Chapter Text
The April sun streamed in through the wide cafe windows, bathing Martin in its golden light. Between the soporific warmth weighing on his eyelids and the dull ache of his feet after a long morning spent bustling about on linoleum floors, he was halfway asleep while still standing.
“So yeah, that’s about it!”
Martin jerked out of his dreamy haze to find his new co-worker (who admittedly had been droning on for quite a while) staring at him expectantly. He blinked and tried to look as though he’d been paying attention the whole time. “It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it,” they said. “Think you’re ready to give it a try?”
Martin nodded and his co-worker gestured to the POS system bolted to the counter. They’d introduced themself earlier in the conversation, but he’d been so nervous about keeping up on his first day that he’d promptly forgotten their name. Caden, maybe? Cami?
They tightened their slicked back ponytail and crossed their arms. “Ok, ring up a small vanilla latte for me. Iced, with oat milk.”
He punched in the order, hands shaking slightly. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous. It wasn’t like this was his first job. It wasn’t even his first cafe job.
It was, however, his first job since “the incident”.
His throat tightened as his finger hovered over the touchscreen. His head began to throb, a rhythmic pulse like a clock tick-tick-ticking in the dead of night, and his vision blurred, the digital screen of the POS going hazy before his eyes.
He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Waited for his pulse to slow.
Best not to think about that on his first day.
His eyes snapped open as his coworker craned their head over his shoulder to check his work, and he took the opportunity to check their name tag. Cara . He added their name to the avalanche of information that had been poured into his brain that morning and prayed he’d remember it. “Looks good.” They glanced around the cafe, completely empty but for a smattering of empty coffee cups on the tables. “Think you can run the register for a few minutes? I’m dying for a smoke break.”
“Sure thing.” Martin pressed a few buttons to clear the practice order from the screen.
Cara flashed him a bright smile. “You’re a lifesaver. Yell if you need me, yeah?”
Martin nodded, his answering smile tight with nerves, and Cara disappeared through the door behind the counter.
The morning had been predictably busy, a nonstop line of customers nearly out the door as Martin had hovered anxiously over Cara’s shoulder, occasionally grabbing a muffin or croissant from the case as their hands flew to punch in orders. But as the afternoon crept towards closing time, the foot traffic had slowed, then stopped completely, leaving the cafe almost hauntingly quiet.
Beanboozled was a rather corporate, antiseptic kind of place: stainless steel chairs with those narrow, uncomfortable seats, plywood tables plastered over with marble contact paper, a wall of plastic greenery with a pink neon sign that read “Don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee.” Not exactly cosy or charming or any of the other things Martin thought a cafe should be, but he didn’t have the luxury of being picky. They had been eager to hire, and hadn’t seemed to care about the six month employment gap on his CV.
And Martin needed a job, desperately. Not just for the money, though he certainly needed that. He had long since burned through his meager savings, and was largely living off his credit card, watching anxiously day by day as his debts grew. But more than that, he needed out of his flat: away from the nightmares and the sleepless nights, away from the fits that left his chest squeezing tight around his lungs until he thought they’d collapse, away from those awful lost days, stark in his mind like missing slats in a white picket fence.
He nodded to himself. This was good. Being around people, having something to wake up and put on pants for. He had no idea where his life was going, but for now, making cappuccinos for frazzled undergrads was enough purpose for him.
Ting! The front door swung open and a slight, dark-haired man in a deep green sweater entered. He looked up at the bell, as though startled by his own entrance, and his eyes locked on Martin.
A familiar and terrible wave of vertigo hit Martin, pouring in like a breaking dam until he was drowning, clawing for the surface as the air was crushed from his lungs. Screeching steel and crashing stone and a high-pitched squeal that sounded like a malfunctioning VCR flooded his ears. His vision went green and hazy at the edges, and he swayed for a moment, clutching the countertop, prepared to collapse.
Oh god, he was going to faint. Or puke. Or both. First day on the job, and he was going to freak out and ruin everything the first second he was left alone.
He stifled the urge to call for Cara and breathed deeply, the breath hissing through his nostrils. Get it together, Blackwood, he chided himself viciously. That odd green glow began to fade from his vision as he forced himself to breathe.
It was just one customer. He could handle one customer, right? He wasn’t going to let the incident destroy him, not today, when he had actually made the effort to move on with his life.
He glanced up to see the customer staring at him, his eyes wide and dark. His mouth hung open, his lips trembling slightly, and his hands were clasped so tightly around the strap of his messenger bag that his knuckles had gone pale.
God, did Martin look that bad?
He straightened up and plastered on his best customer service smile.”Sorry about that. Just a touch of vertigo.” The man blinked rapidly and snapped his mouth closed, nodding vaguely. He was still staring at Martin like startled deer as he approached the counter.
“Welcome to Beanboozled. What can I get for you?”
The man pulled up short and gave him a quizzical stare. Now that Martin got a closer look at him, he had quite a few scars, all faded as though they were from very old injuries. A honeycomb of pale circles dotted the side of his neck and cheek, and a clinically straight line bisected his throat. Martin wondered idly what kind of surgery would produce a scar like that. “Bean boozled ?”
Martin laughed nervously. “It’s a pun. You know, like coffee beans?”
The man’s brow furrowed further. “I understand the pun. I just don’t understand why .” He cocked his head. His voice was deep and dry, and something about it sent a nauseous thrill down Martin’s spine. “Is a cafe supposed to be bamboozling?”
“Uh, I don’t know.” Martin glanced over his shoulder at the employee entrance, willing Cara to appear. “They didn’t really cover that in training.”
The man snorted at that, and Martin breathed a small sigh of relief. A customer lodging a complaint with corporate would have been a sour note to end his first day with. “I suppose it’ll have to remain a mystery.”
“I guess so,” Martin said. “So, um, can I get you anything?”
“A black coffee. For here, please.”
Easy enough, for his first order. Martin began typing it in. “Anything else?”
“No, just the-” The man paused as his phone dinged in his pocket. He pulled it out, frowned at the notification on the screen, then rolled his eyes and pocketed the phone once again. “Actually, can I get-” He glanced over at the pastry case, “-one of those scones as well?”
Martin nodded. “What kind?”
The man sighed, as though asking his scone preference was a huge imposition. “Whatever you think is best.”
“Uhh, okay then.” Martin glanced over at the dwindling array of pastries left in the display case. “A cranberry scone it is then. Anything else?”
“That will be all.” The man dug in his pocket for his wallet and handed Martin a sleek and surprisingly heavy black credit card.
“Great,” Martin said, swiping the card and handing it back. “You can go ahead and take a seat. I’ll have your order out in just a moment.”
The man pulled out his phone, typing furiously as he walked away without so much as a thank you. Martin suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.
Martin kept watch on the man out of the corner of his eye as he poured a cup of coffee and selected one of the few remaining scones from the display case. The strange man took a seat by one of the windows. He was nicely dressed, a dark green sweater over a crisp white button down, tucked into a sharply pleated pair of plaid wool trousers. Martin was certain the clothes were expensive. They had that look: no sheen of polyester and spandex, but instead that soft, deep kind of color you only got from natural fibers. They also fitted impeccably, draping in a way that made the man look like he’d just walked out a Pinterest fashion board, speaking to an incredibly detailed amount of tailoring.
But despite their obvious expense, he wore his clothes carelessly. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbow, baring more honeycomb scars up his forearms and a rather nasty looking burn over his right hand, and his dark, shining hair, threaded through with gray, was tangled haphazardly into a bun. He had undone the first few buttons of his shirt, tugging the collar away from his neck as though it had personally offended him, as though he wasn’t the one who had woken up and put those clothes on that morning.
Maybe he had some kind of high-powered job with a strict dress code. Martin could understand that. It wasn’t as though he were wearing this polyester apron because it was so stylish.
Within minutes, Martin deposited the coffee and scone at the man’s table. His phone lay face down before him, and he was absorbed in a tattered paperback.
“One black coffee and one cranberry scone.”
The man glanced up, blinking a few times before his gaze focused on Martin. “Oh, thank you.”
Martin gave him a tight smile. “Sure thing.” He cleared his throat and glanced back towards the register. No customers, and Cara was still MIA. “So, uh, what are you reading?”
The man had to look at the cover, as though he hadn’t looked at the book before he picked it out for the day. “ Killing Eyes ,” he said with a grimace. “Some kind of 80s horror drivel.”
Martin huffed a laugh. “I assume it’s not up to par then.”
“That would be a safe assumption.” The man gave him an awkward smile. “That’s what I get for trying something new. I’m just terribly bored of all the authors on my shelf at home. I feel like once I’ve read one of their books, I’ve read them all.”
“Ah, that’s a shame. I love a good re-read.”
The man shuddered visibly, as though he had admitted to putting steak sauce on his ice cream. Martin barely smothered a laugh. “How can you stand reading a book that you already know the ending to?”
Martin shrugged. “There’s more to a story than just being surprised by the ending. I mean, Romeo and Juliet starts by telling you how the story ends. But it doesn’t matter, because what’s important is everything that happens along the way.”
The man set his book down at that, not even bothering to mark his place. He stared at Martin with his dark and piercing eyes, his expression difficult to decipher. “I’ve never thought of it like that.”
Martin laughed nervously, glancing away to break the intensity of the man’s lingering gaze. It made him feel a bit ill, actually, though he wasn’t sure why. “Guess it’s another mystery for you to think about.”
The man didn’t even smile. “I suppose so.”
Ting! The front door swung open again, admitting a gaggle of twentysomethings with overfilled backpacks. “I better go take care of them. Let me know if you need anything.”
Martin turned and began to walk away, but the man’s voice stopped him.
“What’s your name?” He was still watching Martin with that inscrutable gaze. Martin prayed he wasn’t just asking for his name to write up a complaint.
“Martin.”
The man nodded once, smart and businesslike. “I’m Jon.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Jon didn’t respond. He just went back to his book, leaving Martin to attend to the three under-caffeinated freshmen at his register.
And if someone had asked, he would have assured them he didn’t glance over at Jon’s table before his shift ended.
Not even once.