Chapter Text
It’s twenty minutes past eight, which means they are really inching closer to being far too late for opening. “God damn Wells,” Clarke mumbles as she pulls out a pan of brownies and then picks up a tray of cookies and puts that in right away. “Bailing on me last minute.” There are better outlets for her anger, she knows, but the most current and convenient one is her best friend.
Someone knocks on the back door and, heaving a huge sigh of relief, Clarke flings it open. “Jasper, Monty, in, now.”
“Whoa, calm down, pretty lady,” Jasper grumbles, though Clarke hears them both follow her in.
“Can you open for me?” She asks, grabbing two aprons and tossing them at the young men behind her. “Wells bailed and I’m alone.”
“He bailed?” Monty asks incredulously.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Clarke says shortly. “But I’m twenty minutes late and I still have to finish the cinnamon rolls.”
“We got this,” Jasper says with confidence, and she almost feels assured.
“You remember how the espresso machine works, right?” She follows them into the sitting area, where the walls are the yellow of her dad’s choosing, as is most of the decor. Monty nods, already fiddling with buttons; Jasper shrugs. She can tell this is going to be a long day, but she knew that when Wells called her eleven last night to tell her he couldn’t make it. ‘Urgent family business’ he said, which is an excuse Clarke can accept if told earlier than seven pm the day before.
“And open,” she murmurs to herself as she unlocks the door and flips the sign. The weather is grey, clouds hanging low and warning of rain sometime this day. Her weather app had foretold thunder, which Clarke really hopes doesn’t happen because she’s secretly sort of absolutely terrified of thunder. She hates it.
The street is fairly empty, but the first rush comes around nine. She knows; she’s done this for years after all. “Okay, another day,” she murmurs again and returns to the kitchen. Jasper is messing with the cash register and Monty seems to be making himself his own cup of coffee. She won’t begrudge him that. Wells called her eleven pm and Clarke called these two fifteen minutes later near to tears.
“Thanks, by the way,” she says, embarrassment tinging her cheeks. “This means the world to me.”
“That’s what friends are for, right? Want coffee?” Monty asks, whizzing some whipped cream into his cup.
“Thanks, but no thanks. Maybe later, when I can take a break?”
“Of course, my princess,” Monty says winking.
“When the cinnamon rolls are done, can I grab one?” Jasper says, scribbling something on a paper with the shop sharpie.
“Yeah, of course, whatever you need. Or, well, want.”
“How ‘bout your dad’s super secret marble cheesecake brownie recipe?”
Rolling her eyes, Clarke enters the kitchen. “Yeah right.”
“It was worth a shot!”
The cinnamon rolls have risen beautifully in their trays and smell deliciously of yeast and cinnamon. She pops them into the preheated oven that was waiting for them and hears the bell on the front door tinkle, indicating a customer. Which is good. Really, it is, despite the misgivings Clarke has (has had) since her dad died. She blocks out the noise of Jasper taking the customer’s order and Monty making the coffee in favor of taking care of the brownies she had taken out earlier. The pan has cooled down enough by now and she sets about cutting them out. They’re her dad’s recipe, the good-enough-to-be-patented one, and they always taste of home to her. The bell tinkles as she finishes arranging the slices on a platter, leaving some behind for later today, and takes it to the counter.
“Open the display for me?” She asks Monty, who readily complies. “Thanks.”
“Are those—?”
Carefully sliding the platter into the correct spot, she replies, “Yep, my dad’s recipe. You guys got everything you need?” As she turns she spies pieces of paper pinned to their aprons and she grins. “Jasper, aka Luigi and Monty, aka Mario. You guys.”
“Hey, don’t be dissing the names. We thought long and hard about them,” Jasper protests.
“You played Brawl last night and loser got Luigi, right?”
“Nothing wrong with Luigi,” Jasper says with false bravado. “Green’s always been my color anyways.”
“You asked for seven rematches,” Monty snorts.
“I did not!”
“Did too.”
Clarke sighs and the bell rings. “Okay, I’m heading back to the kitchen. Be nice.”
“Wait, we have a name tag for you too,” Monty hisses, Clarke turning at the door to give him an exasperated look. “Here!”
She takes the piece of paper with a raised eyebrow and the other rises when she reads it. “Princess Peach? Are you kidding me?”
“No, isn’t it great?” Monty asks, eyes so close to sparkling Clarke’s concerned. “We got the Mario Bros and their princess! It’s perfect!”
She runs a thumb over the paper and gives in. “Fine. Get me a pin.”
Monty passes her one and Clarke goes a little cross-eyed trying to pin it right.
“Hey, Clarke?” Jasper asks and she turns to face him, self-consciously patting the new name-tag. “He’d like to know when the cinnamon rolls are done.”
“Oh, um,” Clarke murmurs, glancing at her watch and gives the customer an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, but they’ll be around forty minutes. Is there anything else we can get you?”
The man looks unimpressed and one of his eyebrows goes up. “No cinnamon rolls, huh,” he murmurs and glances at the display case. “Wait, screw the cinnamon rolls, give me a couple of those brownies.”
“Right away,” Jasper says, complying. “Will your order be for here or to go?”
“To go,” the customer says quietly, staring at the brownies that Jasper quickly wraps up. “By the way, what happened to the older guy?”
“I’m sorry?” Clarke asks. “Which older guy?”
“You know, this tall?” He says with a hand gesture, a disparaging look on his face. “He owns the place.”
She can’t breathe for a moment. Monty squeezes her shoulder and Jasper glances back and forth between the two of them. “He— he was my dad. He died, five months ago.”
All aggression disappears from his face and he looks genuinely apologetic. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve been out of the country for a year and just got back recently. He was a wonderful man—” His eyes dip to her name tag and his mouth quirks up. “Princess.”
“Clarke, my name’s Clarke,” she quickly says, blushing in embarassment and glaring at Monty.
“Princess suits you better,” he says with a wide smile, taking the paper bag and laying down the money. “I’ll see you around, Princess.”
“It’s Clarke,” she says faintly. The bell rings as he leaves and the moment the door closes, both Monty and Jasper turn to her.
“It’s Clarke? You need to work on your game,” Monty laughs, swinging an arm around her shoulder.
“Yeah, I mean, did you see him? Man, Clarke, if you don’t go for him, I will. And I’m straight, like super straight, except for that one time when—”
“We don’t talk about that,” Monty says flatly next to her ear. “Didn’t we make a solemn pinky swear?”
“Yeah, but, Clarke! This is gonna be something.”
“He knew my dad,” is all she can manage to get out. Her two best friends quiet immediately and Monty’s arm turns into a hug. “How did—”
“Shh,” Jasper murmurs, coming to them and starting a group hug. “He said it himself. He’s been out of the country, he might have been a regular, something like that.”
Her fists clenches around their aprons, but then she has to be someone else and her fingers slowly unfurl. “I need to get the cookies,” she says and they back off immediately. She doesn’t like this Clarke, the one that is all business, but she likes the emotional mess Clarke, the one who hasn’t dealt with anything that’s happened in the last year, even less.
She avoids their eyes as she returns to the kitchen. The cookies are calling, she can almost hear the oven’s shrill ring, and she needs to prepare for the lunch rush, hours away though it is.
Finn is waiting by the back door at the end of the day and it is the last thing she wants after a truly exhausting day. Jasper and Monty left an hour ago. After repeated assurances that she can close up just fine on her own failed, she eventually dragged them out by their ears and kicked them out with a promise to pay them for their work later.
“What,” Clarke sighs, turning the key in the lock and twisting the handle to double-check.
“Raven— we’re having a dinner, later this week.”
He looks good. He always looks good, the right side of disheveled that makes him exactly her type and a smile that sets her at ease. Ever since their disastrous break-up, if she can even call it that, his smile has only caused her to feel guilt.
“Good for you,” she grumbles, stashing the key in a little pocket in her purse and starting to walk. “Enjoy a nice, wonderful, steak.”
“Raven wants to invite you.”
She stops and, shocked, turns to face him. “Invite me. You want me, your dirty little secret, to join you and your girlfriend for dinner?”
“It was her idea,” Finn protests, stepping closer and grabbing her hands. He holds them between them and she wishes she could be strong and push him away, but if she were to touch him it would not end in pushing him away. “She’s inviting another friend of hers too.”
“Finn, this is a bad idea.”
“I want you to come too, of course,” Finn continues, ignoring her comment. “Because I want us to be friends. We’re friends, right?”
She searches his face and sees honesty, but she doesn’t know how much she can trust her gut telling her to trust him. Her mind tells her it’s not a good idea, that everything went to hell before and then sunk lower afterwards, but Clarke is nodding despite it. “Sure. Fine. I’ll go.”
“Great.” Finn smiles widely, joyously; Clarke smiles back helplessly. “Wonderful. Let me walk you to your car.”
Her smile drops. “No. I’m sorry, but you can’t.”
His smile drops, but it does so in increments; it goes from grin, to smile, to quirk, to gone. “What— why not?”
“Because you can’t, okay?” He literally cannot, because she hasn’t told anyone she sold her car and has been getting around by bus.
“Clarke, I thought—”
“It’s fine, really, you need to go in the other direction, right? Call me later, or text, with the details. Bye.”
Quickly, she walks away and is grateful he doesn’t continue following her.
Wells shows up the next morning and Clarke is so grateful she doesn’t ask pointed questions about his ‘urgent family business.’ “Let’s open up on time today,” she says as she ties the apron behind her back.
“You opened late yesterday?”
She shrugs and doesn’t answer beyond that. “Can you get started on the cinnamon rolls? I’ll work on the brownies.”
Wells nods, finishing tying off his own apron with his eyes on her. She ignores it, and they bake in companionable silence until it hits eight. She wipes the flour on her hands on her apron and ignores the weird smudges that are created.
“I’ll go ahead and open, you good back here?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” Wells tells her, concentrating on popping the cinnamon rolls out neatly.
Sunlight is spilling into the cafe, which Clarke takes as a good sign. “Today will be a good day,” she murmurs to herself as she flips the sign and unlocks the door. Positive thinking is something her dad had advocated.
The espresso machine is up and running and the register is ready; she ducks her head into the kitchen to ask Wells, “Want a coffee?”
“A double shot would be awesome,” he calls back, now adding the drizzle to the cinnamon rolls.
“On it,” she replies and makes his coffee first, setting it just inside the kitchen and tells him it’s done. Then she proceeds to make her favorite coffee, which she only does when alone. She’s not embarrassed by it; she’s just sick of all the teasing and being called ‘girly’ for it. From strangers she doesn’t care, but her friends always tease her. It’s a mocha with almond and raspberry syrup, no whipped cream. It’s all her favorite chocolate flavors in one.
With no one in yet, Clarke takes out the accounting book and starts going over numbers. Sometime during this, Wells comes out with the cinnamon rolls and the brownies and slots them into place. She wasn’t even a business or accounting major, but look at her now. Look at what all those science courses and expensive med school classes have done for her, standing in a coffee shop she never expressly wanted. Sighing, she flips absently through the pages and ignores how they don’t break red very often. They lost a lot of regulars when they were closed right after her dad’s death and it’s that causing their slide into bankruptcy. As her mom says: if only you stayed in school.
But she couldn’t let her mom sell this place. She couldn’t give up her dad’s biggest joy and treasure for something she was doing mostly half-heartedly.
The bell rings and she glances up, sliding the book under the counter. It’s the same man from yesterday, smirking the moment he sees her.
“If it isn’t Princess.”
“It’s Clarke,” she retorts. “And what shall I call you? Asshole?”
He laughs; it’s genuine, her heart tells her. Her mind reminds her heart that it is often wrong. “I’m Bellamy. Have you got any cinnamon rolls today?”
“For here or to go? And how many would you like?” she asks, storing the name into her head with a snapshot of his head thrown back in laughter. He doesn’t set her at ease the way Finn does, but he does have the right balance of disheveled that gets her heart going.
“To-go, and just one please. Also can I have some more of those brownies?”
“Of course,” Clarke replies, pulling out a cinnamon roll with the tongs. “Just one, or two?”
Bellamy purses his lips as he stares at her. “One. I’ll start with one.”
“You must like them,” she teases, pulling out a cinnamon roll with the tongs and placing it in a paper bag.
“They’re food of the gods,” Bellamy replies with an easy smile. “Best thing I’ve ever had.”
“They’re my dad’s recipe.” She doesn’t look at his face, because she feels like she’ll know the look of regret and pity flash across his face. Instead she focuses on sliding one of the brownies into the paper bag. When she straightens and places the bag on the counter, putting the total in the register, there’s still a look on his face.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to say it yesterday, but Jake was a great man. I missed him and was looking forward to seeing him again.” Her throat blocks, everything seeming to go on pause, and she nods, glancing at the register, then around the cafe. The entire place is a reminder of him and his absence. “He loved this place.”
“Your total will be nine-seventy-seven.”
She feels his eyes on her and it’s hard to resist darting her eyes to him and, ultimately, she fails. He’s looking at her gently and kindly. “Okay.” He takes out a ten and offers it to her; she busies herself with getting his change, counting the two dimes and three pennies.
“Here,” she says quietly, offering the receipt and change. “Your change is 23 cents.”
“See you around, Princess.”
The nickname seems to press the play button, and it sounds like friendly-teasing rather than the slightly mocking lilt to it the times before. “Yeah,” she breathes, looking at him and trying a smile. “See you around.”