. I didn't even know there were that many female names!" Noticing a new customer, she moved to help her, leaving Niall to temporarily get lost in his thoughts. He did not know why he was so curious. It wasn't like they'd exchanged more than the required questions and answers, and the passing greeting and goodbye. Yet he couldn't help it; there was an insuppressible urge within him to learn more, to find out the truth.
Mocha Girl, I'm going to figure out what your real name is if it's the last thing I do.
...
Niall did not act immediately. He played along for the next couple of days. He did not work on weekends, but Carry had already informed him that Mocha Girl hardly ever came in then either. For some reason, he was relieved to hear that. The following Monday, however, he finally made his move. The shop was fairly empty; there were no other customers in line. He took the money as normal, but he did not ask for a name. Instead, he wrote something onto the cup and set it aside for Carry to fill. She read it and stifled a snort. Mocha Girl raised a delicate eyebrow, but said nothing.
Niall watched her closely as Carry handed over the nonfat mocha and he read the cup.
Beautiful Eyes
The girl grinned widely, and Niall saw the faint reddening of her cheeks as she turned and quickly headed outside, holding the coffee cup with both hands as if scared to drop it.
"So..." Carry turned to him with a snicker. "You like her?"
Niall hesitated, his blood running cold.
Carry shook her head and held up a hand. "Don't answer that; I already know. Good luck, man. If you ever figure out her real name, tell me, okay?"
Niall nodded, smiling in relief.
...
The next day, Mocha Girl's cup read Perfect Hair, which caused her to giggle and delicately flick her hair back. The following afternoon's Flawless Skin earned Niall a wink. Then came Adorable Smile. And after that, Contagious Laugh. And on it went, for another whole week. He kept coming up with new things that he found attractive in the girl, and gradually the girl began to talk to him a bit more. Niall found out that she went to the college three miles away from his uni, and that she had a little step-brother on the football team, and that she loved going out to eat. This last part pretty much sealed the deal. Yep. I have a crush on her. A huge, big, fat crush. And I don't even know her name! This is just plain cruel.
...
On Thursday, Mocha Girl came in with another girl, clearly a friend of his. When they stepped up to the cash register, she did not miss the smiles the two exchanged, and Niall saw her gaze zero in on his nametag.
"Ah, so you're Coffee Guy!" she practically sang.
"I beg your pardon?" he frowned.
Mocha Girl blushed and nudged the girl in her ribs. "Shut up, Vera," she muttered. Then, slapping on her regular grin, she turned back to Niall and said, "My normal, please. She'll have an iced frappuccino."
"You're right," the girl named Vera said as he rang up the order. "He is cute!"
"Shh!" Mocha Girl hissed. Niall bit back his laughter as he saw her cheeks flush with embarrassment. Then what she said hit him. Wait...She said I was cute? His fingers brushed over the regular's as he passed over the money, and Niall did his best not to notice the electric shock he received from the contact. He quickly wrote 'Vera' on the girl's frappuccino and handed it off to Carry, making the other mocha himself so that he could write 'Graceful' on it.
"Here you go-"
"Wait!" Vera interrupted, bumping her friend out of the way with her hip and stealing her cup before Niall could pass it over to her. She read it with a scrutinizing eye, then broke out into a grin. She nodded to Niall in apparent approval before passing it over. "Damn, you still haven't given him your name? It's been, like, a month!"
The girl just blushed and ushered her out of the shop, throwing a parting smile back at Niall as they left.
He sighed and leaned heavily against the counter. She's right, he realized. It'd been four weeks since he started working. He thought he'd learn Mocha Girl's name faster than this. But he enjoyed the challenge. The compliment-names clearly gave the girl at least a bit of joy, and Niall had the lurking suspicion he did not get flattery very often. He was more than happy to change that.
...
Two more weeks passed. Mocha Girl continued to come in every weekday after school, ordering her normal and smiling every time she got to read the new day's 'name' on her cup. Of course, they did not always meet. Sometimes she would come in when Niall was in the back and Carry would serve her instead, or she would inexplicably miss a day (Niall always suspected the worst, and was always relieved when she came in the next afternoon), or one Friday when Niall was too sick to come into work. Some days Mocha Girl would bring a friend or two with her from her school, but for the most part she was always alone, dropping a new fact of her life for Niall to mull over for the rest of his shift. Niall did not know if she was doing it intentionally or not. Either way, he found himself painstakingly piecing together the little bits of this girl's life together, eager to discover the final product.
And then, at long last, he was finally rewarded for his persistence.
Mocha Girl arrived like any other weekday, drifting in from the light snowfall outside with pink cheeks and a stylish scarf wound around her neck. Niall beamed over at her and grabbed a new cup and the Sharpie. Before he could start to write, however, he felt a soft, chilled hand over his. He looked up into her eyes in confusion.
"Please...Let me..."
He could tell that the girl was nervous. But he handed the cup and Sharpie over wordlessly. The butterflies in his stomach duplicated. He watched in ecstatic disbelief as she wrote something on the cup. Please, please tell me that she's writing her real name...
And then the cup and Sharpie were handed back to him. Niall quickly turned it around in his hand to find the beautiful black calligraphic script. His heart spluttered to a stop in his chest.
Below the name was a phone number.
His head snapped up to the sound of the bell above the door. She was gone. She'd left without waiting to see Niall's response. She didn't even get her drink. She'd come for the soul purpose of giving Niall her number.
And for the rest of his shift, Niall couldn't wipe the grin off his face.
-
A/N:
I need to stop writing in a coffee shop. It's going to my head I think...