Chapter Text
Gwen rifled through her small bag, unable to find her work keys and becoming increasingly agitated as the minutes passed and they didn’t turn up. Eventually, she gave up and dumped the contents of her purse onto the concrete sidewalk leading up to the front door of the coffee shop. She swiftly sifted through her belongings and cursed under her breath as she confirmed that her work keys were not in her possession.
“Shit!” Gwen muttered, knowing that she didn’t have enough time. She couldn’t feasibly drive home and back and still make it in time for the start of her shift. She looked down at her watch and said “Shit!” once again. She had ten minutes to clock in, and she was supposed to be opening alone this morning. Her manager was on vacation. She was going to have to break in.
Gwen slyly glanced down the block and quickly scooped up her belongings back into her bag. With an air of forced casualness, she strode around the back of the store, remembering the large window by the back door. With the help of some discarded plastic crates from milk delivery day, she could clamber inside as long as the window wasn’t locked.
Upon reaching the backside of the shopping strip, Gwen took a moment to survey her surroundings. The last thing she needed was to have the cops called on her for trying to get to work on time. The dumpsters lining the building reeked, but as she peered around them she didn’t see any lingering patrons or employees waiting to enter through the back door of their respective businesses. There were half a dozen businesses that shared the strip with her coffee shop, but at 5:00 AM, she wasn’t surprised to see that there wasn’t even a single car parked out back, much less any people ambling around.
Gwen set down her bag, determined, and started stacking milk crates. The window could be reached just standing on one crate, but she figured she would need a little more leverage if she were actually going to climb inside. She was a pretty agile athlete, but it’s not like she had extensive practice scaling buildings. As she stood on her tower of crates and peered into the window, she sent a quick prayer to whomever may be listening that she not injure herself. Cautiously, she attempted to maintain her balance as she began forcing the window open from the outside. Gwen’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as the window opened a crack under the careful pressure she applied. With balanced precision, she managed to force the window open to her approximate width.
“Yes!” She celebrated quietly, checking once more for lingering witnesses. Satisfied with her findings, Gwen grunted as she hoisted herself up into the window. She managed to squeeze the majority of her torso through the small opening, but failed to account for the width of her hips being a barrier to her complete entry. “Fuck!” she cursed, listening to her voice echo in the empty coffee shop.
Someone cleared their throat behind her. “Excuse me?” they asked politely.
“Oh,” Gwen tensed, “fuck,” she repeated.
“Are you stuck?” the voice behind her asked. Gwen heard footsteps approaching, and she hurriedly attempted to lodge the rest of her body into the opening that she had created in the window. No luck.
“Um,” Gwen searched for a solution. There was nothing within reach that could aid her, so she admitted “yes,” defeatedly.
“Before I help you, I suppose I should ask if you’re a burglar?” The voice behind Gwen was strained with suppressed laughter.
“No!” Gwen said hurriedly. “I work here, I just forgot my keys!”
“How can I be sure that you’re telling the truth?” The voice sounded amused, and Gwen’s patience was quickly running thin. She couldn’t bring herself to imagine the view this stranger had of her ass stuck outside of an open window suspended in the air. Her legs dangled and she was beginning to feel an interruption in the blood circulation to her toes.
“You can’t, but I’m really in no position to lie to you.” Gwen tried to keep the edge out of her voice. This stranger was currently her only hope, she couldn’t afford to let her frustration with the morning interfere with the aid this person was offering.
The voice chuckled and asked, “How can I help?”
“What are the odds that you can reach the window and open it a bit more for me?”
“Pretty high.” The voice was no longer masking the tone of amusement.
Gwen waited patiently for some relief to the pressure in her abdomen from the window squeezing her. In a span of seconds that seemed to drag eternally, she began to feel the constriction abate. The window squeaked as it was raised, and Gwen forced the rest of her body into the kitchen. She scrambled gracelessly down the back wall of the coffee shop and quickly unlocked the backdoor to greet the person who had just saved her.
She swung the door open and was relieved to see that she recognized the face staring back at her. It was the owner of the bookstore a couple of doors down. They’d never exchanged words, but her manager was always swooning over her, and Gwen herself had seen her on nearly every visit she’d made to the store. Taking in the sight of her openly concerned face and tall, lithe stature churned the relief in her stomach into a feeling of severe embarrassment.
“Thanks for the, uh, help.” Gwen told the bookseller. “Do you want a cup of coffee?” She asked.
The bookseller shrugged and said, “no thanks, but I’ll take a cup of tea.”
“Alright.” Gwen motioned for her rescuer to follow her into the kitchen of the coffee shop and closed the door behind her. She flicked on lights as she made her way to the front of the store. The bookseller looked on in open curiosity, inspecting the various appliances that facilitated making the shop’s goods.
The cafe had a very cozy atmosphere. The lighting was dim in the darkness of the morning, and all of the cafe chairs sat upside down on their respective tables. The couches and bay window seat cushions looked immaculate before the use of cafe patrons, not yet having had a chance to sink into the plushness of the seats.
Gwen pulled a couple of chairs off of the table nearest to the bar and smiled at her while wordlessly gesturing to an open seat.
The bookseller took a seat and smiled back at her.
“What kind of tea would you like?” Gwen asked, “we have green tea, matcha, chai, black tea, the works.” She listed the various flavors off on her fingers.
The bookseller’s smile widened. “Do you have earl grey?” She intertwined her fingers and rested her hands on the table in front of her, looking up at Gwen with an expression of gratitude.
“Anything for my knight in shining armor.” Gwen said jokingly and turned to go whip up some tea behind the bar. Her focus was caught up in the ritual. She genuinely enjoyed her job, finding the task of making drinks quite relaxing. At least she could call it relaxing now that she knew the right ingredients and ratios for all of their menu items.
She set the kettle on while she retrieved the correct tea bag and her favorite of the shop’s eclectic mug collection, and in a very short space of time the device began to whistle. She set the tea and a timer to steep and turned her focus back to the attractive woman patiently watching her.
Gwen rested her elbows on the bar and kicked one of her legs up behind her as she leaned towards her guest. “I suppose I should ask you for your name, since you saved my ass back there.”
The bookseller laughed and said, “quite literally,” to which Gwen huffed in embarrassment.
“Anyway,” Gwen continued after her companion finished chuckling to herself. “My name is Gwen. I’m a dayshift manager here.”
The bookseller’s eyes twinkled and she cast an appraising glance over Gwen. Her striking red hair cascaded in waves around her face and down her back, framing her enchanting dark brown eyes perfectly. Her expression was guarded, but she had the kind of face that told you exactly what a person was thinking. And what she was thinking, if the bookseller could presume correctly, is that she was just as attractive in her eyes as Gwen had been in hers. “I’m Natalie,” she stated, “but you can call me Nat.” She leaned back a little in her seat, “I own the bookstore two doors down on the left.”
“I know,” Gwen said plainly. She was famous on the block, despite very few knowing her name. Not a single regular in the coffee shop could avoid mentioning the hot bookseller down the block when they stumbled in bright-eyed and pink-cheeked after an encounter with her at the bookstore.
Nat’s smile widened and she said, “I hope my reputation proceeds me.”
“The reputation you earned by being sexy and smooth?” Gwen asked with eyebrows raised and cast her eyes down over Nat’s appearance. “I suppose it does.”
Nat laughed earnestly and Gwen finally understood what it meant to describe someone as ‘dazzling.’ It was like the deep sound of her laughter cast a glow over the dimly lit cafe. Her laughter was interrupted by the kitchen timer blaring out from behind Gwen at the counter. She flinched before whirling around to methodically pull the steeping tea leaves from Nat’s mug. “How do you take your tea?” Gwen called out to Nat without turning to face her.
“Two sugars, please.” Nat answered politely.
Gwen handed Nat her mug and a saucer with a small spoon and two sugar cubes resting on its edge. “I figured you might want to stir it in, I know people are fond of the ritual.” Gwen nodded at the sugar cubes resting on the saucer now placed in front of Nat. “May I?” She asked, plopping into the seat across from her without waiting for an answer.
Nat chuckled and dropped a sugar cube into her tea, gently stirring the contents of the mug. “Of course,” she laughed. She added another sugar cube.
“I’ve been waiting for the day you stopped in here. I always see you in the bookstore, but my manager has been tripping over her feet to serve you coffee since the day you opened up shop.” Gwen leaned on the elbows she had resting on the small bistro table that separated them.
“Bobby?” She scrunched up her nose in distaste at the mere thought.
Gwen laughed heartily, and said, “Oh, so you’ve met.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a pleasant experience.” Nat smiled at Gwen disarmingly before saying, “Meeting you, on the other hand, I wouldn’t hesitate to categorize that way.”
The corner of Gwen’s mouth raised into a slight smirk and she said, “Then you should stop by more often.”
“And risk bumping into Bobby?” Nat’s flirtatious smile sent a thrill through Gwen’s body. She looked at her over the lip of her mug before draining the remainder of her tea. “I suppose I should let you open up for the day,” She said as she stood, pushing her chair into place beneath the table.
Gwen stood abruptly and rushed to follow her to the front door so she could unlock it for her. The bell jingled as the door swung open and Nat strode out over the threshold and into the chill air of the early morning. She turned before Gwen could close the door and said “Until next time,” with a dashing smile and a small wave.
Gwen locked the door quickly and tried to steady the rush of adrenaline that was coursing through her from the events of the morning. She glanced at the watch on her wrist before doing a double take and saying, “shit!” once more.