Gathering her thoughts together once again she listened more, the next sound that caught her attention was a soft piano play with merged perfectly with the sound of the rain outside. She wasn’t a musician and didn’t know much about piano but she recognised this one. It was the [ Rain from Tony Ann ] which she liked very much and would listen to from time to time. The mix of it and the sound of the water outside made her let go and listen to it with a calm mind. As time passed the track came to an end and she started to collect herself together. It was a good breath time for her to leak the wounds she had got from the job’s stress.

After picking herself together she was ready to open her eyes but another sound caught her attention. It was a low, unhurried rhythmic sound of clicking and tapping. It wasn’t sharp and clear but it was mixing well enough with the humming sound of the crowd around her. As she listened to it, its low rhythm was becoming addictive to her and she was starting to like it; especially the slightly deeper and sharper sound of the middle key which was like a weak current in the noises which would make it more enjoyable but all of this was broken by a sudden insert of a deep and full of energy voice.

“Miss, please forgive me for entreating your enjoyment”

With that, our protagonist, who was sure that not a single female was at this table, other than her, opened her eyes and followed the voice to hunt the owner of it, who broke her rare enjoyment.

The person who spoke was a tall and slightly muscular man in his late 20s. And as to why he was a man and the boy in front of her wasn’t; she could tell the difference from their demeanours as well as their eyes.

The man was wearing a coffee shop uniform, which was composed of a striped shirt with black lines and a half-belt black apron at the lower half and beneath that, he had a black cotton pant with black lither shoes at the end.

He had a short blond bear a pointed chin, a straight nose and greenish eyes with short blond hair. He had two ear piercings at each ear and his lips were slightly crocked at both ends making a small, polite smile.

All in all, he was a standard handsome, knight on the white horse. Completely different to the bookish boy in front of her. She didn’t even know why would she compare them but anyway, she did so.

“ Is there anything I need to do?” After knowing that the person in front of her was the waiter there and she couldn’t get angry over spoiling her enjoyment she asked him for his reason for interruption.

“ I’m here to give you our menu and if needed, to help our Miss to make a choice, as you are our new guest here. This is one of our services to the new guests here.” As he said those words he handed her a semi-booklet menu of the coffee shop.

She grabbed the menu but as she could see his sightly dishonest and naughty eyes, she refused his help.

“ Nah, I’m fine. I’ll order myself. Thank you for the offer”

'She definitely didn’t refuse him because he disturbed her mood. Yeah, definitely not.'

As she opened the menu to take a look, the waiter shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t care, which he definitely did, and turned around to face the boy who had raised his head to look over them at some point and said:

“ What about you Raymond? Do you want anything else?”

“ You know me Jason; hey, don’t give me that kind of look. Also, there are still fifteen minutes to the next coffee.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The waiter, who should be named Jason, smiled teasingly with an obvious bad intention.

“ What? I thought after sharing a table with a lady for the first time in your whole life, you would want a double espresso; so your brain wouldn't shot down.”

From the moment Jason started to talk to the boy, or rather, to Raymond, she was paying attention. And after those last words of Jason, her impression of him fell to rock bottom. She hates guys like him, who will hit others to show themselves off or to make a moment of happiness for themselves over the embarrassment of the others. Based on her experience, she could imagine how embarrassed the boy, Raymond, would be.

'Well, it's better to call him a boy, calling him directly by his name doesn’t sound good, even though I’m thinking in my own head. Let’s call him a boy for now.'

Out of sympathy, she didn’t raise her head but still peeked at him sneakily to see his face but she wasn’t sad for a moment when the boy answered Jason with a straight but completely unrelated comeback.

“ At least I wasn’t dumped once, every three weeks or slapped more than two times at work.”

[ Oh my god. He said that with such a straight face and calm tone. Jason is dead for sure. ]

And Jason’s face was really too bad to look at this moment. She was sure that if someone stabbed him with a knife at this moment he wouldn’t bleed at all. Cause all the blood in his body has rushed to his face. His face was so tangled that would scare kids to have nightmares for nights. But it didn’t last long, he took a breath and calmed down. And tried to make a statement to fix this up but before he could say anything the boy started talking again.

“ You asked for it. You know I don’t like this kind of joke. Also, you are right and I haven’t had a girlfriend till now; it isn’t without the point that I don’t have much free time to spare. My only free time is also spent here with you guys trying to do my little hobbies. So next time please stop throwing such jokes.”

“All right this time you win. I’ll bring your coffee in fifteen minutes.”

“ Thanks for the trouble.”

With that, he even nodded at Jason after slapping him so badly. But there was a lot of information that moved between the two of them which attracted her attention. Sadly before she could think over them Jason said to her:

“ Miss, once you made your decision call one of us to bring you your order.“

“Okey. I’ll do so as you said once I’m done making a decision.”

And so she watched him turn around grumpy and angrily back to the island-like counter.

With this little episode over she turned her head to look at the menu.

“ …Him… let’s see… what is there… Espresso… Americano… Red Eye… Lungo… which one should I choose? Really there are a lot of them and I don’t know how they are. Maybe I should have taken his offer of help…”

As she read the menu she unconnectedly talked to herself in a low voice which only herself could hear. But the boy opposite to her had already noticed her troubled expression and figured out the reason for it.

“ The hot drinks here are mostly excellent. Despite their few bad waiters, the coffee here is one of the best or else it wouldn’t have been so popular. Also, the monopolisation as well as the lack of desire to go to a farther place have a point in it too but I think the biggest reason for its population is the quality of its coffee. Not to mention that its deserts are also fresh and delicious.”

His calm and collected words and calm face without the wrong signals as well as her fondness from before made her raise her head and listen to his guidance.

“ You are new here; aren’t you? My name is Raymond, if you have questions about the menu I should be able to help.”