Chapter Text
It was a warm morning, the sun shown brightly in the early July sky without a cloud to diminish its harsh summer rays. Howl wasn’t particularly a fan of the California summer heat as he much more preferred the cool and cloud-filled skies of Wales, but he supposed that the location came with the job. He walked the hot, cracked sidewalk along the noisy traffic, dark glasses glued to his face, as he chatted on the phone with his manager, Calcifer.
“Howl, listen, I just don’t think you’re ready. After everything that happened with that witch, the media isn’t going to change their perspective on you so quickly. Maybe just try to lie low for a few weeks and give this a chance to die down. Hopefully, the press will move onto their next exciting, life ruining breakup,” Calcifer said.
Howl closed his eyes in anguish. “Life ruining?,” he cried.
“I was just kidding! Jeez, you know-,”
“But it’s not true! Calling me a heartless, calculating scumbag, saying that I all but ATE her heart—Cal, how is any of this fair?”
“Howl, I’m letting you know, it isn’t, but the media doesn’t see it that way. And until they do, you, my friend, are in some deep shit.” The matter of fact tone in his managers voice made Howl’s abdomen tense and his heart sink.
“Good God, so much for a quiet breakup,” Howl muttered through slightly clenched teeth.
Calcifer barked out a scratchy sounding laugh, “Your words, not mine. Anyways, I’ll have to talk to you later, I’ve got a meeting in 5. But remember what I told you! Lie low. Stay out of the press as much as you can. No parties, no clubs—no girls, for Christ’s sake! Maybe start giving that quote unquote apprentice of yours some actual material to learn, rather than just having him run your errands for you. Or maybe, and hear me out, call your sister so she’ll leave me the hell alone!”
Howl only heard the beginning of Calcifer’s rant as he spotted a small cafe nestled away across the street. Nothing about the storefront directly caught his attention, but that’s exactly what he was looking for. A sign sat on the sidewalk advertising the production of ‘Comedy of Errors’ being held on the second floor of the altogether three-story building. Howl thought it a queer place to hold a public theater, but shrugged nonetheless; the theater wasn’t what he was interested in at the moment. His feet carried him across the street, looking both ways and running as quickly as he could as to not get hit, until he was standing in front of the cafe door. A few tables and chairs were placed outside accompanied by an elderly man and his cane, as well as two older women gossiping about someone they knew ‘falling off the deep end’. Howl inwardly cringed at how much he related to their description of this individual, but drew his attention back at the storefront.
Hatters’ Cafe was painted on the glass door as he reached for the handle. A soft bell rang out announcing his arrival and he was shocked to see how warm and quaint it was inside. From the outside, it seemed only small enough to order and go, but now standing at the landing, it was basically a bakery, coffee shop, and restaurant (albeit a small one) all in one.
People at tables chatted happily and amiably as they sipped their drinks and munched on their food. The shelves around the store were covered in green plants that flourished magnificently as well as various photos and poster of which he couldn’t make out at his distance. As he further surveyed the surrounding, he didn’t notice a single person gaping at his entrance. Usually, he’d have to make a mad dash for the door as soon as he got what he ordered, but he relished in this much needed tranquility and didn’t question it.
With a quiet, but deep breath, he made his way up to the counter whilst surveying the boards depicting his various drink and food options.
“Hello, there! Welcome to Hatters’ Cafe,” a soft voice pulled him out of his focus of the menu board hanging from the ceiling, the various food and drink options curled in a yellow chalk. Bringing his eyes downward, he noticed he was face to face with a beautiful woman with dark, shining hair and striking blue eyes.
His eyebrows automatically snapped down and a heartbreaker smirk grew across his face.
“Well, hello there. I’m sorry, I was just admiring this lovely place.” He carried his eyes across the cafe to dramatically emphasize this statement, stopping when they landed on the girl and winking.
The girl with the dark hair giggled and even blushed at his remark. My, that was easy, Howl thought.
She cleared her throat, adjusting her shoulders slightly, drawing Howl’s attention to her name-tag sitting pretty on her silk blouse. Lettie.
“Now I must say, Lettie,”— the girl looked up surprised by hearing her name fall out of the attractive stranger’s mouth— “I have seen and dealt with many actresses in my day, but I have never seen one as lovely as you.”
He exaggerated this statement that he most certainly pulled out of his ass with a dramatic lean onto the counter separating the two. He was about to further this advancement with a raised hand to carefully and artfully tuck a stray strand of Lettie’s hair behind her ear, when something squishy and sour smelling hit the middle of his forehead.
He froze all movements and crossed his eyes in an attempt to locate the wet and slimy object slowly making its way to the bridge of his nose.
“Oops! My bad— those things just have a mind of their own, don’t they!” A voice from behind Lettie sounded.
Looking over her shoulder, he saw a woman who shared the same genetic beauty as the one in front of him, that of whom currently had her eyes squeezed shut in frustration. Howl was quite stunned for a moment, as he took the tomato-flinging woman in. She stood in what seemed to be the kitchen, visible through a rectangular sized opening, with a soft cream colored apron tied around her waist. Her hair was a jarring color of red and gold which was braided away from her into two, falling gracefully over her shoulders, and her lovely face was covered in deep tan freckles. She blinked her blue and green eyes innocently at him as tomato halves sat idly on the cutting board in front of her.
Howl was in love.
The dark haired girl shot a glare over her shoulder. “You’ll have to excuse Sophie, she suffers from a spazzy arm…thing. Here, let me grab you a napkin.” Lettie turned to duck under the counter and Howl was able to get a better view of his attacker.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” she asked, and before Howl could respond, she answered her own question, snapping a finger for dramatic emphasis. “Wait, I know! You’re the guy in that hot tub commercial aren’t you? For the store on West Street? Oh my god, you are!”
Howl was appalled at the gall of this woman. First, flinging a tomato square between his eyes for chatting up the counter girl (who he intelligently puzzled together was her sister), then, comparing him to that 40-something, leathery, spray tan douche? He felt his jaw clench and eyes narrow and the girl’s mouth spread into a smirk. She had played him. And he fell right for it.
“God, these are really back there, huh? I’m sorry, here you are. Can I get anything for you? It’s on the house, of course.” Lettie finally poked her head back over the counter and handed Howl a few crumpled napkins. He took them gratefully and wiped off the slimy tomato remains that had started to dry onto his skin. He only hoped it wouldn’t cause new blemishes to appear; he spent enough of his hard earned money on high end skin care to prevent such a thing.
“No need for apologies. One cannot help a physical ailment such as that, can they?” Howl gave a small, and far-from-real smile to Lettie as he drew his attention back to the redhead—Sophie, did she say?
But, instead of responding with a witty remark to her low blow claim, the words got stuck in his throat as he watched her smiling a true and bright grin aimed directly at him. He vaguely saw Lettie looking suspiciously between the two and quietly slink away before he found his voice again, eyes never leaving Sophie’s.
“What do you recommend I get?”
Something about this girl made his chest and head feel on fire, his fingers tingle with excitement. Her grin faded to just a small smile and she came out of the kitchen area through the swinging door and stood a few feet in front of Howl, eyes focusing on the board above, the same blasted counter separating the two.
“Hmm, what are you in the mood for?”
He barely registered her question, and instead, was blatantly checking her out. She wore a black tank-top tucked into a matching, long black skirt with soft brown flowers designed throughout. The skirt looked silky and soft, and Howl wanted to see if this claim was true, but he was ripped out of his thoughts when she cleared her throat.
She stood looking at him expectantly, with one eyebrow raised. “Creep,” she said, but without any real callous, “I said what are you in the mood for?”
Howl blew out a breath, that frankly, sounded more like a nervous laugh, and tried to calm the butterflies currently attacking his stomach. To be perfectly honest, Howl wasn’t sure he would be able to keep anything down with this woman so close to him.
“How about a latte? And…” he trailed off.
Sophie picked it up for him, “…And a muffin? They’re made fresh everyday by Martha.”
Howl confirm his order and made his way to an isolated table in the corner. He took the time to take in his surroundings a little better. He was still shocked that no one had come up to him during the entire exchange at the ordering counter, yet it felt more like his ego had taken a blow.
Soft music floated throughout the room as Howl studied the handful of people with their laptops out, typing away at some paper, or various couples and friend groups quietly chatting over their food and drink. He suddenly felt very grateful that he managed to stumble upon this place, when a loud boom sounded from the floor above, making him jump slightly in his chair.
“They’re rehearsing up there. They tend to be a little loud at times,” said Sophie as she placed his latte and muffin on the table in front of him.
And before he could respond to what she said, or even manage to spit out a thank you, she turned around on her platformed heel, back to the coffee machine where she grabbed a white rag and began to clean the area.
Sometime had passed while Howl had finished his muffin and sorted through the various emails in his inbox and missing text messages. Calcifer had left him a wordy text about his sister, telling Howl to call her back, or he would drop him as his client. He also seemed to have missed a call from Michael, followed by frantic messages asking Howl what he should do if they were out of his usual shampoo. He took his time to respond to both of them as well as a forwarded email about recording “Thirst Tweets” (whatever the hell that is, Howl thought) and an outline of his upcoming schedule.
He lifted his head, cracking his neck side to side, and attempted to see if he could catch a glimpse of Sophie working, and found her leaning on the counter reading a book. He felt his chest flutter as he watched her turn the page and draw her eyebrows together in focus— or was it confusion? He was suddenly alarmed with how much attention he was paying this random girl. This isn’t like me, he thought, but then again, he felt none of his familiar urge to make this woman swoon—much like Lettie and much like every woman before that. Instead, he wanted to make her mad, for her to chuck something at his head again, maybe yell and call him a cad — an asshole, and then he’d swoop her into a heart-stopping kiss to make up.
Coming out of his daydream, he watched as Lettie made her way up to Sophie, still sat leaning over the countertop, and said something to her (much too low for Howl to hear) to which Sophie rolled her eyes and quickly said something back. Lettie raised her eyebrows. She seemed to freeze for a moment before saying something unintelligible that caused Sophie to barked out a laugh (that, Howl could hear) and swat her sister’s arm with her book.
Yes, this was something new indeed.