The Regular

Chapter 1

“I hate this place, why do you make me come here?” I moaned, sliding down in my chair like a whiny child. It was my day off, and my best friend Mona had dragged me out with promises of coffee, only to pick the one place I dreaded going to.

“What’s wrong with it?” Mona said brushing a long strand of dark hair away from her round face, “You work here,” She said it as if wanting to go to your place of work on your day off was a completely rational idea.

“Exactly,” I said rolling my eyes, “I try to limit my time here to the essentials like working. And I barely want to do that sometimes.” It was true. I loved coffee, but getting up at the c***k of dawn to make and serve it to people was something completely different. 

“Oh, come on. I like the iced tea,” Mona coaxed, sipping through her straw. She pulled out a wedge of a brownie and held it out to me. 

“Want some?” She said smiling. Little brownie bits clung to her gums.

“God, Mona, that’s disgusting,” I said with a laugh, playfully swatting her away. She began to eat, carelessly letting brownie crumbs fall into her cleavage without care. She had spent all night staying up trying to beat whatever video game she was currently obsessed with and probably had been wearing that same grubby old navy blue hoodie for days now. Mona lacked the social graces most people put on in public, and I loved that about her.  I sat back, sipping on my cappuccino. I opened the lid, the bubbles in the foam were much too large, and it seemed a little heavy.

“These idiots must have slept through training. Is it that hard to steam milk?” I grumbled. Without thinking I slammed the cup down, slightly spraying foam on the table and over the front of my dress. I brushed the foamy mess off of my chest with a napkin and it left little streaks. Thankfully being the cheapskate that I am, it only cost a couple of dollars at the local thrift store and wasn’t necessarily something to worry about. I decided to channel some of Mona’s carefree vibes for a moment. I was getting way too worked up over little things these days and it was starting to show.

“You’re full of angst today, Lucy,” Mona said as she began picking crumbs out of her bra and eating them as if nobody was looking.

“I am not,” I defended, but she shot a look of skepticism back that made me shrink into my seat, “Okay, maybe a little. I’m just frustrated, that’s all.” I nervously fussed with my overgrown, bleach blonde curtain bangs, twirling them outward with both hands. It was obvious I was trying to avoid talking about the origins of my frustrations. 

“Why, because of Travis? You never tell me anything about him,” she said, looking disappointed. Mona lives for drama, and I could tell she was anxious for me to fill her in. I knew that there was no way I was getting out of this without her pressing me further.

“What’s there to tell?” I sighed. “He’s your typical extroverted, overprotective male with bad music taste. My life might as well be a daytime soap opera.”

“But he’s so hot,” she said dreamily. I shot her a glare. 

“Yeah, but he’s not cool at all,” I argued. In my book, cool points went a lot farther than looks, but I had a hard time explaining that to Mona who spent most days drooling over K-Pop idols on the internet. 

“What’s so wrong with that as long as you have some eye candy?” Mona gave me a wink. I had a fleeting suspicion she would date a cardboard cutout as long as it was attractive. 

“All he did on our last date was open doors for me, and we went to this diner and he ordered a whole plate of bacon and nothing else. How gross is that?” I complained.

“I like bacon,” Mona said, “I’d let him rub bacon all over me if he wanted. God, that's so hot. That should be a porno.” Her gaze drifted off to the ceiling, and far dirtier regions of her mind.

I wrinkled my face in disgust. 

“Gross. Can you imagine getting all that grease off afterward?” I shook the thought from my head, “That’s beside the point, anyway. And you could tell the entire time we were hanging out, all he wanted to do was make out with me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, that’s nice and all, but seriously? And what’s worse, he didn’t even have a clue who Andy Warhol was when I was talking about a book on art history I was reading.”

“God, how horrifying,” Mona said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. 

“You’re telling me, I’m practically dating him,” I said, trying to ignore her attitude. 

“Wait, it’s official?" Mona’s large round caramel eyes widened in surprise.

“I guess. I mean, I don’t think it’s really hit me yet,” I said, pondering the situation, “But have you seen his f*******: profile? He changed his relationship status. And we’re in the car and he asked me if I saw his profile. As if that is supposed to validate things. But, I figure that I might just give it a try. He does have a car, after all. I am getting tired of riding my bike everywhere.” As soon as it came out of my mouth I realized how ridiculous it sounded. Who dates a guy so he can give her rides? Isn’t that what rideshare apps are for? Maybe I was going about this dating thing the wrong way. I was never good at it, to begin with.

“Well, if it doesn’t work out, I’ll date him!” Mona said cheerfully.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure that Ben has dibs on him next,” I said, fixing my gaze to the skinny blonde guy behind the counter, throwing biscotti at the other baristas. 

“He grabbed my phone the other day and started texting Travis pretending to be me,” I whispered as I leaned in towards Mona. 

“What did Ben text him?” Mona gasped, mirroring my gesture. 

“I love you,” I groaned.

“Ha! Are you serious?!” Mona pulled back, laughing.

“Yeah," I started. "And then Ben told me that he would totally do Travis if he had the opportunity. God, I had to do hours of damage control after that,” I groaned dramatically.

“I can’t believe I get sloppy, greasy bacon thirds,” Mona sighed. "Better than nothing. Do you think he likes to play Street Fighter naked?" Her eyes gleamed mischievously. 

“Large four-shot nonfat no-whip mocha!” Ben shouted at the counter. 

  “Oh no Mona, hide me,” I gasped dramatically as I realized that distinct order being called out. I scanned my immediate surroundings frantically looking for an escape route.

“What?” She said, squinting around me. But it was too late.

“Hi Lucy,” a cheery voice called behind me. I turned around. It was him, Mocha Guy. He stood there sheepishly, his brown disheveled hair falling over his forehead. He was wearing a crooked pair of Buddy Holly glasses and a black t-shirt with jeans which seemed to be his daily guy uniform.

“Oh, must be your day off,” he said, “I was hoping I’d run into you, I thought you usually worked on Tuesdays, but it looks like you’re having a bit off an off day.” I felt a bit creeped out that he seemed to have memorized my schedule like some kind of stalker. 

“I guess that’s a way of describing it,” I said, my voice flattening and my eyes narrowing.

“Well, aren’t I lucky to run into you,” he continued with a nervous chuckle. 

“Right,” I said, squinting my nose, “We were just leaving.” I stood up, giving Mona the don’t-ask-any-questions-just-leave-or-else look and she followed.

“Okay, well, nice to see you, Lucy!” He called as I grabbed Mona’s arm and whipped her around the maze of tables and customers waiting impatiently in line. When we got outside, Mona looked around confused. I heaved a sigh of relief, happy to be out of that place, and away from that eerie feeling Mocha Guy just gave me.

“Who was that dork?” she asked.

“He’s totally stalking me, he comes in every day and orders the same thing. I call him Mocha Guy. He totally gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Weird. Since when has he been doing this?” Mona asked, her tone going from silly to concerned.

“I have no idea. He just showed up one day, asked me how his new haircut looked, and then started coming back every day since,” I explained.

“You know,” Mona began, “Maybe he just likes the mochas, didn’t you ever think about that?”

“Yeah right, Mona. As if he simply just loves mochas. For one, those things are over five dollars, and more importantly, he’s obviously in love with me,” I said, giving her my famous could-you-be-any-more-absurd look.

Mona sighed, “I wish I had a stalker. Would definitely make romance much easier.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said glaring, “Look, do you want to meet up later or what?” I crossed my arms against my chest impatiently.

“I thought I might stay home tonight. Spend some quality time with my new game and stuff. But in all reality I’ll probably just eat some pizza bagels and watch some Netflix in my underwear,” she said with a shrug.

“Fine. I’ll be at home reading that book I stole from the library if you want to call me whenever you’re done being boring,” I said smugly.

“Okay well, I’ll call you later then,” Mona laughed, “And Lucy?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell Travis I said hi?”

The next day, I found myself up to my knees in coffee.

“Hey,” I said acknowledging Martin, one of the employees, as he walked through the door, bursting with the hint of a hangover and possibly more.

“Huh, what?” Martin managed to mumble.

“I said hey?” I said, miming a hello. 

“Awesome. Hey,” he said, dragging a skateboard behind him.

“Martin, for the love of all that is caffeinated, how many times do I have to tell you to leave your board in the back?” I nagged, then caught myself. I tried my hardest not to take my management position too seriously like others at the store. I didn’t want to be the bad guy all the time, but more often than not it was necessary. I often felt more like a glorified babysitter that also happens to serve coffee drinks. 

“Just make sure Carl doesn’t see it okay?” I corrected myself, “And did you happen to see Ben on your way in? He’s late.”

“Didn’t see nothin’,” Martin said as he fumbled to tie his black apron. Classic Martin, always staying out of things. 

“Apparently,” I grumbled and began to fill the hoppers with beans. I gave a sigh of relief as I saw Ben with his face pressed against the glass outside, making faces.

“Ben!” I hissed in his direction. He couldn’t hear me, so I gave him my giving-you-one-warning glare and he scrambled in, leaving a trail of ghost-like smudge marks on the window. Yet another thing I’d have to clean up today before the end of my shift.

“Lucy darling!” He shrieked as he burst into the door, giving us a demonstration of his infamous entrances complete with a catwalk strut straight out of Fashion Week.

“Guess what?” he squealed with delight.

“You decided to show up?” I said sarcastically.

“Even better!” He beamed, “Okay, so I was totally on my way here. And I would have been on time but then I saw this guy jogging down the street,” he said, between fits of giggles.

“What?” I asked with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.

“Well,” he said ignoring me, “He was wearing a pink spandex running suit. Okay, are you ready for this? A neon green fanny pack! Of all things!”

“Ben, what the hell?” I said. I was not in the mood for one of Ben’s outrageous stories.

“So, I followed him for a couple of blocks,” he continued. “You know, to see if I wasn’t hallucinating. Well, turns out I wasn’t,” he explained.

Martin laughed, “That guy’s on your team.”

“Who’s team? Mine or Ben’s?” I said whirling around to face Martin’s smug expression.

“Pssh, whatever,” he said with a smirk, “he’s so on yours.”

“How can he be on my team if I’ve never even seen him? Ben’s the one who found him,” I argued. “Rules are rules!”

“Hmm, I see your logic. Ben, that dude is on your team,” Martin concluded.

“What are you talking about? What team?” Ben wailed. Martin and I exchanged glances.

“Well,” Martin explained, “You know how there’s always that kid who gets picked last in P.E. or whatever because he’s totally just, you know?”

“Okay,” Ben said, “Yeah." His eyes widened. 

“Well, if you see a person like that, like that weird dude, then you call it out. It’s kind of like that slug bug game. But, with weird people,” Martin said.

“Wanna see a pic I took on my phone?” Ben said waving his cell around.

“Maybe later,” I said, handing him a clean apron.

The day dragged on mercilessly. The coffee shop was crowded, people were angry, the espresso machine decided to have a mechanical aneurysm, and Ben had reverted back to his four-year-old self.

“Lucy!” he shouted. I turned to look, but my reactions were slow. A biscotti hit me between the eyes, splattering crumbs and chocolate all over my face and onto the floor.

“Damn!” I shouted, a little too loudly on my part. The store momentarily became silent. Ben giggled and went back to ringing up customer orders. Luckily I only had an hour left on my shift. I wanted nothing more than to go home, take a shower, and pass out silently in my bed.

My apron pocket began to vibrate letting me know I had received a text. We weren’t allowed to have cell phones on us, but we all did nonetheless. I ducked down quickly by the fridge where nobody would see me and pretended to be looking for milk. It was Travis.

"Hey babe", the text read. I hate it when guys call me babe. I feel so cliché’.

I shoved my phone back into my apron and grimaced my way over to the espresso machine. Noticing my expression, Ben hurried over, likely trying to get the latest bit of drama. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked sweetly, his eyebrows raising.

“Nothing,” I muttered, walking over to the counter and burying my face in it.

“You and Travis hooked up, didn’t you?” He asked, poking me in the back with a metal spoon trying to get me to get off of the counter.

“Shut up,” I growled. If I could fit under the counter, I would have gladly crawled under there.

“Oh my goodness, you did!” He gasped again, so excitedly, that his arms went up and the spoon went flying, startling a customer who spilled coffee all down their shirt.

“Oops!” He shouted, and ducked under the counter, grabbing me on the way down and dragging me down to the floor. We could hear the customer shouting, but he ignored it.

“So?” he prodded.

“I think I’m just going to call a pass on this one, pull the old ‘it never happened’ card. I don’t exactly call doing me from behind with your pants still on for forty-five seconds in a Denny's parking lot ‘doing it’, do you?” I explained.

“I always considered him to be more of a tender, but slightly stern lover. One that’s gonna give it to you all night long and maybe punish you a little,” Ben sighed, clearly deep in some weird fantasy.

“Please tell me you haven’t been fantasizing about this. He only texted me once since but it was days after the fact,” I muttered, “Which is weird because we talk every single day. Man, I must have been sexually desperate this week.”

“What a creep, and yes. s****l desperation gets the best of us,” Ben said dreamily as the spoon came flying back at us.

“Oh,” Ben said, crawling over to the register and pulling down a sheet of paper and handing it to me, “Carl left this for you.”

“God, what now?” I grumbled looking at the angry handwriting, “Not another one!”

“What is it?” Ben asked, peeking over my shoulder.

“Apparently I’m not doing anything around here or something. Our manager is a creep,” I said, taking the note and ripping it up angrily.

“Hello? Can I get some service in this place?” An angry voice shouted on the other side of the register. Ben popped up to greet them. I continued to stay under the counter with my head pressed into my knees. Nothing seemed to be going well this week. 

“You gonna be okay down there?” Ben whispered.

“I’m a little depressed, Ben, if you haven’t noticed,” I mumbled. And, I was. It was killing me. I felt like a total reject because I felt like I was being ignored and sexually unfulfilled. 

“Go take a breather, Lucy. It wouldn’t hurt,” Ben offered, kicking me in the direction of the door lightly with his foot and promptly calling out an order to Martin.

“Good idea. Thanks, Ben,” I said on my hands and knees. I nearly tripped someone as I crawled my way out.

“Oh, I’m really sorry,” I apologized, looking up. It was Mocha Guy. Could this day get any worse?

“Lucy, what were you doing down there?” He asked, looking puzzled at me on all fours. I stood up, straightened my apron, and tried to compose myself.

“Uh," I started.

“You were hiding from me,” he said jokingly with a wink. 

“I don’t really know what I was doing down there. Just a typical workday, I guess,” I said as I began to walk outside. He followed holding his mocha in a hand that seemed to be shaking nervously. We stood there awkwardly looking out at the parking lot.

“Hey,” I said again, “I don’t even know your name.” I was trying to make polite conversation considering I was on the clock, and that was kind of a part of the job, after all.

“Simon,” he replied quickly.

“Nice to meet you. Officially, I mean,” I said as we stood outside. We stood in awkward silence again.

“Do you want to get dinner sometime?” he asked abruptly.

“You mean together? With you?” I said, my eyes shifting suspiciously towards him.

“That was weird, I’m sorry, I can't remember the last time I asked anyone out,” he said, looking down at his shoes. “I should go.” He started walking rigidly away from me.

“Wait!” I called after him. He spun around.

“Why do you like mochas so much?” I asked. He looked down at the mocha in his hand and stared at it thoughtfully for a moment.

“Honestly? I think your menu is intimidating. You can never go wrong with chocolate, right? Plus I need the buzz if I’m gonna get through the workday,” He explained. 

“Wow, you really killed the fantasy,” I said, shaking my head.

“The fantasy?” He said, raising an eyebrow.

“I may be going against my code of baristas by telling you this, but we like to guess the reason repeat customers order what they order,” I explained.

“And what exactly did you guys guess me as?” He asked nervously.

“Now that, I can’t tell you. It would spoil my fun. I should get back to work, actually. Leaving those two in there is like letting a couple of monkeys loose,” I said.

“Okay, I should go too. Bye Lucy,” he said waving as he walked away, out of the parking lot. I stood there watching him briefly. 

“Hey Simon,” I called after him again, “Give me your phone for a second.” He looked at me curiously, then pulled his phone out of his pocket. As if I was being controlled like a marionette by unseen forces, I plugged my number into his contacts. 

What was I thinking? Oh my god, I’m giving him my number. Am I insane? What if he’s crazy, like really crazy? I hand the phone back to him and he looks from the screen to me in absolute disbelief. 

“I’ll give you a call,” he said with a smile. What is wrong with me? I have a sort of boyfriend awkward friend with confusing benefits!

“Bye, Lucy,” he waved. Oh crap. I’m delirious. He’s going to drive by my apartment at three in the morning and I’m going to regret this day forever. What possessed me? 

“Lucy!” Ben’s sharp voice rang out behind me. 

“What?” I slurred, turning around, Ben was beckoning to me from the front door. He looked overwhelmed.

“Help me! Please?” He said, giving me his infamous big-eyed kitten face.

I followed him back inside, making my way back behind the counter, and started to call orders down the line.

“What was that all about?” Ben whispered.

“I think I just gave my number to Mocha Guy,” I whispered back.

“No way!” Ben shrieked in high decibels. A woman in line nearly choked on a croissant. A man spilled coffee on his shirt, and far off in China, a baby started to cry.