“Cora, I don’t pay you to lounge in the back of the shop and ignore paying customers!” bellowed Derek’s voice from the front. Cora ignored him, knee deep in her daily task of trying to figure out Blonde Bombshell’s name.
“CORALINE ESMERALDA HALE!” Called her brother again, and this time she swiftly moved, before Hot Blonde Bombshell figured out that that atrocity was her actual first name.
Cora threw a glare at where her brother was making a special drink for his equally special boyfriend. She looked between the coffee machine and said boyfriend with an arched eyebrow. “A Grande iced honey vanilla latte with soy milk?” she asked, scrunching her nose in distaste.
The boy smiled at her. “Keeping my drinks as spicy as our relationship.” He drawled, but she noticed the way his hands clenched.
She turned to look at Derek again. “Der, what did you do to Stiles?” she asked her brother, who was signalling at Isaac to take the next customer’s order.
The green eyed man turned to look at Stiles and sighed, defeated. “He is not telling me. I tried to apologize, but-”
“Why are you apologizing if you don’t even know why I’m mad?” hissed Stiles at him with a full on glare, making Derek hold up his hands in apology. “Just make me my drink, dick.”
Cora laughed at them, before she noticed Hot Blonde Bombshell approaching the counter. She was in front of her before she could even stop, looking at her with her best casual expression. “Good morning, what can I serve you?”
Hot Blonde Bombshell smiled at her. “Yeah, one venti white chocolate mocha with whipped cream, a chai tea latte with soy milk and a mocha cookie crumbled Frappuccino, please.”
The usual beverage. They both liked to pretend Cora didn’t have the beverages off by heart, since she was always the one who served Hot Blonde Bombshell and her other two friends.
“Allison, Erica and Lydia, right?” asked Cora, just to be sure anyway. Hot Blonde Bombshell’s lips curled in a feline red smile and she nodded.
“Yup, that would be it.” She said, and pressed the perfect amount of money in Cora’s hands before she could even ask, leaving a huge tip. Why was Hot Blonde Bombshell so perfect?
Cora had yet to know what her name was, since she or her other two friends always ordered for three, but she knew other things. She knew she was in the same year as Stiles and that she was studying either Psychology or Folklore. She knew she was bisexual, since her and her red haired friend had come in on pride day draped respectively in the colours of the bisexual and lesbian flag (Stiles himself had come in earlier with his dyed purple and his nails painted pink, indigo and purple).
But her name? Cora didn’t know. She had never thought she would be this invested in the girl, and, by the time she had recognised her crush for what it was, it would have been awkward to ask for her name.
So Cora had been calling her Hot Blonde Bombshell in her head ever since.
She smiled at her again, before disappearing back to prepare the drinks, tuning out Stiles and Derek’s hissing match and bathing in the looks that she felt Hot Blonde Bombshell sending her way.
If she bended unnecessarily a couple of times and licked her lips for no apparent reason as she delivered the drinks to their table, no one needed to know.
Hot Blonde Bombshell was staring at her, though, which was definitely a win. The red haired girl smirked when she saw her. “Ah. Coffees. Thank you… Cora, is it?”
Cora nodded minutely and smiled thinly at the beaming brunette sitting next to opposite Hot Blonde Bombshell. She put down the drinks in the middle of the table, and flashed them a smile, before starting to move away.
By the time she got back at the counter, they all had their drinks and were also too far for her to discern whose was which. She gave a deep sigh and turned to start working again, when she noticed Stiles slipping away towards the three girls.
Cora immediately sidled up next to Derek. “Stiles knows Ho- those three girls?” she asked.
Derek, who had looked up at the mention of Stiles, but immediately looked back down at ‘girls’, shrugged. “Maybe? I guess.”
“Do you think he knows their names?” she pressed, trying to look casual and not like a stalker as she stared at them.
Derek gave her a strange look. “Allison, Erica and Lydia?” he told her, and she rolled her eyes at him.
“I mean, which one is which?”
Now it was Derek’s turn to look at her like she was an idiot. “Lydia is the one with red hair. She orders the chai latte, she always picks up her cup first when she orders for them, since she’s the only one who stands at the counter waiting for them. Allison is the brunette, she orders the white chocolate, which is also why she always comes to the counter to get some tissues and Erica is the blonde one.” He finished, before turning back to his cups with a longing glance at Stiles.
Cora gaped at him for a few seconds, before turning back to Stiles and Hot Blond- Erica. Who was staring at him. She blushed, and immediately ducked back inside the back room to hide until they left and prepare a plan for the next day.
The next day she came prepared. When Erica appeared at the counter, Cora was there, with a huge smile plastered on her face. “Good morning, the usual?” she asked, only half nervously.
Erica smiled brightly at her. “Oh, yeah. Thank you.”
Cora went through all the procedures even quicker than usual, smirking to herself at Erica’s confused expression and flipping off Derek when she spotted him and Stiles giving her a look of fond mocking.
Erica waited gingerly at the counter, the money still in her hands as she waited patiently for Cora to finish off, and in a few seconds the brunette was at the counter with the three drinks ready.
“So, Erica,” she started, fist pumping inside when the blonde looked at her intrigued. “My mum just dropped off this recipe, and I was wondering, if maybe you wanted to try it? It’s really nice, let me tell you that.”
Erica frowned in confusion and then nodded with a small smile. “Uhm, sure. What did your mum make?” she asked.
Cora’s smile turned seducing. “Me.”
The blonde opened her mouth to answer, before turning brittle red and closing it again. Cora licked her lips, enjoying the way Erica’s gaze dropped to follow the movement of her tongue before snapping right back at her face. She leaned forward on the counter. “I finish at 5.” She offered.
Erica leaned forward to, leaving a red lip mark on her cheek. “I’ll be here.” She promised, winking before going back to where Allison and Lydia were observing with huge grins on their faces.
Derek and Stiles waited half a second, before clapping mock seriously at her. “Congrats Cora, we’re so proud of you.”
“Shut up.” She said, glaring, but immediately smiling again when she caught Erica stealing a look at her.
“Awh!”