All Your Girls

The moment she walked into your shop, in between the stupidly busy minutes chasing the rush-hours end… you thought nothing of her.

Truth be told, the day was long, busy, and hadn’t started on any kind of good footing. You’d been up for the last 48 hours straight due to the shop’s paperwork, someone hacked your favorite game account and destroyed your progress, your terrible mother had sent you many text messages today trying to guilt you for money, and you hadn’t had even one moment to stop and eat today.

So no, you thought nothing about yet another stranger coming into your shop.

All you cared about was that the previous ‘last’ customer was supposed to be leaving, and now this girl was coming in right after.

“I’ll be with you in a moment, I just need to flip the closed sign.” You called out over your shoulder, briefly stepping around her to reach the door.

Flipping the sign and waving bye to the last customer as they did the same, you turned and swiftly headed back up to the counter to take her order. Then when she left, you’d probably go to hole up in your room and sleep for the next month and a half. At the very least.

You couldn’t bring it up in you to maintain the usual ‘everything is rainbows and flowers’ mood that was your actual personality. Instead, with embarrassingly visible dark circles under your eyes, you barely held back a scowl as you stepped up to the register.

“Sorry about that, if I don’t put it up now people just keep on coming, what can I get for you today?” You asked, trying your best to at least not sound as tired as you were.

“I’ve actually never been here before, I’m trying to get out and find a good coffee shop close to my place.” She replied, you assumed she might want some suggestions.

“Oh yeah we get newbies all the time, it is a coffee shop after all. I can maybe recommend you some drinks, do you prefer sweet or bitter?” You asked.

“Sweet, definitely.” She replied, smiling.

“Then I think our honey-vanilla cappuccino would be perfect for you, it’s a favorite around here.” You suggested.

“That sounds lovely, yes please.”

“Awesome, for here or to-go?” You asked out of habit.

“I mean, I’d love it for here but you’re closing up right?” She asked, a small giggle in her voice.

The sound was so beautiful that you finally looked up from the register and actually took time to get a good look at this girl.

Your brain completely stopped working properly.

She was so beautiful, more than that she was basically perfect. Brunette hair falling in rivulets across her shoulders, blue eyes that rivaled any sapphire, and a small black jacket around her frame.

You had to snap yourself out of your ogling upon realizing she was speaking to you.

“Sorry what?” You asked. Blinking a few times to clear your already foggy head.

She giggled again. Goddammit you wished you could record it without being weird. That is most definitely the hunger and sleep deprivation talking.

“I said I’d love the coffee in store but you’re closing up already.” She was smiling at you. It was so pretty. Good gods you are a mess right now.

You felt your body starting to come down for the day and could feel a tell-tale exhaustion creeping in behind your eyes so you shook yourself yet again to get back in gear.

“Right! Yeah should have thought of that, I’ll get you that to-go then, and you’ll pay right there.” You pointed at the card receptacle.

She paid, with the highest tip option available you noticed, and you went about the motions of making her drink.

When you handed it to her you immediately removed your apron. You decided against closing up today beyond turning off all important machines.

You were currently much too exhausted to clean properly and you’d definitely miss too many other areas, so instead of agonizing yourself to try and stay up longer, you just grabbed your keys and made to leave.

As you were closing up the shop and attempting to get your tired fingers to operate the correct key into the lock, you dropped them.

“Of fucking course.” You sighed, bending down to reach them. Promptly knocking your skull against the glass.

“Oh son of a bitch!” You shouted to no one in particular.

‘Fuck it.’ You thought and just slumped your back against the door, sliding down until you were sitting on the ground with your knees up and head down, resting on your arms.

The day had gotten to you and you were just so tired, and this was the icing on the freaking poisoned cake.

At this point you were so close to just sobbing uncontrollably, onlookers be damned, that you didn’t even notice a few tears had already slipped down.

“Hey, it’s okay, can I help you lock your door?” Looking up you saw it was the last customer.

You sniffed and huffed out a short laugh. “You know what, normally I’d refuse help, but I haven’t slept in two days so yes please I would love that right now.”

She smiled sympathetically and offered a hand out to you first, helping you up. You swayed slightly at the speed with which you stood, and grabbed at the glass window for purchase.

“Woah, are you okay?” She asked, concerned and now hovering her hands around your body as if to catch you should you need it.

Your vision swam for a bit while you answered. “I’m fine, like I said I haven’t slept in two days straight so I’m a little wobbly. Plus, I didn’t get to eat anything today, so I’m a little out of it I guess. Thank you for helping me with the door.” You replied.

“Yeah no problem, but jeez are you sure you maybe wouldn’t mind if I walked you home? New Yorkers aren’t well-known for their driving skills and I’d hate for you to pass out in traffic.” She gave another shorter giggle at her joke, and you huffed out a little chuckle as well.

“I guess I probably look like I need it huh?” You joked. She gave a little sympathetic smile, her nose crinkling in the action, before responding.

“A little bit, yeah. Well, since I’m walking you home, I should introduce myself properly.” She said, handing you your keys back after making sure the door didn’t budge.

“My name is Kate, what’s yours?” She asked.

You took your keys from her hands, fingers ever so briefly brushing against hers. Your heart definitely did not do the stupidest flip in your chest when they did.

“(Y/n). I own this place, actually.” You don’t know why you included that detail, maybe in the hopes that she would share something too, and you could keep talking to her.

“Wow really? That’s so cool! So you like, get to have your own place that you run, what’s that like?” She asked, very animated and obviously excited. It was adorable.

‘Stop that dude, chill.’ You thought to yourself.

“Oh yeah it’s fun, honestly it was my dream as a kid to one day own my own place, not in coffee necessarily, but hey I’m still really happy I made the dream a reality regardless. What about you?” You asked.

“What do you mean?” She tilted her head. Her nose scrunched again, this time in confusion.

“Um, like what do you do?” You asked again, giggling a little at her reaction.

“Oh! Right, of course. Well I, I mean, I guess you could say I’m a sort of enforcer of justice.” She replied, quite vaguely you noticed.

“So a cop?” You tilted your head toward her with a teasing smile.

“Sort of.” She giggled freaking again. God why did that sound make your heart beat so damn fast?

You kept talking as you reached your apartment. You’d ask her something and she’d reciprocate in a way that was so boringly natural and also mind-numbingly endearing.

Talking with her felt like you’d done it for years, but also that you hadn’t in a while and now you missed it. It made so much sense and also not even a little at the same time.

It took you twenty minutes to walk home with her, chatting away together all the while, however it barely felt like two seconds had gone by when you finally reached the shabby apartment building.

You began to ascend the stairs to your door, not even really registering that she was following you.

Until you had reached your door, and while you headed inside, she stayed glued to the entryway. The only thing that actually brought you out of the accidental slip was the conversation grinding to an instant halt.

Turning back to look at her, you wondered briefly why she suddenly looked so nervous.

“Are you okay?” You asked.

She snapped her eyes to yours, seemingly waiting for you to tell her that.

“It’s your apartment.” She stated plainly, as if that at all explained it in your very sleep-addled brain.

“Uh yeah? Wanna come in?” You asked, still not quite understanding the issue in your tiredness.

“Oh! I mean, sure, as long as you’re alright with that.” She stated, although it sounded more like a question, one in which you answered very quickly.

“I am. I enjoy talking with you and I’d hate to just send you away, you’ve been so kind to me.” You assuage the slightly nervous and embarrassed expression she sported plainly across her features.

She gave a sort of shy smile at your response before finally walking across the threshold and softly locking the door behind her.

She stood awkwardly in front of the entrance before looking up to you where you were in the small kitchen behind the island.

You were rifling through your cabinets, the day had been long and it called for something stiff.

Pulling out a shot glass and your favorite bottle of bourbon, you poured yourself a shot and tossed it back, scrunching your face at the strong bite as the spice tracked down your throat and burned pleasantly.

“Ugh that’s better.” You groaned as you slammed the shot glass back down onto the counter.

An amused giggle drew your attention back to the entrance where Kate still stood.

“You weren’t kidding when you said you’d had a day huh?” She asked, still giggling at your actions. You threw a smirk in her direction, chuckling along as well now.

“You have no fucking clue.” You stated bluntly, inhibitions lowering now that you were finally home.

She threw her head back in a full bellied laugh at your bluntness before finally walking over and meeting you at the island.

“I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a drink too?” She tilted her head playfully at you.

You gave your own laugh now and her smile stretched across her face so blindingly bright at the sound, you thought your heart might actually explode out of your chest.

“I think I could be troubled to give you one or two, as long as you’re cool with staying a bit for a nightcap?” You asked almost nervously, afraid she might say no and you’d have to end the interaction.

Instead, she smiled even wider than you thought was possible. “I would love that.”

“Perfect! You can leave your jacket and shoes by the door where I left mine. But first, shots!” You turned quickly to grab her own shot glass as she giggled yet again at your antics.

You placed her glass down next to yours, pouring yourself another round and her first, before sliding her drink to her and picking up your own.

Turning to her you held the glass up to her in toast.

“A toast, to shitty days and the pretty strangers that make them better.” You flashed a stunning smile at her, and even though you had no idea, her heart had stuttered violently at the sight.

She toasted her glass against yours before you both downed your shots and moved to sit on the couch while she deposited her things neatly by your door.

You ended up talking with her for hours after you had originally meant to go to bed.

It was just so easy to lose track of the time with her, the conversation would ebb and flow with a sense of comfortability only found in friends who’d known each other for years. However you and Kate had reached it in minutes.

You kept downing shots together as well while the conversation kept its pace, reaching shot numbers three and four before the dizzying warmth began to settle heavily into your bones.

You could tell she was feeling it too by the way her cheeks flushed prettily and her laughs became more unguarded.

As you continued talking, the banter also picked up. It started with short jabs at your coping habits for long days, in her words, being to take strangers home and then ‘guzzling’ bourbon with them.

You had teased her right back about her inability to adhere to stranger danger when a random woman invites her into their home.

You had both laughed fully at that one, before the teasing began growing into something else, something decidedly much flirtier.

“Yeah well maybe I wouldn’t be so inclined to follow strangers home if they weren’t so beautiful.” She tossed at you.

“Oh really, I’m beautiful now? Careful Miss Katie I might grow a big head on you.” You giggled.

“You should, and I mean it.” She seemed almost shy in the way she said it, like she was confessing something to you without actually telling you what it was.

You giggled again and waved her off, feeling very warm, and not only from the alcohol now.

“Yeah well maybe I wouldn’t invite strangers into my house if they didn’t have breathtaking smiles.” It was almost too casual the way you’d said it, and you leaned forward to pour you both shot number five to distract from it.

You both downed the drink again, before turning back to each other.

The flirting continued the longer you went on, and you briefly wondered if it was just the alcohol that made you so bold at the next part of the conversation.

“You know, this day so badly sucked until you walked into my shop Bishop.” You said, running a hand through your hair to comb it back, before leaning your elbow up on the back of the couch and resting your head in your hand.

The new angle allowed for you to get slightly closer to the brunette.

“Yeah?” She asked.

“Definitely. The worst day ever until you offered to help me lock my door. I don’t think I’ve ever talked with anyone in my shop this long, even my employees.”

“Well I’m glad I made a good impression, then.” She shyly looked down into her lap with a half smile. Her lips tugging up into one corner.

You wanted to make sure that particular smile never left her face, she was simply too beautiful to be real right now.

“Better than that. I almost feel like I’ve known you forever, you’re just so easy to talk to. I could totally see myself wanting to hangout with you outside of work.”

“I could see the same.” She responded, looking back up at you with that half smirk still planted firmly on her face.

God she was so cute.

And god you were so screwed. Well and truly screwed.

You both stared into the other’s eyes for a moment, almost a beat too long, though neither of you minded.

You turned your body fully toward her, the bourbon in your system fueling your next actions.

She matched the new angle, turning to face you head on as well.

“Can I tell you a secret?” You asked her.

She smiled as you inched ever so carefully closer to her.

“Yeah, what’s that?” She asked, also leaning toward you.

“I kind of, really, really wanna kiss you.” You admitted, flashing her a soft smile. You flicked your gaze down to her lips for a half second before snapping your gaze back up to her eyes in wait of her response.

The smile that stole across her face really did stop your heart that time before beating along at the speed of a bullet train again.

She tilted her head closer to yours, continuing to close the distance between the two of you.

“What exactly is stopping you?” She asked.

“I don’t know, I think you should help me with it though.” You teased, your smile growing as the physical closeness between you two was virtually nonexistent at this point.

She dropped her eyes to your lips before roaming them everywhere across your face, almost as if she was memorizing you before this night ended. Like she almost expected to not see you again after tonight.

Like you’d let that happen.

“I kinda think I should help you too, you look like you need help making a move.” She teased, her voice low and husky as it her breath ghosted across your lips.

“Yeah I think I do, how ever will you help me?” You teased again, and she just smirked wider before closing the remaining distance.

Holy.

Fuck.

Your lips met together so carefully, softly, tender in exploration.

Once, twice, three times.

Before deepening into something equally slow and explorative, but with the distinct undercurrent of desire trickling gently into passion.

Fireworks were great. You loved them. But their light and dazzling color in no way compared to the experience of this kiss.

Moving your lips in tandem with Kate’s felt like coming home after the worst day to something you’d always known. A person you missed without ever having met. A soft glow settled in your belly as it continued.

You didn’t want it to end. If you could have stayed right there in that moment, with Kate’s lips tangling in yours into a complete bliss, you don’t think you’d ever have moved again.

You and Kate parted from the kiss, neither realizing that your hands had come up to cradle each others cheeks during.

To anyone passing by, peering through your living room window in your crappy New York apartment, it would have looked like two entranced lovers who’d known one another for years in this life and eternity in others.

To you and Kate, however, neither could manage to care about anything or anyone outside of your warm, slightly fuzzy bubble of contentment.

You searched her eyes for intent, and seeing the same fire in yours reflected in her piercing blue, you drew her to you again and met her in another earth shattering embrace.

This had begun as possibly the shittiest day of your life, but as you sat on your couch at the end of it and the city sounds faded into the background along with the setting sun, you thought to yourself…

‘Totally worth it.’