Intangible

[1] Peppermint Mocha

       Eli has learned over the past few months that people take pleasure in having their own—ridiculously specific to them—coffee order so much that they will often go to extreme depths to customize it. 

       Some people like to think that the ratio of cream-to-sugar in their coffee reveals something about the kind of person they are outside of the shop setting; other people just look for any way to say hey, look at me, I'm different. It's a neurotic need, shared by many, and it's essentially a load of absolute bullshit. 

       Coffee is coffee, and a black coffee drinker is just as likely to have a sparkling bubbly personality as someone who favors an Iced Vanilla Mint Frappuccino with extra whipped cream. The only time coffee tells what kind of person you are is when you are a complete asshole about ordering it. 

       "We asked for an extra pump of Almond, and that doesn't taste like extra to me," Stacy Grey says, her mouth scrunching up in a way that still doesn't manage to make her any less attractive. She's known amongst the workers as the beautiful gal with fiery red hair and an attitude to match.

       The boy next to her rolls his eyes and she instantly glares at him.  "What? We should get what we paid for, Kaleb," she snaps.

       "Why does your bitching always have to be a 'we' thing?" he retorts back at her, and Eli is suddenly very tempted to smash his skull on the cash register because they always do this on his busiest days.

       Eli grudgingly takes Kaleb's drink from him and goes to fix it himself. When he returns to the register, they're still arguing so he doesn't bother asking for their names—he just scrawls them down on their cups and collects their money with a glare. Stacy mutters something about poor customer service as they stalk off.

        Eli huffs in irritation as the next customer arrives at the front of the line and he begins to wonder how he was sucked into this life.

       Well, there's an easy enough answer for that one: his aunt and uncle own the place.

       Despite the fact that he spends most of his time at school, Eli fills his breaks by picking up shifts at his aunt and uncle's shop. Wintertime is always particularly busy—chilly weather and hot coffee are an excellent combination for business—but Eli has found himself overworked because only one of his cousins came home for break this year. With the others gone, the shop is completely understaffed, and Eli's easily looking at a forty-hour week full of impatient customers and endless complaints.

       Forbes Family Coffeehouse is a shop built on regulars and (mostly when Eli isn't working) remarkable service, located in the middle of their city. Six years ago—when Eli had finally packed up and went off to college—Eli's aunt, her children grown, and now her nephew too, had decided she wanted something new to throw herself into and so the coffee shop was born.

       "Oh, baby it's cold outside," a foreign and booming voice chants as the door to the shop jingles open, and Eli looks up from his daydream to see who the newcomers are.

       Walking towards the counter is James Aiken, who always orders a Skinny Hazelnut Latte even though he never finishes it. The boy walking beside him isn't James's usual companion (which is a curly haired girl named Lily who always orders a White Chocolate Raspberry Mocha no matter what time of year it is).

       "Hey," the new kid says—he's tall with long arms and legs and big hands that he plops down smoothly on the counter, resting into them with broad shoulders. For some God-awful reason, he's wearing dreadfully tight jeans that hug his slim hips and a baggy black sweater with a neon blue wolf on it that makes Eli inwardly cringe.