MY USUAL AND YOU [Cafe Titas #2 PREVIEW -- SOON!]

1. People are not ready

From Mina: So this is happening! I've written 7+ chapters of this book so far, and will start posting it bit by bit here on my Wattpad. This is Cafe Titas #2, Erika's book! I changed the title and from now on will be referring to it as My Usual and You. This is a draft version and may be a little or a lot different from the published version! 

For you, titas and titos (and titas and titos at heart)

***

Erika San Ignacio's favorite customer at Yumi & Kit Cafe, where she was the cashier, was this really handsome man. Most likely also forty-ish, like her, late thirties at the youngest. No wedding ring. Somewhat quiet, very kind, seemed like the last thing he would do was hit on her.

Because that would be inappropriate.

Naturally, every day that he dropped by to get his large coffee, to go, she imagined what it would be like to kiss him. She was so sure that it would scare him away, and then her best friend's small business would lose a regular customer, and it would be her fault, because of her scary lips. Her unchecked desires.

Someone she once dated did say that she had "scary lips," in a friendly conversation several years after the fact. "I was so scared of them. They knew what they were doing. I would easily give it all up for them."

Huh. So that was, Erika guessed, not a good thing. For him.

No big loss, being deprived of that man's company beyond the couple of times they actually did hang out. She didn't miss him, and after he said that, she couldn't shake off the feeling that he was not alone in his assessment of her.

People were not ready for Erika.

Anyway. Her favorite customer had no reason to desire her and/or fear her. He hadn't even seen her full face—Yumi & Kit Cafe required all staff to wear a face mask and she was usually in a KF94 with a variety of cat patterns printed on it. Her favorite customer had never seen her lips.

For probably a year now, he had been coming in on weekdays, right before three p.m, one among the gazillion employees taking their coffee breaks in the afternoon in the Makati business district. At first his appearances were sporadic, weekly if at all, but in the past couple of months he dropped by several times a week. As cafe cashier, Erika knew the regulars in the neighborhood and after a while could tell which ones were Monday/Wednesday/Friday workers, or Tuesday/Thursday ones, or various combinations in between. Her favorite customer seemed to be at the office every day.

Sometimes, after thinking about what it would be like to kiss him, Erika thought about what he did for a living. What did he do, if he was working on-site Monday to Friday, wore office barong type shirts, crisp trousers, paid in cash? Always said his order in a low and rumbly voice, that was also soft and kind and intimate?

Maybe she should be scared. This was a job she should not, would not quit. Erika was a cafe cashier at forty-two, a job she took on after quitting as a brand executive earning...way more than this. It was a decision that was both sudden and twenty-plus years in the making, because helping her best friend Sabrina start her post-retrenchment cafe business was more important. Erika was manning the cash box and felt like she mattered, on a daily basis. She shouldn't "give it all up" for a voice, a face, a body that seemed like it would feel great on top of—

"...QR code please?"

Erika, calm down. You have actual customers right now. Not her absolute favorite one, but still, the paying kind. Her mind had started to wander because it was almost three p.m.

"Sorry about that! Here you go." Erika gave the woman who ordered the large iced vanilla latte a QR code so she could pay for the purchase, and their new barista Jelli had just slid the drink over the counter to her.

Erika did zone out for a minute but it was nothing catastrophic.

She could in fact zone out for a minute or ten and not have her entire livelihood depend on how she did as a cafe cashier today. The San Ignacios weren't on the list of the top wealthiest of Manila just yet but they lived comfortably. The "family business" ensured that as soon as Erika was born, she would have more options and comfort than most.

Still, this was something she wanted to do, at this time in her life.

He came in, a little after three p.m. The office barong this time was a light caramel brown, somewhat casual, impeccably embroidered.

"Welcome to Yumi & Kit. Large brewed coffee to go?"

Yumi & Kit was small and local, amidst all the chain brands and also other local cafes in their neighborhood alone, and it brought in a crowd that was fascinating to watch. Interacting with them on a daily basis kept Erika's mood light and cheery, the opposite of how anyone she worked with for ten years would describe her. Just to say—the buzz that ran down her body and the smile that was behind her mask was how she was with every customer, okay, and not just the one she was extremely attracted to.

"Yes," he said in that voice. "My usual."