Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

With the wine-colored apron tied snug around her waist, Rose couldn’t deny she resembled a summer sausage right out of the Salty & Savory Snack Bin. It was only the shiny gold name tag balanced on her right boob that confirmed she was the manager—ok, fine, the only employee— of the Cloud City franchise of the internationally recognized food and gift juggernaut, Hays Candies & More. 

And that—plus the fact that she knew deep red looked stunning on her—had to be worth something. 

Before last semester, a seasonal job at a holiday pop up had never been her plan. But she was nothing if not an opportunist. This job was right off campus and paid enough to keep her in fancy ramen ’till New Year’s. And the work wasn’t so bad—great experience, actually. She would run the entire operation, make lattes from a simple menu—despite the best efforts of a fancy First Order StarGrinder 3000 espresso machine constantly on the fritz—and sell gift baskets chock full of savories, fruit, and wine to shoppers needing to bestow something impersonal but overpriced at the very last minute. 

Her navy blouse spangled with stars, her dark denim jeans, and her black chucks were all cute, but the apron which covered them was a must. Anyhow, there was no time to second guess the outfit. It was nearly six in the morning on day one. Black Friday itself. 

Go time. 

And, sure, it started kind of slow. Through the Hays corporation, she’d rented a pocket-sized shop in the corner of an old strip mall and it didn’t get much traffic in the age of online shopping and box store sales. Plus, a Starbucks fronted the strip mall so no one came to her specifically for a drink. But she had a few browsers, mostly older women who looked like the type to have finished Christmas shopping for their grandchildren ages ago, but still went out on Black Friday to see what deals they could snatch up. She even made a few peppermint lattes and a couple of mochas to order with minimal fuss. 

So the store was deathly quiet and she was getting a little bored, which is the excuse she made to herself later when he walked in and she unabashedly, uncontrollably, rudely stared.

She had thought, maybe, that cheekbones that eye-catching and a jawline that sharp only existed in the movies. That elegant men in dark three-piece suits and silver-plated pocket watches didn’t just walk into your life, their sea-green eyes glittering in your direction with an intensity barely undercut by the Muppets singing The Twelve Days of Christmas boisterously in the background. Legs so long, if he’d taken the three or four strides necessary to cross her showroom floor, such as it was, he’d be close enough to kiss her, if he deigned to bend himself in half. 

Rose blinked. Perhaps she shouldn’t have lit all of the holiday scented candles at once. The fumes must be getting to her. 

Because of course, of course, she was Rose Tico, struggling student and seasonal charcuterie enthusiast, so that wasn’t what happened at all. 

He stood there on the welcome mat, twitching uncomfortably in his Burberry peacoat with the collar deliciously half-popped. His nose wrinkled as if he were deathly allergic to wicker, ribbon, vellum, or some combination of the three.

“Can I help you?” Rose finally called. If he stood in the doorway much longer, her proximity sensor would start to get really annoying and that, if nothing else, would ruin the extremely chill vibe she was hoping to project in his direction, even as she felt sweat trickling down her back, and the thrumming beginnings of lust in her belly.

He approached, his plush lips twisting and his hips deftly avoiding the display tables, before perusing her drinks menu and clearing his throat, his Adam’s apple traveling a long, distinguished path up a perfectly smooth column of pale skin. This close up, she could see his hair was in fact actually a pale sandy red, it wasn’t just reflecting the tacky LED fairy lights or all her childhood hopes and dreams. 

He was real. 

She suppressed the urge to lick at the corners of her mouth. 

“Good mor—” 

“Two shots of ristretto topped with whole milk steamed to micro foam.” His voice was clipped; he placed an order like he was an actual general issuing actual commands.

Rose drew back at his tone and spoke without thinking. “Excuse me?”

His lips thinned out. “Do I need to repeat myself, miss?” 

And if that—what was that, an honest to goodness Irish accent?—if that wasn’t an unfair kick in the crotch she didn’t know what was.

But even devastatingly sexy accents couldn’t entirely excuse poor manners. 

“Nope,” she replied flippantly, popping the p and mentally flipping him off. The drink took no more than two minutes to make, which she did with sarcastic precision, even with the steam wand wandering off to the side, forcing her to jam it in place with her hand. She hissed in pain. That little blister on the side of her thumb would be a callous by the end of the season, sure as sugarplums. 

A bitter scent hit the air and Rose pursed her lips in frustration. 

“Please don’t be over-extracting,” she mumbled, repeating it a few times like a mantra, worried about the length of time the machine allowed scalding water to pass through the grounds, potentially burning the coffee. She didn’t expect repeat customers, but she would like to sell palatable beverages and not stink up the room while she was at it.

To her horror, a pleasant Irish tenor piped up behind her. “Perhaps I could take a look at it?”

She snorted. She knew it was quite unattractive, so she didn’t turn around. 

“I’m quite serious, miss. I’m—”

She suppressed a consternated sigh. This was the story of her life. No one wanted to chat up Rose for Rose’s sake. But men couldn’t help interjecting themselves into situations where machines were concerned. By the looks of him, this guy was some sort of paper-pushing captain of industry. He wouldn’t know his way around an industrial grade brew tank or drain hose valve. Humoring him—playing the silly girl who didn’t know her way around a basic engine—would be a waste of both their time. 

And it was only the ten thousandth time it had ever happened to her in her short life, so she pushed back, maybe a little rougher than was called for. 

“Well how magnanimous,” she exclaimed, finishing up his beverage. “Such seasonally appropriate charity. But I’ve got it all under control. So no thanks!”

The drink was $3.76 with tax and while she waited, fingers drumming, he paused abruptly over his open wallet full of credit cards, the shiny black leather creaking expensively and smelling unfairly of a Tom Ford cologne.

She sighed silently through her toothy smile. Must be nice, she thought—wondering, but not really doubting, if the deep red gem in his tie pin was real —to have multiple options for payment. 

In the end, he seemed to realize how long he was taking and how she was glaring at him expectantly and—thank the sweet baby Jesus—a couple of shoppers walked into the store, forcing him into swift, if jittery, action.

He slapped a single bill on the counter, took his drink from her hands and turned on his heel in one silent pirouette that emphasized the elegance of his frame and the quality of his shoes. 

“Happy holidays,” she called, overly loud, watching his broad shoulders disappear out the door. “Two shots of ristretto,” she muttered in a terrible mock-Irish accent, wrinkling her nose. She glared at the back of his head—his mid-fade, slicked-back bougie head—disappearing into the distance. “You could just say flat white, cranky pants.” 

Out in the parking lot, he paused, looked to the sky, and with a shake of his head, disappeared stage left at a quick march. 

And then she noticed the unwrinkled one hundred dollar bill with shiny gold numbers lying on her countertop.

She gawked at it for a moment, before shaking her head in disbelief and stuffing the bill under the cash drawer. The closing register gave a seasonally pleasant ding. There’s no way he’d meant to—no one intentionally left tips of $96.24—he must have thought it was a tenner. 

Good thing he hadn’t stuck around. She couldn’t have made change for him anyway.

Balancing her register tonight just got a lot more difficult.

Thanks a lot, General Cranky Pants. 

She tried not to give him much more thought—Rose Tico didn’t ever let anyone with negative energy get her down—but the fact that such a turd of a man came wrapped in such an appealing package just reemphasized the world’s unfairness, even at Christmastime. But she was Rose Tico. Not merely an opportunist, but persistent to boot.

Rent and tuition increasing in the new year? Paige still in Bucharest and her parents visiting family overseas? Rey obsessed with her reportedly amazing new boyfriend and never around anymore?

Well, sounds like someone could use that time to get another head start on her education. To create work that—with a contract to work ten to twelve hour days seven days a week for six weeks—took up all her time and paid well. No energy leftover to dwell on her miseries. Sleeping like a stone for the few short hours she wasn’t up busy and after that bread. 

Even if the charm of being a holiday shopgirl in a naturally lit store that left her smelling of peppermint bark was occasionally tarnished by tactless older men. He had a decade on her if he had a day, with those silent movie star looks and most likely, more money than god. Pointedly reminding her of all the things she didn’t have—money, style, an amazing new boyfriend. 

With a sigh, she pulled the chain on the hot pink neon Open sign, making a mental plan to squirrel away her tips until she could break that hundred dollar bill and keep the register balanced.

What's one more thing on her holiday to-do list, anyway? 

It was surprising, though, when he walked back in three days later on a rainy Monday morning. He looked shockingly much the same—perhaps the tie was a touch more charcoal than plain pitch black—but to her credit Rose didn’t let it phase her. She knew why he was here, after all, and pulled open the cash drawer.

“Back for this?” 

She tried to keep her voice light while waggling the hundred dollar bill between her fingers and checking him out as he approached. He’d removed his wet jacket when he entered, revealing a smushable tush under an appallingly flat stomach.  

“Excuse me?” 

A man with his shoulder-to-waist ratio should have nothing on this earth to complain about. How he managed to sound offended when she was giving him his money back was really something else.

“Your drink last week. It was not even four bucks. You left a one hundred—” 

“Wait—” and again, it sounded more like an order than anything, he may as well have barked halt. “If you have that, then how—”

And to his credit, it didn’t take him that long to figure it out, especially after she blurted, “I balanced my register with the tip jar.” 

His lip curled in distaste. “You what.” 

It was not a question. He demanded an explanation. 

And while the world might be patently unfair, sometimes it was pretty darn great, especially when it lobbed softballs in your direction and your bat was raised and ready.

“Do I need to repeat myself, sir?” Rose beamed at him. Internally, she gave herself a high five. 

Sadly, she had not given any thought to how he might react to her snarkiness.  

His pupils widened, the green of his eyes sinking into an inky blackness, and she was treated to another frankly obscene show from his neck. The tendon there flexed and danced, alluringly lickable, as he took a step up. 

Oh, she’d riled him for sure. 

His voice dropped half an octave. “So, technically, you bought my drink.” Truly, sexily unfair of him to murmur conspiratorially at her in that accent. She shivered as goosebumps puckered and tightened her skin from shoulders to knees. 

Rose crossed her arms to hopefully hide the evidence. “One way of looking at it.”

His narrowed eyes flicked down to the bill lying on the counter between them, his voice still thrillingly husky. “Even though I did leave funds to cover my purchase.”  

Suppressing the competing urges to roll her eyes and rub her thighs together, she instead gave him her cheekiest grin, the one he seemed already disposed to dislike. “With a hundred dollar bill? That would keep you in flat whites plus tip every weekday from now until Christmas—”

As she spoke, his eyes lit up, latching on to the idea she had unthinkingly proposed. No no no. She didn’t need his grumpy butt coming in here every day. It was probably illegal to lust after your customers. There was a Starbucks right over there. No no no no no…

“Consider it payment in advance then,” he insisted before she could object. “Surely a place like this—” Here, he looked trepidatiously around the room before looking down his nose, “—is not unfamiliar with the concept of punch cards.” 

Well, fuck.

And so November passed into December. 

He must work in the C-suite of one of the many businesses that took up space in the office complexes and business parks surrounding the strip mall, she decided. He never spoke about his schedule, or the convenience of her location, but Mondays through Fridays he arrived every morning by 8:15 on the dot. An executive’s prerogative, certainly. And the way he dressed? Accessorized to the nines? The man had excessive disposable income and excellent taste, much as it pressed her to admit it. 

For the first few days, they hardly spoke. He would wait in line, if there was one, and she would make the drink when he approached the counter. When he left, she would tally a mark on the sticky note she’d attached to the side of the register labeled, “General Cranky Pants’ Flat White.”

But even as the temperatures outside dropped as the days careened towards the solstice, the thaw came for Rose and her unlikely loyal customer. He never failed to thank her properly. If she was helping someone else, he waited patiently. If he was alone in the store, he responded to her rote, customer-service-based greetings with short, polite replies. They even managed a brief exchange about the weather one day—dreary, worsening—that launched other polite, observational conversations, many of which involved him making quippy remarks in that spine-tingling accent that did nothing to check Rose’s at-first-sight crush.   

When he’d asked her if she’d had any trouble with shoplifters, or worse, she’d waggled her brows and theatrically patted her hip, announcing, “I have a taser.”   

The following look in his eyes could only be described as bloodthirsty, panty-melting, and proud. She was, she realized, in point of fact, in actual danger. And not from any would-be robbers, but from Cranky Pants' good girl face and ready wit. 

“Who runs this place on the weekends?” he asked one particularly quiet Thursday morning. He had a way of asking questions that compelled a quick response.  

“I do,” she replied, stifling a yawn as she poured out his shots. “I’m the only employee here.”

“Well that seems—” He shut his mouth so fast his teeth clacked and she gave him a cheeky side eye.

“Not going to say?” she teased.

He cleared his throat. “It was recently expressed to me—in no uncertain terms—that my unasked for opinions were—” He visibly struggled to find the right word. 

“Unwelcome?” she offered, beginning to steam the milk. “Obnoxious? Unnecessary?” 

He allowed himself the slightest twitch of his lips as he nodded. “Just so.”

She couldn’t help but giggle. “And who was this person who dared to challenge you?”

He stifled a roll of his eyes, a strand of red hair falling between them for a moment before his long fingers slotted through it, everything back in place so fast she wasn’t sure she hadn’t dreamed it. 

“The quite young, extremely opinionated girlfriend of my business partner.” He scowled, slightly. “We didn’t get off on the right foot.” 

A bark of laughter escaped her. “You don’t say.”  

“Apparently telling my business partner I thought his new girlfriend was too young for him and too opinionated for her own good was not welcome insight.”

Rose cackled, which must explain the compulsion that came over her next: the desire to prolong the novelty of this conversation. “Well then I’ll ask— what is your opinion of my work schedule?

He considered a moment. “It just seemed to me that a person like you—” 

She narrowed her eyes at that auspicious beginning, but couldn’t stop the smile that accompanied the look. He’d thought of her? Enough to form an opinion?

In spite of her stink eye, he carried on. “A young person, energetic, and… cheerful, would have a holiday season rife with social engagements. Not one entirely appropriated by employment.”

Though she was standing mere inches from a machine that spewed steam in her face all the livelong day, she could feel her cheeks heat from the inside out. 

“Ah, well,” she said, “My sister and parents are all traveling this month. My roomie has a mysterious new boyfriend she’s with all the time, but won’t tell me anything about—”

He clucked in sympathetic accordance. 

“Aaaand… I took my finals early so I could open this place up. I’ve got no other, um, engagements,” she finished, using his word, her voice slipping into the exaggerated Lady Catherine de Bourgh impersonation she’d perfected after Rey had forced her to watch that lovely movie. It never failed to make Rey laugh. 

To-go lid clicked into place, she pushed the drink across the counter towards her suddenly inscrutable customer. 

“Good day Rose,” he said abruptly, taking the drink and leaving as she made another tally on her sticky note.

Well then. Cranky Pants must not be a fan of Pride and Prejudice.  

Rose tamped down the espresso grounds and locked the bed into the portafilter. It fell loose, hitting the drip tray with a messy bang.

With a groan, she scooped another shot worth of grounds and cranked it into place with a whine. “This machine just will not give me a break.” 

Over her shoulder she could almost hear Cranky Pants’ grimace as she hastily swept away the mess. 

“And these early mornings are killing me,” she mumbled, raising her arms over her head, pulling on her upturned elbows one at a time to stretch out her sides as she waited for the water to heat.

“Provide caffeine to others, yet can’t get enough for yourself?” General Cranky Pants pondered rhetorically as she steamed his whole milk. Since that first day—when she’d rejected his offer of help with the StarGrinder —he stared daggers at the machine every time she complained about it as if performing some mental calculus on how best to prove himself. She’d catch him staring and he—smartly—would bite his tongue. 

“Something like that,” she managed to say through a humongous yawn. Pushing six ounces of espresso and milk into his hand, she slumped, forearms down on the counter and hung her head. She wondered if there was a way to trip and get Cranky Pants to catch her; to enjoy the benefits of being held in his arms without the downside of splashing hot milk all over his wool coat. “I’ll get used to it.” 

She yawned a few more times. It was killing her inside, just a little, to have such a put-together adult like Cranky Pants see her dozing like a baby up past bedtime, but she couldn’t bring herself to wish he left sooner, either. He never failed to get her motor running—in all senses of the term—their morning repartee imparting all the energy she needed for a busy day, while thoughts of him and silly fantasies kept her awake and on her toes. 

“Your necklace,” he said after a moment of silence. “It’s unique.”

The conversational pivot surprised her and she jerked her head up. She hadn’t realized. The paisley curl of metal she wore strung around her neck had fallen out of her collar, hanging loose. She stood and it slapped back down on her sternum, in the center of her apron bib. 

She peered down skeptically at her chest; with the word he’d chosen, she couldn’t be sure he was entirely approving.

“That was a compliment, Rose,” he huffed when she didn’t respond. “Wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise.”

“Aww, thanks,” she replied brightly, and not-so-secretly delighted he had made use of her name—obviously gleaned from her ever-present nametag. “I made it at camp, when I was a kid. I’ve always liked it.”

All that was a bit of an exaggeration. She’d been seventeen, at STEM camp, conducting a metallurgical analysis. The necklace was a happy byproduct of her research. But he didn’t need to know the extent of her nerdiness. 

“Well, I can see why,” he agreed, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s very pretty.”

She kept her eyes down, focused on her breathing, commiting the musical way he said pretty to memory even as she convinced herself it meant nothing. She didn’t trust herself to speak; the pink suffusing the apples of her cheeks as she wiped down the counter and restacked the cups was all the thanks her sleepy self could give.

Chapter Text

Rose rubbed her tongue against her teeth. Her favorite—her only—regular loitered near the gift displays while she prepared his drink. Totally normal customer behavior. 

And yet.

This man had the nerve to look as hot as cinnamon schnapps and twenty times as classy, decked out in a tailored sweater, clinging just right to his svelte physique. The knit was a seasonal scarlet that flattered his complexion; a tasteful pocket square brightened up his dark, unbuttoned blazer.  

She couldn’t take her eyes off him, resulting in some unfortunate spillage on the counter and… other places. 

Was he doing something different with his hair? Something not quite so stiff? She firmly ignored the portion of her brain that wanted to figure out why it mattered that his hair looked so foxy. It couldn’t possibly matter.

When she turned to hand him his cup, he was setting down a medium sized hamper, spangled and glittery, near the register. The light woven basket had a long handle and included a bottle of champagne meant for New Year’s, nestled amongst candies and a handful of party supplies.

She pulled up short and he scowled at her reaction in mock annoyance. “Now what, Rosie?” 

“Sorry,” she chuckled, her heart picking up speed—a nickname, that accent—as she realized his eyes were sparkling. He was flirting with her. He had to be. This was his uptight, self-important, painful version of it. But he was flirting and so she hurried to ring up the basket. 

“Planning ahead for New Year’s?” she ventured. It was only the fifteenth, but it’s not like champagne went bad. She aimed for a playful observation. “You didn’t strike me as a party popper sort of guy.”  

“Celebrating an anniversary today,” he said breezily, his accent dancing over the consonants and landing heavily on the vowels. 

An anniversary. 

Oh.  

Of course. General Cranky Pants might really be uptight, self-important and occasionally rude, but many people—herself included—might more easily tolerate all sorts of Cranky Pants residuals for the benefits attendant—benefits of the tall, handsome, wealthy, and witty variety.

How very Elizabeth Bennet of her. Rey would be proud. 

She pushed through the dank cloud of envy and forced a smile. Some girl out there was Mrs. Cranky Pants, and good for her. “Well, wow. Congratulations. How many years?”

“Five,” he replied lowly, a tense haze of memory clouding his green eyes. “Five years since—” A sharp inhale of breath, and he shook his head, as if clearing his mind after reliving a dark memory.  

“Is this… not a happy anniversary?” She felt her nose wrinkle. “Champagne might not be appropriate if...”

His shoulders rolled back sharply; she swore he’d never looked so tall. “It’s the date my business partner and I finalized the acquisition of our corporation against the wishes of the former CEO.” 

Oh! 

Oh again! 

Pulled in what felt like ten opposite directions, Rose stumbled on her words, sure her face must be struggling to catch up with her mile-a-minute thoughts. “A successfully executed hostile takeover?” she squeaked. “How interesting. Exciting! Wow!” Oh my god Rose you nerd, shut up shut up shut up. “I thought you meant like a, uh, a wedding anniversary, or like something with a girlfriend or um, a life partner—”

She wanted to kick herself as a smirk—the closest thing to an actual smile she’d ever seen on that plump lower lip of his—wrinkled the corners of his mouth and eyes. The heels of his hands hit the counter with a soft thunk as he leaned forward until he was looming, forcing her to crane her neck upwards to maintain contact with his ever-nearing eyes. Her legs shook like jelly. 

Gosh, he smelled good. 

“Miss Rose,” his voice was low as a threat, soft as a purr. “Are you jealous?”

Heat flooded her face. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she blustered, barely able to think. “You’ll be busy celebrating your big achievement and—” She shot him a glance as she rang up the basket. “Why don’t you celebrate after work? Go out for drinks? What do you need this for?”

He chuffed out a laugh. “My business partner pouts every moment he’s not with his new girlfriend.”

“I see, I see.” His irritation—tinged with a holiday green envy—pushed a perverse swoop of joy through her belly. 

“So to ensure he is enjoying the favors of the woman he swears will be his future wife by five minutes after five this evening, we shall have a small toast this afternoon over our dearly departed and duly defeated boss’ desk...”

“Poetic,” she giggled. “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime. And, uh,” she floundered, realizing how cheesy that sounded, and grasped for an excuse. “I’m curious, were there shareholders who—”

He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I promise, you wouldn’t find it that interesting. This champagne is more than the occasion deserves, I promise you.”

“Congratulations, all the same,” she said, still riding too high to be annoyed at him for assuming she wasn’t interested in his business drama. 

Returning his change, she didn’t try very hard to avoid brushing his palm with her fingertips. It was a rare occasion that he wasn’t wearing gloves. He also, she noticed, didn’t wear a ring.

So there wasn’t a Mrs. General Cranky Pants—or, at least—a Mrs. General Cranky Pants wannabe. 

Probably.

“So,” she asked him on a blessedly quiet morning. “Have any fun holiday plans?”

His lip curled in what she was becoming to recognize as his expression of softness, maybe even fondness. “We usually have my mother over for the day, it’s—Rose—Rose? What are you doing?”

We?

We???

Her brain swirled like glitter in a cheap snow globe. Had hadn’t actually confirmed that he didn’t have a partner, in a non-business sense, had he? No, she concluded, glumly. He had just teased her for being jealous. 

Lucky guess on his part. 

To cover her pique she’d hopped up on the countertop, after prying open the top of the StarGrinder 3000. 

Time to show this thing who was boss.

“Taking a look at my brew actuator.” She waggled a socket wrench at him. “Your mother’s, you were saying?”

His voice seemed oddly high pitched. “What’s wrong with the brew—”

Face turned towards the StarGrinder, she rolled her eyes good-naturedly. Not this again. 

“Does your mom like coffee?” she called out, pretending she hadn’t heard him. 

A long-suffering sigh. “She does, very much, both coffee and tea. But, Rose, there are technicians—” 

“You should get her some,” Rose suggested, pulling her head out of the humid guts of the machine, treated to a view of a bright eyed General, arms crossed as if she were a disobedient private caught in contravention of his direct orders. 

She shivered and filed that thought away for later.

Tossing her head towards a display of coffee beans and assorted loose leaf teas, she added, “Unless you already know what you’re getting her.” She wiggled up on her knees to get better leverage inside the machine. “My mother is nearly impossible to shop for. ”

“Mine too,” he rumbled in defeat, looking balefully at her, and not the colorfully labeled canisters brimming with seasonally flavored leaves. 

“Why’s that, do you think?” she asked, seeing his eyes widen in alarm as she stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth, concentrating on removing two circular shoulder bolt shims from the actuator assembly and then slipping them into her apron pocket. 

“Oh, I, uh—” Uncharacteristically distracted, he blinked a few times. “I didn’t know her, as a child,” he admitted. His jaw snapped shut so quickly his teeth clacked together. 

For a second, he scowled in distress at letting something slip he probably hadn’t meant to, and she wiped her brow with a wrist to hide her surprise. When he didn’t speak, she nodded encouragingly, hoping he’d continue and he released the breath he’d been holding and ran a hand through his hair. 

“I was raised by my father. He was… unkind. To her,” he emphasized. “To her, especially. After I was born, he took full custody and—”

Softly, she set down the socket wrench and turned, giving him her full and quiet attention. He was trembling, voice low and raspy. Making furtive eye contact as if ensuring her comfort as he proceeded with spilling a difficult secret. Taking his time as he carefully selected each word.

As if he didn't say this often, but now that he’d unwittingly started, he needed to finish. 

“I didn’t even know her name until I was old enough to go down to the county records office and request a copy of my birth certificate.”

“Oh… my,” she breathed, sliding off the countertop and instinctually moving closer to him. Not close enough to touch. But close enough for a showing of solidarity. 

“It took a few years to find her, even after that. This will be our… ” He paused, squinting up at the ceiling for a moment. “Sixth Christmas with her.” He glanced back down at her, from his dizzying height, light shining around him like a halo, his jacket smelling of amber, jasmine, and his warm, all too human body. Knees weak, she leaned her shoulder against the wall for support. 

It was probably for the best that Cranky Pants was part of a “we.” The handsome, fussy, ginger half of an “us.” Of course he wasn’t available, and that was for the best. Really. Rose needed a baseline of sanity and brainpower to function—not just as a human, but as a student, businesswoman, family member, and friend. She hardly had time to fall all over herself every time she got a whiff of him. Good thing he was dating someone else. Being in a relationship with him would be a nightmare. 

Torture.

The absolute worst Christmas present ever. 

The distant look in his eye faded, all his sharpness returning, in every regard. “So no,” he concluded, clapping his hands behind his back, once again composed as a classical hymn. “I don't always know what to give. I’ll keep the suggestion of tea in mind, though.”

She tipped her head to the side until her crown tapped the wall. He was beautiful from this angle, his green eyes, limpid with memory. “I’m sure she’ll love anything you chose for her.”

If he agreed with her, it was a reluctant concurrence and he looked towards the door. “Thank you, Rosie.”

“Hey.” Shocked at her own initiative, she took that last step forward, grabbed his wrist, gave it a squeeze, didn’t let go, and didn’t let herself think about how her fingers weren't even close to circling it. She only wanted to interrupt whatever memories replayed behind his haunted eyes. 

He hung his head, a strand of hair falling  over his brow. He left it there, out of place, fixated by her hand on his wrist and she could only hope she was reading this right. Friends could provide each other this sort of support and comfort, couldn’t they?

Trusting to fate, she reached up, and pushed his hair back into place. Held her breath. “You alright?”

“Aye. Yeah. Yes,” he said, sounding increasingly sure—and more like himself—with each repetition. He turned his hand to give hers a little squeeze before sliding away. He filled his empty fingers with his coffee cup and Rose let herself breathe again. “Thank you.” Sincerity radiated from his tone like sunshine, warming her heart. 

It occurred to her that besides the other half of his mysterious “we,” his long-lost mother, and a business partner obsessed with a girl, Cranky Pants hadn’t mentioned any other friends. She rolled her shoulders, gave her neck a little stretch. She could be friends with him—tuck her silly little attraction away like so many other distractions and dreams—and be a good friend, too.

“Anytime,” she waved, as he raised his cup in a silent toast, before slipping silently out her door. 

“Do you—hmm.” Cranky Pants stood at attention, his hands clasped behind his back in his usual posture. This morning he appeared to be short of breath, his shoulders moving slightly as his chest shifted underneath his peacoat, suit jacket and vest. 

Unfortunately, at the same moment he'd started talking, she’d whacked the side of the StarGrinder 3000. A small shower of beans had rattled through the hopper, which kicked off an unmusical churning as the machine turned them into dust. 

“What was that you were saying?” she asked loudly. Truly, he looked highly concerned.

Stepping forward once the mechanical roaring ceased, he swallowed, his tongue moving behind his closed lips as if to wet the inside of his mouth. “I was going to ask if you’d like to—”

Yes, the lonely, desperate part of her sang. Her body jingled like sleigh bells and shimmered like tinsel at the open fire in his eyes. Whatever you're about to ask, the answer is Yes. 

The bell on the front door rang abruptly as two men burst inside, a blast of cold air behind them that had Cranky Pants flinching as it hit his back, even from across the room.

“Rooooose Tico!” Finn and Poe, two of her favorite classmates and closest friends, were bellowing her name in unison. “Ho, ho, ho! Meeeeeerry Christmas!”

Stampeding past all her customers to the counter, everyone in their path moving aside, Rose couldn't help but laugh as her two friends—both wearing velvet red Santa hats and curly white beards—dropped a large sack of presents before her.

She clapped in delight. “You guys!” What a treat; she hadn't expected to see either of them until New Year’s. “What's all this?”

Poe made a big show pulling out a scroll—the nice list, of course—loudly searching for Rose's name while Finn dug through their sack of presents, eventually finding a box with her name on it and handing it over. 

As she oohed and ahhed over the wrapping, Finn sidled up and slung his arm around her. 

“You should come over on Christmas, RoRo,” he said, dropping a kiss on the side of her head. “We're headed up to Poe’s—” 

Poe’s parents’ cabin—a three hour drive—and she had to keep the store open until noon on Christmas and open by eight the next day. 

She gave him a sad smile. “You know I have to work,” and realizing Finn and Poe wouldn't be easily dissuaded if their friendly boos were anything to go by, she added, “I’m working more than twelve hours every day as it is now.”

Poe groaned in dismay. “Even on Christmas?”

“Probably not all day on Christmas. But after closing, I'll probably take advantage and catch up on my sleep. But we'll FaceTime, okay? And this’ll all be over soon, I’ll be shutting down before the 30th. We’ll party on New Year’s.”

“We better,” Poe insisted. “And then we got to plan your birthday. He pointed at her, singing, “’Cause I don't know about you—”

“But I'm feelin’ twenty-two-ooh,” she dutifully sang as they all fell into laughter at her inability to hold a tune. “So I’ll see you guys in a week or so, okay? ”

“You’re so responsible,” Finn groaned, curling his elbow tighter around the back of her neck for a closer hug. 

“Truly, the best of us,” Poe agreed, getting his own hug before slinging the sack of presents over his shoulder. “Forever on the nice list.” 

She waved bye as they left, the boys making as much, if not more, noise than they had when they’d arrived. Her cheeks hurt from smiling. She hadn’t realized how much she'd missed all her friends these last few weeks. 

Frazzled, she wiped a knuckle in the corner of each eye and looked around to get her bearings. A couple browsing left the store empty-handed. Another customer was poking through the display of discount candleholders. General Cranky Pants stood very, very still, but looking as if he’d make a break for it any second now. 

“I’m sorry about that, what was your question? My friends—” she tossed her hands up in a gesture of helplessness. 

“Do you—” he glanced around the room for a moment. “Recommend any of these..?” He gestured vaguely at a display of mouse-shaped stockings filled with cat treats. “Millicent would think these grand.”

To her credit, she didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, absolutely.” And as she launched into her sales pitch, and he bought one cat-themed stocking and a novelty Santa’s sack full of chocolate-covered cherries, she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened. The set of his jaw seemed softer than it had a minute ago, his glance just a little less sharp. Nicer, maybe, but sad and wrong. 

She rang him up hurriedly, feeling his eyes follow her over to the counter. He left in stilted silence, leaving her wondering what on earth she had missed. 

Five days before Christmas was particularly busy. A large coach bus had dropped off a full contingent of tourists at the strip mall—and the place was packed —shockingly packed, if the rise of Cranky Pants’ eyebrows were a telling barometer. She hadn’t had time to make his drink ahead of time, and helping her shoppers while tending the register kept her hopping. She’d let a few drink orders pile up—it wasn’t so bad if the customers were browsing—but when he got to the front, she knew she’d have to make those other drinks before getting to his two shots of ristretto topped with whole milk steamed to micro foam.

She grabbed the six ounce cup and her sharpie, marking it for a flat white. “Name?”

Silence. 

Pen poised at the ready. 

“Name?” She took her eyes off the cup. His mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish. Was she really going to have to repeat herself a third time? 

“Hux,” he sputtered. “My apologies, Rose, I didn’t realize we hadn’t—” 

“Got it.” She turned to her work, no time for pleasantries when the line was growing. Marking h-u-c-k-s on the cup, she turned to the StarGrinder that was still not on its best behavior and she—for the third time that morning—reset the pressure gauge before starting the drinks.

“Please, please, please behave today, I’m begging.” She rolled her shoulders, let her head hang back and blinked up at the ceiling. “I’ll do anything you want, if you behave today, you monster.”

She didn’t see him leave. He must have slipped out shortly after she set his flat white on the counter. With the crush of shoppers, she didn’t get a minute to herself, or time to think about that interaction until much, much later. 

Hucks. What kind of name was that? Short for Huckleberry? He didn't seem like a Huckleberry. But she’d never felt much like a classic, feminine, rose herself, so, like the Bard had written, what’s in a name? He could be a Huckleberry. 

The sun had long since set and a shimmer of sleet made the parking lot gleam like a treacherous asphalt fairyland. Through her speaker, Sting serenaded her personally with Lo How a Rose Ere Blooming; bittersweet holiday melancholy wrapped her up like an old, familiar blanket. It was quarter to seven—honestly she wasn’t sure why she shouldn’t close up a little early, things were so slow now after that hectic morning—when the sleigh bells on the door gently jingled. 

One final sale tonight, perhaps. Prepping a customer-service smile, her mouth popped open in surprise as Cranky Pants—well, she knew his name now, and as odd as it was, she better start using it—slid slowly inside, letting the door hiss shut behind him before approaching the counter, his steps unhurried and intent. 

He had a dark knit cap on, which he pulled off gently, his fair hair falling in a slightly static-y yet somehow adorable poof over his brow. So formal, this guy, such manners, and she stood straighter as he approached. That militaristic posture of his must be catching. 

“So,” he hummed, by way of greeting, a thin vein of mischief underlying his grave demeanor. “It appears we were never properly introduced.”

“Seems that way.” Rounding the corner, she shrugged with a good natured smile and extended her hand. “Rose Tico.”

His fingers were firm, warm, and enveloped hers completely. A tingle ran up her arm as he gave a gentle squeeze before releasing her and announcing, “Armitage Hux.”  

While she digested that bit of Christmas cabbage, he added, his accent wrapping around each letter like a gift, “Spelled H-u-x.” 

She slapped her hands to her cheeks. “Oh come on.” 

“It’s true,” he said with a rueful shake of his head. 

“So it’s not short for Huckleberry?”

He fought to hide his smile, lightly tapping a fist on the counter. “Good God, woman.” 

“I’m sorryyyy,” she managed through a laugh, finagling a small smile from him, one which somewhat faded when she asked, “So, Armitage? You go by Armitage?”

He shook his head, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “No, please, call me Hux.” Rolling his lips, he fixed her with a gaze as meaningful as Christmas itself. “All my friends call me Hux.” 

When she merely nodded in reply, flabbergasted, fascinated, and—despite the better angels of her nature—still more than a little infatuated, he gave her a nod of his head. 

“Well. Goodnight.” He turned to leave.

Her heart was in her throat. Behind her eyes, ten thousand Christmas lights lay primed and ready, waiting for a spark. But she needed to dim her expectations, so she turned to the one subject she knew would do the trick. 

“Oh, Hux,” she called, relishing the hiss of his name on her tongue. “Did your girlfriend like the uh…” What was it he had bought again? “Chocolate covered cherries?”

He gave her a curious, amused look. “Girlfriend?”

She blinked at him. “Millicent?”

He pulled a hand out of his pocket to scratch his brow. “But Millicent is my cat?” 

There was a pause as Rose processed. A silent moment as certain preconceived notions crashed to the ground. Her thoughts churned slowly at first, but sped up almost painfully as his words gained traction. 

A flustered, sputtering noise escaped her lips. The look on her face must be ridiculous. “No girlfriend?” she managed. Though he’d turned back, over the steps of his swift approach, she wasn’t sure he had heard her. 

“You can’t give cats chocolate, Rose.” He insisted, apparently intent on ensuring her knowledge of this fact. “It’s quite dangerous.”

“Of course, of course,” she croaked. He was single. A single, cat-owning man. A single, cat-owning man who’d bought his cat a nip-full Christmas stocking. What more could she even ask for?

He was still speaking. “Quite serious. Deadly, even.”

Is this what it felt like to drown? Her mouth was opening and closing with no sound escaping. She clasped her hands together in supplication. “I promise—I’d never—I know not to give a cat chocolate.”

He nodded, seemingly satisfied, and extremely unjustifiably relieved. “And I don’t—don’t have a girlfriend,” he added, almost as an afterthought. 

Recovering all too slowly, Rose struggled to find anything to say. After an awkward second of silence, he nodded again, his traditional goodbye. 

“Right,” he muttered, taking two bouncing steps backwards, still facing her. “Goodnight.” 

She shook herself out of her stupor and right as he got to the door, she called. “See you tomorrow, Hux?”

Those ten thousand dormant Christmas lights reared their irrepressible heads. 

He looked back, his hand on the doorframe. “Of course.” A devastating sideways grin. “Until tomorrow, Rose.”

Her heart’s illumination gleamed across her face in response; as he disappeared into the night, she squealed with a profound and startling glee.

Chapter Text

The back half of December was gloomy and dark. The winter solstice passed, bringing dim days and a critical lack of Vitamin D. Sadly, it accompanied an overabundance of holiday customers taking their stresses and seasonal affective disorders out on innocent retail workers, and Rose was no exception. It was brutal. No relief any way she turned. She couldn’t do anything right some days it seemed, and her reserve of holiday spirit was in short supply. When she dared step outside her shop for a break from it all, the wind held a bitter, biting note, stinging her eyes, her lashes freezing together if she dared blink. Miserable. 

She kept telling herself she was in the home stretch. That after Christmas, the merch would go on a steep, steep discount. She’d put big red price tags on the bags of suspiciously pale chocolate, the overpriced holiday coffee mugs—tacky with red and green clip art—and even the shelves it all sat on.  

By New Year’s Eve everything must go —including Rose herself. 

She looked forward to the start of the semester. Study, work, classes, maybe a bit of a social life all increasing the variety compared to her current monotonous and lonely routine. Closing in on the end of her senior year—knowing she wanted a gap before she even started thinking about grad school—she needed to nail down a job or internship. Something that paid, obviously. But she wasn’t going to settle; it had to be right.  

But before she got too far ahead of herself, she needed to wrap things up with Hays Candies & More.     

Wrapping things up meant, among other things, reselling the StarGrinder 3000. She couldn’t resell that bucket of bolts as it was with a clear conscience. But even janky and unreliable, it was too valuable to kick it to the curb, even if she fantasized about taking a baseball bat to it Office Space- style some days. She knew she could fix it if only she had some time. She promised herself that when the right moment appeared, she wouldn’t miss the opportunity. 

The Friday two days before Christmas was—thank the stars—blessedly quiet. No tour buses, not even any random browsers, so it was the perfect time to implement her plan. Making Hux’s flat white quickly, she posted a large Temporarily Out of Order sign on her countertop and began her overhaul of the StarGrinder. To get it working perfectly or die trying.

She’d removed the double boiler assembly and was fussing with a heat exchange unit when Hux arrived at ten minutes after eight.

“Hello,” she called gaily. 

His eyes narrowed. “Rose, what are you doing—”

Ugh. Not this again. His obsession with how she ran maintenance on this wayward espresso maker was bordering on concerning. “Don’t worry,” she piped up. “Your drink is already made.”

“‘I’m not worried about my drink.” He gestured abruptly, palm up towards the StarGrinder. “I’m worried about—”

There was a large bang; the drip tray rattled precariously as she forcibly contorted the machinery behind it. Of course, he wouldn’t know it was an intentional interruption, but it stopped him talking all the same. 

She swapped out the socket on her wrench for a size smaller. “I’ve been trying to figure out why I can't get this krampus masquerading as an espresso machine to work properly for more than twenty minutes at a time.”

Poor guy looked so confused. “Krampus? What?”

“But good news,” she continued, not missing a beat. “Good tidings of great joy, in fact. I’ve figured out why—”

He huffed in disbelief “You’ve figured? That is a complex piece of machinery. You should contact an expert, Rose. In fact—”

Enough. Something about his derision—his assumptions that she didn’t know what she was doing—got under her skin, setting her blood on fire, and not in a good way.

“Whoever designed this thing should be drawn and quartered,” she trilled in a sing-song tone and his jaw snapped shut. 

Finally. “For crimes against engineering principles and small appliances,” she continued, still annoyed at his invocation of experts. She didn’t need an expert. 

“That’s a First Order StarGrinder 3000.” For a moment his ungloved hands distracted her. One gestured elegantly. The other clutched a small, dogeared booklet and its pages fluttered as he pulled his arms swiftly to his sides. At first blush, it seemed as if he had been trying to hand it to her. But it looked like now he was—without looking, and without much luck—trying to tuck the unruly booklet back in his coat pocket. 

She refused to be curious when he was being such a butthead. 

“I know exactly what I have here,” she snarked. 

“It’s been called the Mercedes-Benz of espresso machines.” 

She snorted. “By who, the designer’s mother?” She wiped her hands on a tea towel and tossed it in the corner. 

Strange how even though she felt hot all over, gearing up for this fight, in the silence that followed her comment, the temperature in the room dropped below freezing. 

“What did you say?” 

But she was too invested in this argument to slow down, too far gone to wonder at the warning in his dangerously arctic tone. Her sword was drawn and shields were up. Her customers were mean and it was way too cold outside. Was it too much to ask that he not contribute to the pile of Christmas shit that seemed determined to rain down on her? He was supposed to be her bright spot, her reprieve from literally everything else. 

Her head spun, her tone chillingly glib. “Sure, the aesthetics are second to none, but I’ve never figured out a good workflow with the tamper so removed from the portafilter. The grinder is inconsistent—cheap motor beneath the blades—and this steamer has a mind of its own. I could go on.”

“The drinks you’ve made have been…” he paused, uncharitably. “Adequate.”

She ignored the barb. “It’s a miracle I’ve managed consistent foam with that unmanageable wand.”

He bared his teeth. “No credit to the variable pressure settings on the steam boiler then.”

She hated raising her voice but he was raising his too. “It’s a nice trick—but when the whole contraption seizes up because it’s designed as if metals don’t expand when heated—what good is that to the end user?”

“It’s been consistently the most highly rated—” 

What was this guy’s problem? She smacked the StarGrinder with the back of her hand. “Well, in my opinion—”

“In your opinion?” His face was red as holly berries and his sarcasm stung like thorns. 

She threw her hands up, turning away to rummage through her toolbox, the derision in his voice much too hurtful to make light of. Rose had never been fully on board the ‘big mean man yell at me’ train— Pride and Prejudice was Rey’s thing, after all—and her heart was too tender to take it from someone she had long ago realized she had actually started to like. 

“God save me from the confidence of mediocre white men,” she snarled at the wall, still giving him her back. She was truly yelling now. “My opinion on my espresso maker? My opinion is the only one that matters!”

“And if I wanted the opinions of a shop girl, I’d—”

She slammed the frothing pitcher down, stainless steel slamming against formica with a formidable crash. “Enough!”

She thanked heaven her back was turned. Hearing his words was horrible; she didn’t need a visual to go with it. Rose exhaled slowly, everything red around the edges and not from the holiday accouterments of her shop. After everything. He really thought she was just a stupid retail drone. Her eyes flooded with tears she refused to let fall.  

She hated this. She hated this so much. She tried so hard to be positive. To put goodness out into the world and hope that good things reflected back at her.

But she was first in her class at Cloud City Tech. Twelve credits away from a double bachelor’s in engineering and business and—almost most importantly—she was an actual barista with actual experience. Sure, Hux didn’t know any of that. But he assumed she was uneducated, and so her opinions didn’t matter, because she smiled a lot and he’d met her while she was making coffee for a living. 

He was an autocratic, interfering ass and also completely delusional if he thought insulting her intelligence would get her to do things his way. 

She cleared her throat, a sob-like noise that surprised her escaping as she turned to face him. His eyes blazed with green fire, something like regret; he held his jaw, long fingers a pale slash over his lips. Too late to stop those words, and the small corner of her heart that pitied him cringed. She ignored the compassionate impulse and her hands curled into fists.

“Get. Out.”

He did.

It wasn’t until the end of the day that the battered little post-it note caught her eye. Twenty-one hash marks. Today had been his last work day before Christmas. All one hundred dollars of his punch card, used up. No more flat whites. No reason for him to return to Hays Candies & More. Her heart sank like a stone in waters too deep to fathom. 

She hadn’t wanted it to end like that. But whatever it was that had started between them—a friendship? Something more?—had, all at once, ended. 

She’d never see him again.

Chapter Text

Per her contract, she had to have the store open at least half the day on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day. There would be last minute sales, people realizing they couldn’t show up to a party empty handed, or needing candy for stocking stuffers or snack trays. Capitalize on capitalism, as it were. 

She straightened her shoulders, unlocked the door, and flicked on the overhead lights. Her bleary eyes winced in pain as she trudged back to the register, the martial beat of Little Drummer Boy to start her Saturday right. 

She only needed to make it until noon; she fought a yawn and ran her fingers through her hair, resetting her headband behind her ears. 

She hadn’t slept well last night, if I wanted the opinions of a shop girl, dancing in her head each time her eyes drifted shut. 

It was too bad that would be her last memory of him. Looking back on this job, in the hazy bright future, she could have blushed to remember her flirtation with a handsome older guy with money and charm. But—and she wanted, really wanted to remember this month positively—for the first time, she'd run her own business. She'd learned so much, been so good on her own. 

Some wins, for sure. And some losses, too. 

So it was nothing short of earthshaking to see him come into the shop a little after eight, as if it were a regular weekday. 

There was a short line, but he had somehow beat the rush. After he entered, easily twenty people came in after him, the line snaking out the door. From overheard conversation she gathered there'd been some issues at the Starbucks across the way. Water main or garbage fire or electrical damage or some such nonsense that now had her line full of cranky coffee aficionados with complicated drink orders she was in no way prepared to craft. 

By the time he reached the front of the line she’d worked herself up into such a tizzy, she couldn’t even greet him and turned to make his drink immediately. She needed him out of here. Customers browsing the basket displays were calling out to her from across the storefront and she was distracted from their questions by him and distracted from making drinks by everything else. 

He looked delicious as ever—wearing a heather gray cashmere sweater over a pale green button up—with a hangdog expression Rose sensed she would find familiar if she looked in the mirror. 

“Three seventy-six," she said lowly, setting the drink in front of him.

He gave her a thin smile. “Rose, I believe we had agreed—”

“Three seventy-six,” she interrupted. When he raised an eyebrow at her she added, “I don’t have time for this.”

“But my punch card. I paid for twenty-one drinks,” he mansplained as if she hadn’t been there. “The next one is free.”

In between one heartbeat and the next, she suddenly found the time. She wheeled her arms like a wild woman, energized by righteous outrage. “We never agreed to that!”

He shrugged, his hands clasped behind his back. “I believe it was implied. That’s how punch cards work.”

“I know how punch cards work, you—” She readjusted her headband and bent to wash her hands. “Fine. Fine! Just take the drink,” she capitulated. “You’re right, it’s free. Happy holidays. Goodbye.”

But he didn’t move to take it.

“Come on man,” groaned the lady behind him, not looking up from her phone. 

“But this isn’t my drink,” he said, infuriatingly calm and not budging from the front of the line. 

“Yes. It is,” she grunted through gritted teeth. “It’s a flat white. Next!”

“No, it isn’t,” he insisted. “This cup contains two full sized shots.”

What?

“Come on man,” the lady in line muttered again, a little louder this time. 

Rose wanted to scream. Instead she managed only a slightly hysterical, “You’re saying I made your coffee wrong?”

He nodded. “I did. You did.” 

“That’s your opinion?” she sneered, intentionally goading him. 

“Not my opinion—a fact,” he insisted, but her barb had struck true. He twitched like an inflatable Santa momentarily deprived of an air source. 

All of a sudden, she wanted to cry. “I can not do this—I can not do this right now.”

“Rose,” he sighed. “I am an opinionated, overly defensive asshole—”

“No argument here,” grumbled the lady in line behind him. 

“—But I know how to make a flat white, and it’s not with two full size shots of espresso.”

A number of voices now piped up, everyone in the shop quickly developing and freely expressing their opinions on Hux’s manners, Rose’s customer service skills, and the proper recipe for a flat white, and Rose, well—it had been a long month of very little sleep. 

“You want a flat white?” she roared, her cool completely lost. “Why don’t you come back here and make it then? Deal with the StarGrinder? Help me with this unending line of customers instead of bellyaching and—”

“Thank God,” he muttered, yanking up his sweater sleeves. As he rounded the counter, he uncuffed the button-up beneath. 

Her head began to swim; she’d never seen him without a coat or jacket and he usually always wore gloves. Rolling up his shirtsleeves revealed an indecent amount of skin. The cashmere now rested under his elbows, his pale freckled forearms flexing with an unexpected curve of muscle and, shockingly, the hint of tattoos peeking out below his elbow. 

He dropped his head to one side, then the other in a quick motion, producing two popping sounds. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“Hux! You can’t just—” she waved her arms in circles to generally encompass all the things he was, in fact, currently doing.  

“Watch me.” He grabbed a spare apron and wound it around his waist. “Line the orders up here,” he snapped, twisting some dials on the side of the StarGrinder and wedging the rogue steamer wand into place with a hand towel.

“Grande iced caramel macchiato with two pumps of vanilla syrup, two pumps of hazelnut syrup, a shot of espresso, whipped cream, and caramel drizzle,” the lady now at the front of the line was saying. “Full fat and sugar. It’s Christmas.”

Rose almost choked on a hysterical bubble of laughter. Are you kidding me? This wasn’t Starbucks; it would take her half an hour to make that drink. 

More groans from the back of the line, but with a curl of her lip Rose dutifully jotted it down, slapped the order against the low shelf Hux had indicated, and stepped back, arms crossed. 

He met her gaze unflinchingly, noted the order with a poker face, and turned on his heel, returning to the StarGrinder.  

God, he was annoyingly good looking. 

His arm slightly to the side, he tossed the portafilter into the air; it rotated twice before he smoothly caught it by the handle. 

Rose’s eyes widened, her eyebrows floating towards her hairline as in one fluid motion, Hux scooped coffee grounds into the filter basket and tamped them down— manually, holy crap, Rose had only ever let the machine do it —with his opposite hand. As he returned the tamper to its hanger with his left hand he locked the portafilter in place with his right and the StarGrinder began to pull the shot. 

His sleeve rode up slightly as he reached for a grande-sized cup, the plastic kind meant for iced drinks, revealing the scalloped bottom edge of what had to be a Celtic knot inked on his lower bicep. 

Rose gulped.

After dragging the cup through the ice maker, Hux grabbed the bottle of hazelnut syrup, brought it around the back of his head, and let it roll down his arm, guiding its descent with an index finger hooked over the bottle’s neck. In the same hand, he held the ice-filled cup under the nozzle, allowing the syrup to drizzle over the ice. 

Within inches of his wrist, he pulled the cup away; with a flick of his forearm, he held the bottle again in his apparently well-practiced hand. Not a drop spilled or dripped as he returned the bottle to the shelf, and immediately repeated the process with the bottle of vanilla. 

Sure looked like he knew how to eyeball two shots of syrup. 

Sure looked like he knew more than the basics of barista work, too.

Rose stood straight, brought her ankles together, needing a whole body clench for this one. “What the fuck,” she whispered to herself.

With only a few seconds left before the espresso was ready, Hux ducked to the side, poured the milk—again, estimating the amounts, but it looked perfect, even with the ice—and replaced the carton in the low refrigerator. In the blink of an eye, he had the shots sliding into the cup. The whip dispenser seemed to magically appear in one hand; as he stepped over to the caramel pump, he produced a perfect, thick, white symmetrical mountain of cream that did nothing but exacerbate the problem in Rose’s panties. 

Caramel drizzled, he set the drink on the counter. It had been no more than 45 seconds since she’d taken the woman’s order. Her jaw literally fell open. She felt it. Couldn’t stop it. 

His eyes were light and teasing. “Next?” 

The StarGrinder had never performed so admirably and Rose hid her pout as Hux whipped up mochas and macchiatos, Americanos and affogatos, at an astonishing pace. 

The line had not lessened, but they had settled into a flow. Rose took orders and money while Hux conducted the StarGrinder like it was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and each handcrafted beverage another Hallelujah Chorus. 

Customer after happy customer cycled through the shop, and just after eleven, when the next in line approached and ordered a latte, there was a momentary pause as Rose and the woman—tall, slender, purple hair—struggled to recognize each other out of their usual context.

“Professor Holdo!” Rose finally exclaimed.

“Rose Tico! My goodness, how are you!” Professor Holdo nudged the woman standing next to her with an elbow. “This is Rose Tico, one of our star engineering students. A brilliant developer and mechanic. Regional robotics champion for two years running.”

She peeked over Rose’s shoulder. “And if I’m not mistaken, there's one of my former star students right behind her. Mister Hux? Moonlighting as a barista now?”

Hux had gone very still while Holdo bragged about Rose, and he slowly looked over his shoulder. “Good morning, Professor.”

Holdo beamed, turning her attention back to Rose. “So this shop—is this the big project you’ve been working on? Professor Canady was telling me all about your plans to write a paper on your experiences running this business. You know he’s still hoping he can convince you to get your MBA? A bright mind for business, he keeps saying.” 

“He’s been so supportive and a big help double checking all the permits I needed for this place. But I think I’ll stick with mechanical engineering,” Rose demurred. 

“Same major as Mr. Hux, if I recall correctly,” noted Holdo with another smug glance over Rose’s shoulder before her face lit up with the brilliance of a fresh thought. “Oh! Mr. Hux! Has Ms. Tico convinced you to finally start offering paid internships at First Order? Is that what you’re doing here?” 

“Uh, wha—?” Rose began, but Hux was suddenly speaking over her. 

“There are still some details to be worked out, but—” he glanced at Rose for a millisecond. “With her talent, we’d be lucky to have her.”

Holdo continued to chatter away—lauding the brilliance of Rose Tico interning at one of the leading experimental engineering firms in the nation—until she’d paid for her purchases and vanished from sight.