Color My Life with the Chaos of Trouble

Ash thinks the reason why he likes working the afternoon shift more than the morning shift is simply because the people are more interesting. The people who come by in the morning are all tired and weary and look like they just hate the world; not exactly Ash’s definition of pleasant. The people who come by in the afternoon have more character, more warmth, and Ash often can get through a day of work without wanting to murder someone for being an impatient prick.

Ash learns the names of all the regulars fairly quickly. He didn’t meet most of them when he’d been working the morning shift, but he meets them now and they smile at him like they’re old friends when they walk into the shop. He greets them by name and doesn’t even have to ask what they’d like because they order the same thing every day and he already knows.

He feels accomplished when he makes the somber paperback book reading woman, Marie, smile one day, and the young graphic designer, Elle, glances away from her laptop for a moment to thank him when he brings her another coffee because she looks worn out. And then there’s that time Derek, the swimmer who comes in after late afternoon practices for a large cup of hot cocoa, gives Ash five dollars to pay for his drink and then tells Ash to keep the change. In a weird sort of way, Ash thinks of these people perhaps not quite like friends, but like they share some level of intimacy anyways within the walls of this quiet little coffee shop. It’s nice, comforting in a way that life usually isn’t.

-

“Hi, welcome to Jitters. What can I get you today?” Ash greets his customer with the usual salutation.

The man standing on the other side of the counter gives Ash a scrutinizing look and his lips curl up at the ends into something like a smirk, but it’s not scornful, merely pleasantly amused. He has letters tattooed across his knuckles, and he’s very cute.

“Are you new?” he asks, sounding very genuinely interested. “I come here every day and I’ve never seen you before.”

Ash shrugs. “I switched shifts about a week ago,” he offers as an explanation. And then he adds, “Are you sure you come here every day? I haven’t seen you all week.”

The man simply grins, eyes looking rather curious. “Ah, but see I have an excuse,” he says. “I’ve been home sick all week with the flu.”

“Are you contagious?” Ash asks, expression very serious. He’s been told that he doesn’t smile quite nearly as much as he should and that he has a sense of humor not everyone shares. “Do I need to get the disinfectant spray?”

The man laughs now, a real laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and it makes his lips pull up in almost disgustingly attractive ways.

“Cute,” he says, still chuckling. He shakes his head, smiling to himself, and says, “I’ll have a medium soy latte, please. And no, I’m not contagious, though you can still get that disinfectant spray if it makes you feel better.”

The man winks at Ash, and Ash notices that his eyes are very, very blue, bright against his olive complexion and black hair. Ash wonders idly if this man’s eyes are naturally that color or if he’s simply wearing colored contacts or something like that.

Ash cracks a sort of half smile at the man’s comment and goes to make the coffee. “That’ll be three-twenty-five,” he says as he hands the man’s drink over to him.

The man nods and reaches to his back pocket for his wallet, somehow managing to pull it out and hand Ash the proper amount of money without dropping the sketchbook and box of markers he has wedged between his arm and his side. He asks Ash if this means that he’ll be seeing Ash every day from now on, and Ash says he supposes it does. He hands Ash exact change and then retrieves his coffee before walking over to a booth and sitting down.

He flips open his sketchbook and sticks his headphones in his ears and begins drawing away with smooth, fluid motions. He gets this sort of faraway look in his eye like he’s not even looking at what he draws and Ash is a little mesmerized. He’s never watched anyone make art like that before. When the man catches Ash staring a handful of minutes later, he winks at Ash over the top of his sketchpad and then goes right back to drawing, smiling a little to himself out of amusement. Ash doesn’t blush because he’s not a blusher, but he quickly looks away anyways.

-

True to his word, the artist with letters tattooed across his knuckles comes back the next day at precisely the same time, right around three-thirty. He smiles at Ash when he walks in and Ash nods familiarly back at him.

“Medium soy latte, I presume?” Ash asks.

The man smiles and says, “Ah, you know me so well.”

Ash snorts and goes to make this guy’s coffee for him. It’s then that he realizes that he still doesn’t know this man’s name, and that for the past day, he’s been referring to him in his head as that-cute-artist-guy-who-winked-at-me-twice-in-a-span-of-ten-minutes.

“What’s your name, anyways?” Ash asks as he makes the coffee. He tries to sound casual and not like he’s too eager to know but he’s not sure he entirely succeeds. Ash wonders absently to himself why he’s so fascinated by this guy because why should he be any different than anyone else who comes here but then he takes a look at this guy, with his flirty, confident smirk and bright blue eyes and thinks, well he’s fucking gorgeous, anyone in their right mind would want to get to know him better.

“Lucian,” the man says, his voice curling wonderfully around the vowels of his name.

Lucian, Ash thinks, turning it over in his head. He nods once. It fits, he thinks, it’s a rather uncommon name and it would seem weird on certain people but it suits him just fine.

“I’m Ash,” Ash says, mostly just to have something to say.

Lucian chuckles. “I can see that,” he says, nodding at Ash’s nametag.

Ash feels a little stupid and it’s times like these when he’s really glad he doesn’t blush because it makes little lapses in his intelligence on account of handsome strangers easier to simply shrug off because they generally go unnoticed.

“Three-twenty-five,” Ash says, pushing the cup of coffee across the counter at Lucian. “You have kind of a strange name.”

Lucian hands Ash the proper amount of money, exact change again. He smiles and says, “My mom’s a little eccentric to say the least, but she’s lovely.”

The corner of Ash’s mouth lifts up into a half-smile. Lucian walks off to his usual booth and stays for forty-seven minutes (not that Ash is keeping track or anything). He leaves with a lopsided grin and a promise to be back the next day. Ash believes him.