Chapter Text
The first time he came to the coffee shop was on a Tuesday at exactly 8:17am.
Rey knew the precise time he walked through the door because their resident Karen (whose name was actually Shirley) had just gotten done berating her for the fifth time in as many shifts, and she always came in at 8:10am on her way to work—and because after dealing with Shirley, Rey always had exactly thirteen minutes before she could go on break.
It was the same thing, the same routine, with the same regulars nearly every day that Rey had worked at the Daily Drip. She’d gotten a job at the little industrial-chic coffeehouse about five years ago when she first set foot in New York City for college, and she learned pretty quickly that the clientele was definitely local. And they were definitely set in their ways.
But this guy was new. They didn’t often get new customers, being so far off the beaten tourist path, and besides: she knew she’d never seen him before, because she definitely would have remembered him if he’d ever come in during one of her shifts.
Rey never forgot a face, after all.
But this man’s face was almost completely hidden from her.
He was both enormously tall and wide, which would have made him plenty distinctive already, but he was also still wearing a black kn95 mask over his mouth and nose. Not that it was terribly uncommon in New York, especially with covid spiking again, but the coffeehouse’s owner, Unkar Plutt, was notoriously vocal about his disdain for them and most people in the neighborhood knew that. The employees certainly weren’t allowed to wear them while on shift.
The new guy stepped up to the register, the hood of his black sweatshirt pulled over an equally-black baseball cap tucked low over his eyes. A curtain of thick, dark hair covered the right one, hiding it from view, and the other peered down at Rey, dark and wide and seemingly nervous—in as much as she could tell, anyway. So much of his face was covered, but she’d gotten fairly good at reading the nuances of eye crinkles over the last few years.
“Hi! Welcome to the Daily Drip. What can I get started for you?” she asked brightly, plastering on a dazzling smile.
Tips. She needed tips this month if she wanted to spread her loans further than they usually went.
Why were groceries so expensive?
“Um…” His eye darted up to the menu and back down to her face before darting away again. “One…l-large Americano.” His voice was deep, but he said it so quietly, Rey almost didn’t hear him. She leaned over the counter slightly, a brow raised and her head tilted to hear him better.
“A large Americano?” He nodded. “For here or to-go?”
“To-go.” He said it a little more loudly this time, though only barely.
Rey grabbed a paper cup and scribbled the order on the side. “Room for cream?” He shook his head. “Name?”
“Ben.”
She wrote that on the cup too and was just about to pass it off to Finn when Ben held up a hand to stop her, his eye wide and worried. His hand shook slightly.
“Wait! Uh…c-can I get that extra hot, please?”
“Of course you can.” Rey noted it and smiled softly at him, a real one this time. She’d never seen someone so obviously terrified to order a black coffee before, but how hard he was trying was endearing. When she rang him up, he silently passed her a twenty dollar bill with a trembling hand—and then promptly dropped all nearly sixteen dollars of his change into their tip jar.
“Whoa.” It was Rey’s turn for her eyes to widen. “Wow. Thank you, sir! That’s—”
But before she could finish, he turned his back and retreated to an empty table in the corner. Finn called out his name, and he practically sprinted over to grab his coffee before hiding again, drawing his cap lower over his face as he sat and hunching his shoulders as though he were trying to make himself smaller. A feat, to be sure, but she commended him for the effort.
Rey took her break. When she came back, he was still sitting there, his mask still concealing his mouth, writing diligently in a little black leather notebook and not making eye contact with anyone.
He left at exactly 9am.
He never took a single sip of coffee.
The new guy didn’t come back until the following Tuesday.
Rey didn’t know why, but for the rest of that week, every time someone walked in wearing a black hoodie, she searched their faces to see if it was him. But she was disappointed every time—not a mask in sight. Perhaps he hadn’t liked their café or their coffee after all. Perhaps he was just visiting.
Was it because of how nervous he’d seemed? He’d barely been able to order from her. And then he’d left such a large tip.
Why?
Well, she supposed it didn’t matter in the end. So many people came through their doors.
Easy come, easy go.
But on Tuesday at 8:17am on the dot, the door opened and he lumbered inside, his right leg hitching slightly as he squeezed his large frame through the gathered crowd lined up in front of the register and clearly tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible while he waited his turn.
“—I just don’t understand how hard it is to make me a mocha Frappuccino with extra caramel drizzle.” Angry fingers tipped in long, fire-engine red acrylics snapped in Rey’s face. “Hey, are you listening to me?”
She hid a scowl behind an expertly crafted customer service mask. “Shirley, I’m really sorry, but like I tell you every week, we’re not a Starbucks. We don’t have Frappuccinos.”
“It can’t be that hard to make them, and I know you have blenders, I can see them in the back.”
“Those are for our smoothie selection. I could make you a smoothie, or if you still want coffee, I can get you an iced mocha with some cold foam and a caramel drizzle. Does that work?”
Shirley rolled her eyes and tossed her frizzy bleach-blonde hair over her shoulder. Her brow would have been furrowed if she were capable of it, but it looked like she’d just recently gotten a lot of fresh Botox injections. “Fine. I’ll take a grande iced mocha. Extra caramel. And I want that on the house.”
Rey’s eye twitched, but she rang her up, just like she did every time. She did not put the drink or the caramel on the house, and she ignored Shirley’s irritated huff when she handed her the receipt.
A few more customers, and then it was the new guy’s turn to step up to the register.
“Hey, Large Extra Hot Americano! Welcome back.” Rey gave him another brilliant smile, this time every bit as genuine as the first one she’d given him was not. He was dressed more or less the same as he had been the week before—black hoodie, black kn95, dark jeans, Air Jordans, well-worn black leather satchel slung over his shoulder—and still only one eye peeked out from beneath the pulled-low brim of his cap. But Rey liked the way it crinkled around the edge when he looked at her, if only the slightest bit. “I was wondering if I’d see you again.”
His gaze rested on her slightly longer than it did last week, and she could have sworn she heard a soft, amused snort from beneath the mask. “You remembered?”
“‘Course. I never forget a face. Especially not one like yours.”
The crinkles faded.
Rey’s stomach dipped. There was something about him that made her want to make him smile, but now she had the sense that she’d done something terribly wrong. He shifted awkwardly on his feet and glanced up at their menu without responding.
“Did you like the coffee you got last time, or would you like to try something new?” she prompted. The Daily Drip prided themselves on their small batch craft coffee roasting and careful brewing, and it bothered her that he didn’t drink what Finn made him last week. She’d already resolved to step away from the register and do it herself this time, even though Finn was a fabulous barista and he knew his way around the Marzocco almost as well as she did. “I could make you a latte if you’d like.” She leaned forward and cupped her hand over her mouth, whispering conspiratorially. “I’ll even draw you something nice in the foam.”
“N-no, no, that’s…that’s alright.” He waved her suggestion away. Rey hadn’t noticed last week, but his hands were huge, with thick, strong fingers. They were covered in callouses and dotted with what looked like burn scars, little starbursts of long-healed white sparks and splashes and dots. An expensive-looking watch wrapped around his left wrist and flashed silver in the daylight streaming from the windows.
Ben raised a hand as if he was going to run it through his dark hair, but stopped when he touched the fabric of his hood, almost like he’d forgotten he was still wearing it. It began to tremble.
“I’ll get you another large black Americano, no room for cream and extra hot, then, if that’s okay?” He nodded and she scribbled the order on the cup, just like she’d done last week. “For Ben, right?”
“Yeah. B-Ben.”
“I’m Rey.” She smiled at him again and stepped behind the machine, nodding at Finn to switch places with her. Luckily, they weren’t as busy today as they normally were, and her hands swept with expert ease across the machine as she pulled a few fresh shots of espresso and poured them into extra hot water. Technically, this was a long black and not an Americano, but she wanted to give him a nicer, richer crema without breaking the espresso.
Alright, fine. She was an excellent barista. Maybe she wanted to show off a bit.
Maybe she could tempt him to drink it this time.
“Here you go, Ben. Just for you.”
“Thank you,” he mumbled, his fingers just barely grazing against hers as he took the coffee in his hand. He nearly dropped the drink and yanked his arm away as if he’d been electrocuted by her touch.
“Oh, s-sorry,” he stammered, reaching forward again.
Rey pushed him the coffee and drew her hand back, stifling a look of concern and replacing it with a soft smile. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“Thank you, Rey,” he muttered again, and retreated to the same corner as last time.
Rey postponed her break in favor of keeping an eye on him. Once again, he took a small, black leather notebook out from his pocket and scribbled into it with a gold-tipped fountain pen. Once again, he pulled the brim of his baseball cap low over his face. And once again, he never removed his mask and never took a single sip of coffee.
At precisely 9am, he gathered up his things, took his coffee cup, and left in a rush, without giving her so much as a backward glance.
Rey checked the tip jar.
Just like last week, he’d left all sixteen dollars of his change inside.
Rey started looking for Ben every day that summer.
The third week, he came in on Tuesday at exactly 8:17am, just like the previous two weeks.
But then he also came in on Thursday.
And Friday.
Always at 8:17am.
He always paid in cash.
And he always left the remainder of his broken twenty dollar bills in their tip jar.
Ben began coming in three times a week, but little else changed. He barely spoke, struggled to order the same coffee every time, and he never once removed his mask to drink it in the café. Instead, he claimed the same table for exactly forty minutes, clutched the warm cup in one hand, and wrote in his little notebook with the other, his leather satchel resting faithfully against his long legs. He always wore black, and Rey could only ever see the upper left corner of his face.
No matter how hard she tried, no matter what she said at the register, she never got him to laugh.
It was hard not to fixate on such a goal.
He looked like he could use a laugh.
He was so sweet, Rey ached to give him one.
He’d been coming in regularly three times a week for a month when the fall semester started at the tail end of August and time went strange. It was always like that when she shifted mindsets from just work to work and school, but she only had to do this one more time.
The Tuesday of her second week of classes had already been an odd day. Monday had been so crazy, she was almost late for her capstone course after her shift, but this morning was practically dead. Shirley hadn’t even made an appearance yet, which meant one of a few things: either she was running late (unusual, but most likely), she’d taken a vacation (God, Rey hoped so), or she’d finally chosen to just go get her goddamn Frappuccinos at an actual Starbucks for once (wholly wishful thinking, but a girl could dream). A few of the usual suspects sat with their ceramic cups over in the lounge area, typing quietly away to the inoffensive lo-fi playing over the café’s sound system, and Rey drummed her fingers against the counter while Finn experimented with perfecting a ristretto.
“Hey Peanut,” said Finn, and Rey looked over her shoulder as he slid a shot over to her. “Taste this, will you?”
“Sure.” She sipped and thought for a moment as she rolled the coffee around on her palette. “You waited too long on that pull—it’s a touch bitter.”
“Damnit.” Finn turned back to the machine to try again, and that’s when Ben finally slid into the café, looking mostly like he normally did. But this time, his cap wasn’t pulled quite so low, and Rey could see a bit more of his face and eye than usual as he stepped up to the counter.
“Hey Ben. Happy Tuesday.”
She leaned forward on an elbow and grinned at him. Now that she was getting a better look in better light, she could see that his skin was speckled with freckles, and they were dotted across his face like stars in the night sky. His eye also wasn’t exactly brown like she’d initially thought it was, but rather more mottled, more hazel, with dark brown clustered around his pupil and a lighter, greener color hovering around the edges.
It was interesting.
He was striking.
“Hi Rey,” Ben mumbled, looking around at the rest of the shop and looking even more nervous now that there were fewer people than usual. Perhaps it was because it might be harder for him to try to meld into the wall. “Slow day?”
“Yeah, actually. You came at a good time. Something must be going on elsewhere in the city, and I can’t say that I’m sad about it.”
His eye caught on the shot of coffee she was clutching between her fingers. “Wh-what are you d-dri—drinking?” he asked hesitantly, almost as if he was unsure if he should even try. His throat bobbed as he swallowed and tried again. “Well, I mean, wh-what’s—what’s your favorite drink?”
Oh, so he was chatty today?
This was more words than she’d ever been able to wheedle out of him before.
How cute.
A slow smile crept across Rey’s lips as she watched Ben fidget in front of her. He looked like he was about to wring those large, anxious hands together, and if she didn’t know better, he might have even been sweating under that hoodie.
Actually, he might have been. It was a lot to wear out in the city in September when it was still this hot.
She folded her hands on the counter in front of her. “I’m drinking Finn’s awful, failed attempt at a ristretto.”
“Hey, I heard that!” Finn snapped at her from the machine, and she giggled. Ben’s eye crinkled, and his mask tilted upward over his cheeks.
There it was.
Finally, a smile.
Rey beamed even wider at her victory.
“What’s that?” Ben asked. “I’ve never heard of a ristretto.” His mask shifted back down again as he winced, but it was so quick Rey almost didn’t notice. The door opened again behind him, and another customer stepped up in line, but Rey couldn’t see who it was. Ben was far too broad, and she was far too pleased at having made him smile to care. Whoever it was could wait.
“It’s like an espresso, but ‘restricted.’ Pulled for less time, so it’s sweeter, lighter. I like to put mine in a flat white. You can make some nice latte art in the foam of a flat white.” She rolled the glass between her hands. “I don’t always have time to do it, but when it’s slow, we like to practice that sort of thing. It’s really fun, and a nice change of pace from the kind of stuff I study in my classes. I like the art of it.”
“Oh, are you in school?” He raised a dark eyebrow. “What do you study?”
“I’m an electrical engineering major. A super senior, actually—it’s taken me more than five years, much to my shame—but I’m finally graduating this December. Took me a bit longer to—”
An impatient finger jabbed at Ben’s shoulder, and he nearly jumped out of his skin at the contact. “You can flirt with her some other time, sir,” snapped Shirley as she shoved forward to the head of the line, obviously running late (the worst of the three options), and obviously salty about it. “I need to get my coffee and I need to get it now.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Ben’s shoulders slumped and he started to move aside. “You can go ahe—”
“No, Ben, you were here first,” Rey interjected, letting her usual mask fall and glaring at the woman before turning back to him. “What would you like?”
“No, it’s fine, I can wait. I—”
Shirley shoved him fully out of the way and stepped up to the register, and Ben stumbled back, barely managing to stay on his feet. “I want my usual.”
“You don’t have a usual, Shirley, you order something different every time. And it’s not your turn.”
“Then I want a venti caramel macchiato Frappuccino, upside down, extra shot, three extra pumps of vanilla, and made with heavy whipping cream.”
“It’s not your turn and this is not a Starbucks, we don’t have ventis or make Frappuccinos,” Rey hissed.
“Well, I’m friends with the owner and you need to make me the fucking coffee I ordered, you little bitch!” Shirley shouted.
“HEY.”
Ben growled and rested a hand softly on Shirley’s shoulder. “Don’t talk to her that way. I think you need to leave before—”
“Is that a threat?!” Shirley shrieked as she whirled around and pointed an angry finger in his face. “How dare you touch me! And why are you still wearing a goddamn mask? This is America! Covid’s over, you fucking snowflake. Get that off your face so I can see who you are to report you!” She reached up, grabbed his mask, and yanked.
“Hey, don’t you touch him! That’s assault!’ Rey cried, running for the gap in the counter to get to the front of the café. Finn was already in the back calling the police.
Ben jerked his head away from Shirley’s hand, but she had too good of a grip on it between her clawed fingertips. The elastic ear loops snapped, and the mask fell away from his face. His eye widened in horror and his hands scrambled to catch it, but it was too late. It fell to the floor and everyone froze.
And Rey finally got a good, long look at Ben.
He was handsome. Really handsome. He had a wide mouth, and full, plush lips, with deep indents carved around it where dimples might appear if he smiled. Large moles intermingled with his delicate freckles and skipped across his cheeks, more constellations of beauty marks contrasting brightly against his pale skin and high cheekbones.
But those features were all overshadowed, all marred by the thick, red, vicious scar crackling violently across his face, not-quite-healed and obviously devastatingly fresh. Whatever had wounded him had cut deep—very deep. His skin was still puckered around the edges of the scar where some of the dozens—no, hundreds of stitches had only recently been removed, and parts of it were still scabbed over.
It crept up from under his collar along his neck, and her eyes traced the length of it. The part that disappeared under the thick, dark waves covering his right eye was still stitched closed with fresh black sutures twisting deep into his skin. He must have been split open to the bone.
Whatever happened had hurt, in more ways than one, and that hurt was reflected now in the way his lovely mouth dropped open in fear and how horror darkened the one eye fixated on Rey’s face.
“Ben—” Rey stepped up to him and tried to put her hand on his shoulder, but he stumbled away. Shirley stayed silent and rooted in place, gaping openly at him as if he were some sort of freak. “Ben, are you okay? I—”
He couldn’t look at her. He covered his face with his arm and bolted for the door, shoving it open with his free hand and disappearing out into the street.
The café had gone completely silent. Everyone had seen.
Rey looked down at her feet. He’d dropped his little black notebook. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he’d leapt away from Shirley, and Rey picked it up and clutched it to her chest, fighting back tears for him.
Finn had Shirley arrested for assault. The whole thing was caught on the café’s security cameras and by the customers working in the lounge on their cellphones. The incident even briefly went viral on TikTok. Shirley didn’t come back to the Daily Drip after that.
And neither did Ben.
He didn’t return to the café the next Tuesday.
Or the Tuesday after that.
Or the Tuesday after that.
