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Miles groaned when he heard the merry tinkle of the bell above the door. “Why does it have to sound so happy?” He muttered under his breath. Stepping up to the register, he called out, groggy, but rehearsed, “Good morning, welcome to Cafe Amestris! What can I-?” He froze, catching sight of the customer stepping towards him. Bright blue eyes pierced him where he stood.
“Do you have cortados?” Normally, Miles would be irritated by such a question, because they were right there on the menu, but he couldn’t bring himself to it. He nodded, dumbly. They stood and regarded each other. “May I please have one?” The woman asked at last, in a tone that implied she was irritated. Oh well, at least she was trying to be polite.
“Oh, right! Of course!” Miles hurried to the espresso machine. “Sorry, I’m not awake yet!” He laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.
The woman nodded, looking unimpressed. She must have been just as tired as Miles, because she leaned on the counter, head in her hands, blonde hair spilling around them. Miles stared in spite of himself. Buccaneer poked him between the shoulder blades as he walked by, and he started.
He ground the coffee, poured the shots, and steamed the milk flawlessly. He capped it off with a charming smile as he handed it to her. Or tried to. A slip of his hand had the drink sloshing over the counter.
“Sorry, sorry!” He grabbed the milk rag and began hastily wiping at the mess.
“You do realize people don’t usually want to wear their drinks, right?” Buccaneer teased, tossing him a dry rag and hastily remaking the drink.
The woman didn’t so much as lift her head, until Buccaneer pressed the remade drink into her hand.
---
“Cortado?” Miles guessed a few mornings later--she’d been coming and getting the same thing every morning. She nodded.
“Keep the change.”
“Thank you.” Miles smiled at her, and she turned up the corner of her mouth in a bleary uncaffeinated facsimile of a smile. Taken aback--she wasn’t a smiling kind of person--Miles misjudged the location of the tip jar and promptly shoved it off the edge of the counter. It shattered at her feet.
She looked at it with a frown and then up, not at Miles, but past him to address Buccaneer. “Is he always like this?”
Buccaneer, the traitor, laughed. “Only when he’s around you, Ma’am.” He wasn’t wrong. Miles was normally exceptionally graceful, and could charm the socks off even the most cantankerous customers. It really was only around her that he became a fumbling idiot.
Miles wanted to sink into the ground. Instead, he began sweeping up the shattered glass. Halfway through the cortado Buccaneer made her, the woman seemed to catch on. “Oh!” She gave Miles a puzzled sort of look, a flush spreading across her cheeks.
Miles was pretty sure he died on the spot.
“Miles.” Buccaneer prompted a few minutes later.
“Huh? What?”
“She’s gone, you can move now.”
“Oh. Oh, right!”
---
“Hey, it’s cortado girl!” Buccaneer grinned, indicating the woman walking up the sidewalk toward the shop door. “I wasn’t sure she would come back. You’ve assaulted her with a drink and a tip jar now.”
Miles glared. “Those were both accidents and you know it. If she didn’t come back it would be because of what you said!”
“Hey!” A particularly irksome regular--a police officer named something stupid like Envy, if Miles was remembering correctly--slammed a drink onto the counter. “This Americano is terrible!”
Miles glanced at the cup and grimaced internally. He opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off.
“Maybe because it’s a latte, moron.” Cortado girl snapped, pointing at the label. “If you’d pay attention, you’d realize that wasn’t your drink, you imbecile. Now sit down and shut up. The rest of us want our coffee.”
“No one asked you!” The man huffed, drawing himself up. He turned to her and froze. “Oh, Detective! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was-”
“It shouldn’t matter at all who I am. Pay attention and don’t yell at people who are just doing their jobs.” She glared so intensely Miles felt a bead of sweat from the second-hand stress. “Now, leave. I need coffee.”
“Y-Yes, Ma’am!”
She slumped on the counter and yawned. “Cortado, please?”
“Sure.” Miles made her one, and handed it over. “It’s on us today. Thank you.”
She shrugged, and headed out the door with only a backwards wave in acknowledgement.
---
Miles yawned sleepily, and poured himself a mug of coffee. “Remind me again, why I’m awake right now?”
“Because you want to keep your job?” Buccaneer laughed.
“Ugh.” Miles rested his head on the edge of the espresso machine. “And why do I want to do that?”
“Money.” The big man suggested. “Or, you know,” he nudged his sleepy partner, and pointed at the door “because it’s only way you can see her.”
Miles straightened, adjusted his goggles, and tried not to be too conspicuous as he peered over the top of the espresso machine at his all-time favorite customer. Buccaneer cleared his throat pointedly and busied himself wiping down the already spotless counters. Miles hastened to the register.
“Good morning,” he smiled, suddenly not caring how ludicrously early it was, “cortado?”
“Yes, please.” She handed over cash without waiting to hear the price. Miles rung it in and dropped the change in the tip jar without a second thought; he knew most of his regulars, and even if he hadn’t, he would have her routine memorized.
Buccaneer cleared his throat again as Miles began silently making the drink. Miles ignored him and focused on steaming the milk into creamy perfection. He poured the double shot and then the milk carefully floating a tulip into the crema.
“So, do you have a name or should we just keep calling you ‘cortado girl’?” Buccaneer asked, when he realized that Miles wasn’t going to engage.
“I do have a name, yes.” Miles watched the annoyance flicker across the beautiful blonde’s face.
“Here you are.” He handed over her cortado, without spilling it, and gave her a gentle smile. “Would it be alright to ask what your name is?”
She regarded him for a long moment and then took a sip of her cortado. She took another, and then a third. Then she smiled. Miles knocked over a (thankfully empty) milk pitcher with his elbow. “I’ll share if you do.”
“I’m Miles.” He hoped he wasn’t blushing too hard as he retrieved the pitcher.
“Olivier.”
“I’m Buccaneer, if anyone’s wondering.” Buccaneer offered, smirking. They both ignored him.
“It’s nice to know your name, finally.”
“Likewise.” Olivier handed her empty mug back. “Thank you.”
Miles watched her leave. He already wanted it to be the next morning.
---
“So,” Miles tried to be casual, “you’re a detective, Olivier?”
“Quite so.”
“Do you like it?”
“More so after my coffee.” She raised a brow pointedly and Miles grinned apologetically and started her cortado. “But,” she continued, softer, “yes. Yes, I do.”
“It must be hard.” He remarked, pouring her espresso carefully. He was less careful with the milk, and the end of the feather spilled over onto his hand.
“It is, but I enjoy the challenge.”
“Here you are.” He smiled as he handed over her drink.
“Thank you, Miles.” She took a sip and regarded him over the top of the mug. “You know most people would ask if it’s harder to do as a woman.”
“I’d imagine the hardest part is not losing it at all the people who think that way, but” he shrugged, “I’m neither a detective or a woman.”
She laughed, and he realized, quite suddenly, that he wanted hear her laugh--would do anything--to make her laugh like that again. “Well,” she smirked, “you’re not wrong.” She glanced at her watch and straightened. “I need to go, thanks for the coffee.” Miles watched her go with a faint pang in his chest.
---
Miles had never been fond of the closing shift; it was boring and messy, and while there were fewer customers, they hung around longer and tended to be a bit more antagonistic.
“Man,” a young man seated at the bar, said a little too loudly, watching Miles out of the corner of his eye, “can you believe they even allow Ishvalans in here?”
Miles ignored him, continuing to scrub the airpots as though he hadn’t heard the remark at all.
His friend cracked his knuckles menacingly. “I can think of a thing or two I’d like to say to those scum.” They chuckled to each other.
Miles remained visibly unchanged, but he internally debated whether or not he should text Buccaneer. He hated relying on his big friend like that, but people were a lot less likely to start something once they realized who they’d be up against.
“Really?” A voice, cold, familiar, and all together welcome cut across the semi-raucous laughter. “I can think of some really good reasons to leave. Right now.”
Miles turned and saw Olivier glowering down at the teens. She had her hands on her hips, flaring out the edges of her jacket. She’d never flaunted them, but he’d seen the glint of her badge and the telltale bulge of her sidearm often enough to know exactly what caused the teen’s faces to go white and them to quietly decide to leave.
She turned to him and something shifted in her face, softening just a little, before it went blank. “I realize you could have dealt with them yourself-” she began, but he cut her off.
“No, I appreciate it. I don’t like that kind of confrontation; I don’t think it helps my case.”
“Your case?”
“Oh,” he blushed a little, “I want to change people’s perspective. I’m only a quarter Ishvalan, but I like to show people that we’re not at all what they think. It’s probably silly.”
“I don’t think so.” She was completely sincere. “You have a unique perspective, and that gives you an understanding I’ll never possess. I think it’s admirable to want to share that.”
He smiled, unsure what to say, and turned his focus to his job. “It’s a bit late for cortados, so what brings you in here tonight?”
“I missed you this morning.”
The faint blush flared until his whole face was scarlet, but he was smiling. “Oh.”
“Buccaneer makes good coffee but he doesn’t have quite your flare for throwing it at unsuspecting people.” Miles scowled at her, and she chuckled. “Ah, have a little gratitude. I did just save you, you know.”
Miles’ lips twitched. “My hero.” He grabbed her hand and kissed it, pleasantly surprised when her eyes went wide. “Are you my Prince Charming now?”
“I-” she floundered and he grinned at the way the tables had turned. She cleared her throat. “Maybe I ought to hang around until you close. Just in case they come back.”
“Just in case.” He agreed squeezing her hand gently.
They didn’t return, but Olivier offered to walk him home, once again just in case. He was fairly sure Buccaneer was going to laugh at him when he got home, but he found he didn’t mind. Olivier wasn’t very chatty, but she didn’t seem to mind his rambling and their hands brushed periodically as they walked.
“This is me.” He said, all too soon, as they arrived outside his apartment complex. “Thank you, this was nice.”
She nodded. “We should see each other outside of Cafe Amestris sometime.”
“I’d like that.” He started down the stairs to his basement apartment and then stopped, turning back to look at her. With him on the steps and her still on the street they were nearly the same height and he impulsively took her hand. “Um, I guess this is goodnight.”
She looked at their joined hands and then up at his face. She was beautiful no matter what, but up close she took his breath away. “If you have no objections, I’d like to kiss you goodnight.”
He chuckled, amused at how she could be so straight-forward. “I’d like that very much,” he admitted, tilting his face towards hers, eyes fluttering shut. (Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Buccaneer was laughing at him.)
She closed the distance with a kiss that was, somehow, both hard and chaste. His heart fluttered in his chest, and, when she drew away, he had to catch his breath.
“Well.” She looked at him, a smirk playing about her lips. “Have a good night, my darling damsel in distress.” He stood frozen in place as he watched her walk away, golden mane swaying her wake.
Buccaneer, he realized, wasn’t laughing in the back of his mind, but rather at the base of the stairs. He turned to glare at him, and then blushed furiously when, laughing so hard he wasn’t making any noise at all, he mouthed “darling damsel”.
“Shut up.” Miles muttered, fingers tracing his lips almost disbelievingly.
“Will you send your prince after me, if I don’t?” Buccaneer chortled, wiping away tears of laughter.
“I just might.” Miles glared, brushing past him to enter their apartment. “And do you really want her coming after you?”
Buccaneer sobered a little, and regarded him more seriously. “Do you think if I throw a latte at her, I can get a kiss, too?” Unable to keep a straight face, he doubled over again.
Miles slammed the door in his face, and smirked with satisfaction as he clicked the lock into place. Buccaneer would be sorry when he realized he couldn’t get in, and he didn’t have a knight in shining armor on hand.