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Written for the fifth day of the 2017 "Holigay" prompt challenge.
The prompt was: "Your characters meet at a coffee shop and bond over their shared hatred of peppermint flavored drinks. When they leave, one of the characters is pretty sure they’ll never see the other person again, but guess whose number they find in their pocket?"
Summary: Brenden ducks into a coffee shop for a drink on his way to class, and meets a very cute stranger.
Fluffy, slice-of-life/meet-cute.
“We have a holiday special running,” chirped the barista at the register. “If you get one of our peppermint mochas, a second one is only a dollar!”
Brenden wrinkled his nose in disgust before he even thought about it. “Er, no thanks. Does the special apply to a regular mocha?”
“Sorry, no, just the seasonal peppermint.”
“Okay, I’ll get a medium regular mocha.”
“We have peppermint stir sticks for only fifty cents.”
“No thank you. I’m just not a big fan of peppermint.”
He paid for his drink, and went to wait at the bar and look out over the café. It was crowded, with no unoccupied tables. He sighed. He didn’t have class for another hour, and no way did he want to wait outside in this awful below-freezing weather.
The man who’d been behind him in line came up next to him at the bar. Judging by the line of cups on the counter in back, they’d both be waiting for a while.
“I thought it was just me,” the other man said.
Brenden glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, assuming the other man was on the phone or something. More than once he’d acknowledged some comment from a stranger only to get a weird look and belatedly realize they had a Bluetooth receiver clipped to their ear. This stranger was cute, dressed for the weather, yet looking like he’d stepped out of a fashion spread, with a black wool coat perfectly tailored to him, and red scarf artfully draped over his shoulders. Definitely the type who might have an earpiece.
“That disliked peppermint, I mean,” The stranger clarified. “This time of year is practically torture.”
“Oh,” Brenden replied, blinking. “Yeah, it’s all but unavoidable, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about it,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Suddenly everything has to have a candy cane in it. Perfectly self-respecting mochas, brownies, sugar cookies, ice cream, for heaven’s sake. All of them suddenly adulterated with peppermint.”
Brenden laughed.
“I’m Ryan, by the way,” the other man stuck a hand out.
Brenden took it. Ryan’s hand was warmer than his. “Brenden,” he introduced himself.
“Come to this coffee shop often?” Ryan asked, brushing his bangs to the side.
“Not real often,” Brenden said. “Just when the bus schedule and my classes don’t sync up quite right. It’s a nice spot to kill a few minutes out of the cold. My classes don’t start until 3:00 today.”
“Ah, you’re a student?” Ryan asked. “I’ve been thinking about maybe taking a few classes. I wanted to take a year off after high school, but then I got a job, and a year turned into, well, a lot more than that.”
Ryan certainly didn’t look like he’d been out of high school “a lot more than” a year. He looked about Ryan’s age, just an extremely well-put-together twenty instead of a self-described-disaster twenty. Must have been a damn good job he’d gotten.
“Regular mocha!” a barista called out, setting the drink on the counter.
A second barista almost immediately called out, “Cinnamon latte, extra whip!” and set that one down next to Brenden’s mocha.
Ryan picked up the cinnamon latte and then gestured to a table across the room. “Look, a table opened up. We could grab it before anyone else swoops in.”
“Er, sure,” Brenden said, picking up his mocha and following Ryan to the table. It made sense to share the table, considering how packed the café still was. Sharing with someone you’d at least said ‘hi’ to was a bit better than having to ask a complete stranger if you could sit next to them.
Brenden set his bag and his coat on the other empty chair at the table, not wanting them to touch the ground, which had snowmelt all over it. He prepared to dig out a book to read to pass the time.
But to his surprise, Ryan didn’t immediately pull out his phone or a book of his own or something else to pay attention to. He had a notebook with him, but he just set it down. Instead he looked at Brenden and asked, “So what are you studying in your classes? Let me guess… business major, maybe?”
“Nothing so practical, I’m afraid…” And then Brenden was explaining his weird decision to major in literature and minor in both anthropology and world history. “It’s awful!” he said with a laugh. “I know I’m condemning myself to a future of teaching, but I can’t help it, because I love the subjects so much, I just keep adding more classes.”
“Isn’t that a good thing, then?” Ryan asked. “If you love the subjects, you’re the one who should be teaching them, don’t you think? Your far-off-future students will be glad for a little enthusiasm.”
Ryan brushed his bangs to the side again, and took a sip of his latte. He was clearly waiting for Brenden to reply, and Brenden found himself a little tongue-tied. He was used to people—strangers, acquaintances, and friends alike—seeming almost disappointed in him for his choices. Usually this was the point in a conversation where he said something self-deprecating, or laughed about how impractical he was being.
“I guess I never really framed it that way,” Brenden admitted. “Everyone just tells me that that’s what I’m doing—condemning myself to being unsuited for anything except teaching—like it’s a bad thing, so I just sort of resigned myself to it. Not many people rushing to hire lit majors for anything else.”
“I mean, if you hate the idea of teaching, of course you should aim for something else, but don’t let some snide jerk convince you that it’s a terrible fate. You love the subjects: teaching other people to love them too doesn’t sound like the worst thing to me.”
“That’s a fair point,” Brenden said. And it was. He really had been thinking of teaching as something he was going to somehow be forced into, like a sad fallback plan, as if it wasn’t a worthy goal in and of itself. When his high-end event-planning brother and his environmental scientist sister sighed and shook their heads at him, he’d just accepted that he was the flighty slacker sibling.
He shook his head and broke out of his thoughts. “How about you?” he asked Ryan, acutely aware that he’d been the topic of conversation for far too long at this point. “You come to this café often?”
The alarm on Brenden’s phone went off, alerting him that he had twenty-five minutes until class started, and he needed to get going. He tapped the snooze button, buying himself an extra three minutes.
“Not really,” Ryan answered. “It was just a whim today. I’m usually not even over in this part of town. I just had an errand, and was really craving some caffeine. Glad I did.”
“Yeah, this café is pretty good,” Brenden said. “Outrageous number of peppermint holiday specials aside.”
Ryan smiled and took another sip of his latte. “At least peppermint season isn’t forever. Did you have to go?” He glanced pointedly at Brenden’s phone.
“Nah, I’m good for a few more minutes,” he said. Then Ryan wrote something in his notebook, and he worried that Ryan had been trying to hint to him that they should part ways. His brain struggled to find something else to ask Ryan to justify those extra few minutes. “So if you were going to go to school for something, what classes would you take?”
Ryan laughed and tore out the page he’d written on. “Oh, probably something wildly impractical, like literature.”
Brenden laughed along with him.
“Maybe you could tutor me,” Ryan said, grinning. “Since I’m a few years out of practice with academics.”
“It’d give me some practice for my inevitable teaching career,” Brenden said, stroking his chin in mock-thoughtfulness.
His snoozed alarm lit his phone back up, as it rang and vibrated across the table. He sighed, genuinely regretting that he had to break off the conversation. Ryan was nice to talk to, and just unfairly attractive. It wasn’t the kind of opportunity that Brenden had every day. “I really do have to get going,” he said apologetically, swiping the alarm off. “Or I’ll be late.”
22 minutes would already be cutting it close.
“No problem. I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time,” Ryan said. “It was good to talk to you.” Ryan stood up too, and handed Brenden his coat.
“Thanks. I hope you do decide to take some classes.”
“Thank you. And I hope you have good luck with yours.”
As Brenden rushed out into the cold outside air, he jammed his hands into his pockets. It was a shame he was unlikely to see Ryan again, since he admitted that he was never on this end of town.
His fingers brushed a folded piece of paper, which didn’t feel like a receipt. He pulled it out, and read the note below the phone number written on it.
I was hoping you’d ask for my number, but you didn’t take the hint, and I’m giving it to you anyway. Read between the lines, lit-major! And call me sometime. –Ryan
[This got a minor SPAG and word choice edit in 2023 when it was posted.]
The prompt was: "Your characters meet at a coffee shop and bond over their shared hatred of peppermint flavored drinks. When they leave, one of the characters is pretty sure they’ll never see the other person again, but guess whose number they find in their pocket?"
Summary: Brenden ducks into a coffee shop for a drink on his way to class, and meets a very cute stranger.
Fluffy, slice-of-life/meet-cute.
“We have a holiday special running,” chirped the barista at the register. “If you get one of our peppermint mochas, a second one is only a dollar!”
Brenden wrinkled his nose in disgust before he even thought about it. “Er, no thanks. Does the special apply to a regular mocha?”
“Sorry, no, just the seasonal peppermint.”
“Okay, I’ll get a medium regular mocha.”
“We have peppermint stir sticks for only fifty cents.”
“No thank you. I’m just not a big fan of peppermint.”
He paid for his drink, and went to wait at the bar and look out over the café. It was crowded, with no unoccupied tables. He sighed. He didn’t have class for another hour, and no way did he want to wait outside in this awful below-freezing weather.
The man who’d been behind him in line came up next to him at the bar. Judging by the line of cups on the counter in back, they’d both be waiting for a while.
“I thought it was just me,” the other man said.
Brenden glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, assuming the other man was on the phone or something. More than once he’d acknowledged some comment from a stranger only to get a weird look and belatedly realize they had a Bluetooth receiver clipped to their ear. This stranger was cute, dressed for the weather, yet looking like he’d stepped out of a fashion spread, with a black wool coat perfectly tailored to him, and red scarf artfully draped over his shoulders. Definitely the type who might have an earpiece.
“That disliked peppermint, I mean,” The stranger clarified. “This time of year is practically torture.”
“Oh,” Brenden replied, blinking. “Yeah, it’s all but unavoidable, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about it,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Suddenly everything has to have a candy cane in it. Perfectly self-respecting mochas, brownies, sugar cookies, ice cream, for heaven’s sake. All of them suddenly adulterated with peppermint.”
Brenden laughed.
“I’m Ryan, by the way,” the other man stuck a hand out.
Brenden took it. Ryan’s hand was warmer than his. “Brenden,” he introduced himself.
“Come to this coffee shop often?” Ryan asked, brushing his bangs to the side.
“Not real often,” Brenden said. “Just when the bus schedule and my classes don’t sync up quite right. It’s a nice spot to kill a few minutes out of the cold. My classes don’t start until 3:00 today.”
“Ah, you’re a student?” Ryan asked. “I’ve been thinking about maybe taking a few classes. I wanted to take a year off after high school, but then I got a job, and a year turned into, well, a lot more than that.”
Ryan certainly didn’t look like he’d been out of high school “a lot more than” a year. He looked about Ryan’s age, just an extremely well-put-together twenty instead of a self-described-disaster twenty. Must have been a damn good job he’d gotten.
“Regular mocha!” a barista called out, setting the drink on the counter.
A second barista almost immediately called out, “Cinnamon latte, extra whip!” and set that one down next to Brenden’s mocha.
Ryan picked up the cinnamon latte and then gestured to a table across the room. “Look, a table opened up. We could grab it before anyone else swoops in.”
“Er, sure,” Brenden said, picking up his mocha and following Ryan to the table. It made sense to share the table, considering how packed the café still was. Sharing with someone you’d at least said ‘hi’ to was a bit better than having to ask a complete stranger if you could sit next to them.
Brenden set his bag and his coat on the other empty chair at the table, not wanting them to touch the ground, which had snowmelt all over it. He prepared to dig out a book to read to pass the time.
But to his surprise, Ryan didn’t immediately pull out his phone or a book of his own or something else to pay attention to. He had a notebook with him, but he just set it down. Instead he looked at Brenden and asked, “So what are you studying in your classes? Let me guess… business major, maybe?”
“Nothing so practical, I’m afraid…” And then Brenden was explaining his weird decision to major in literature and minor in both anthropology and world history. “It’s awful!” he said with a laugh. “I know I’m condemning myself to a future of teaching, but I can’t help it, because I love the subjects so much, I just keep adding more classes.”
“Isn’t that a good thing, then?” Ryan asked. “If you love the subjects, you’re the one who should be teaching them, don’t you think? Your far-off-future students will be glad for a little enthusiasm.”
Ryan brushed his bangs to the side again, and took a sip of his latte. He was clearly waiting for Brenden to reply, and Brenden found himself a little tongue-tied. He was used to people—strangers, acquaintances, and friends alike—seeming almost disappointed in him for his choices. Usually this was the point in a conversation where he said something self-deprecating, or laughed about how impractical he was being.
“I guess I never really framed it that way,” Brenden admitted. “Everyone just tells me that that’s what I’m doing—condemning myself to being unsuited for anything except teaching—like it’s a bad thing, so I just sort of resigned myself to it. Not many people rushing to hire lit majors for anything else.”
“I mean, if you hate the idea of teaching, of course you should aim for something else, but don’t let some snide jerk convince you that it’s a terrible fate. You love the subjects: teaching other people to love them too doesn’t sound like the worst thing to me.”
“That’s a fair point,” Brenden said. And it was. He really had been thinking of teaching as something he was going to somehow be forced into, like a sad fallback plan, as if it wasn’t a worthy goal in and of itself. When his high-end event-planning brother and his environmental scientist sister sighed and shook their heads at him, he’d just accepted that he was the flighty slacker sibling.
He shook his head and broke out of his thoughts. “How about you?” he asked Ryan, acutely aware that he’d been the topic of conversation for far too long at this point. “You come to this café often?”
The alarm on Brenden’s phone went off, alerting him that he had twenty-five minutes until class started, and he needed to get going. He tapped the snooze button, buying himself an extra three minutes.
“Not really,” Ryan answered. “It was just a whim today. I’m usually not even over in this part of town. I just had an errand, and was really craving some caffeine. Glad I did.”
“Yeah, this café is pretty good,” Brenden said. “Outrageous number of peppermint holiday specials aside.”
Ryan smiled and took another sip of his latte. “At least peppermint season isn’t forever. Did you have to go?” He glanced pointedly at Brenden’s phone.
“Nah, I’m good for a few more minutes,” he said. Then Ryan wrote something in his notebook, and he worried that Ryan had been trying to hint to him that they should part ways. His brain struggled to find something else to ask Ryan to justify those extra few minutes. “So if you were going to go to school for something, what classes would you take?”
Ryan laughed and tore out the page he’d written on. “Oh, probably something wildly impractical, like literature.”
Brenden laughed along with him.
“Maybe you could tutor me,” Ryan said, grinning. “Since I’m a few years out of practice with academics.”
“It’d give me some practice for my inevitable teaching career,” Brenden said, stroking his chin in mock-thoughtfulness.
His snoozed alarm lit his phone back up, as it rang and vibrated across the table. He sighed, genuinely regretting that he had to break off the conversation. Ryan was nice to talk to, and just unfairly attractive. It wasn’t the kind of opportunity that Brenden had every day. “I really do have to get going,” he said apologetically, swiping the alarm off. “Or I’ll be late.”
22 minutes would already be cutting it close.
“No problem. I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time,” Ryan said. “It was good to talk to you.” Ryan stood up too, and handed Brenden his coat.
“Thanks. I hope you do decide to take some classes.”
“Thank you. And I hope you have good luck with yours.”
As Brenden rushed out into the cold outside air, he jammed his hands into his pockets. It was a shame he was unlikely to see Ryan again, since he admitted that he was never on this end of town.
His fingers brushed a folded piece of paper, which didn’t feel like a receipt. He pulled it out, and read the note below the phone number written on it.
I was hoping you’d ask for my number, but you didn’t take the hint, and I’m giving it to you anyway. Read between the lines, lit-major! And call me sometime. –Ryan
[This got a minor SPAG and word choice edit in 2023 when it was posted.]
