Chapter 2: Surprise Me Drink

Seven hours later into the Ace shift

Ace stretches as the afternoon rush of customers have finally settled down. Looking at the time realizing it is 2:30 pm thinking he has one hour left with his shift for the day. His co-worker Alisa went up to Ace and starts making conversation.

“Hey, how are you holding up? Still alive in making drinks in a bar?”

Knowing Alisa as a supervisor knows that Ace can handle making drinks on the bar for café and drive-thru orders just fine.

“Yea, just always tired today, because I have been playing games all night. Drinking coffee in the morning didn’t fully help me but it did get me through the day.”

As he finished speaking, a sticker for a drink prints, as Alisa replies.

“It’s always the same kind of tiredness from you, you did this to yourself anyways. By the way, is it possible for you to stay for an extra 30 minutes so, I can get the new person trained?”

Ace sighed but smiles a bit knowing that was going to happen when he saw the schedule for today, considering there were only 4 of us working right now. But it didn’t matter much to him because he does want to help as much as he can.

“Sure, I can, if you can let me keep making drinks for the rest of my shift. I know I will stutter my words in taking orders.”

Alisa chuckled sarcastically a bit at the idea, considering Ace does not want to interact with people that often. But she nodded as a sign ‘Fine you have your way for now’.

“Also, can you let someone know to check my fridges for milk, I haven’t checked yet after the rush.” As he points the fridge out for her.

“Sure, I can let Ash know, after she finishes taking the café orders.”

Alisa starts walking towards Ash relaying what I need. And proceeds to go to the back staff room to work on food inventory counting for tomorrow. Whilst Ace goes back to making drinks at a more comfortable pace, after calling the customer’s drink order, catching his eye on the next drink order, and seeing the sticker saying, ‘Surprise me with an iced caffeine drink.’ For the name, Luna.

This made him think “Eh… I have to think of what this person wants to drink. What a hassle. I haven’t thought about this kind of sticker in a while. Well, I might as well ask a couple of things to narrow my choice.”

“For Luna!” trying to get her attention.

As she looks up from her phone and steps forward, catching Ace’s eye with her straight black hair with her bangs covering her forehead. The girl looked like she has soft pale white skin, with her small oval face noticeable behind her bangs in her hazelnut eyes, having a small yet slender nose with noticeable pink lips. Noticing she is a bit shorter than Ace at around 5’7” with him at 5’9” wearing a comfortable black blouse with a thin hoodie over it whilst holding a small purse.

As she walks to the bar area, she gets his attention. “Yes?”

“Sorry, I just want to clarify your drink, you want it iced caffeine drink?”

She nodded.
“How sweet would you like it to be? What size? And what kind of milk?”

She stared out into space to think about it.

“I would like it normally sweet, but I can still taste the coffee, medium size and regular 2% milk is okay.”

“Okay then, I will give it a try.”

Ace thought for a minute about what to make. Sensing that she was staring at him with interest in what kind of drink he was going to make. A bit shy of her looking at him, he looked away. To his bar and proceed to make the drink.

He preps his espresso shots by putting them into the blonde setting. Looking at the flavor syrups, he chose to use 2 pumps of white mocha and 2 pumps of brown sugar. He drizzles the cup in caramel sauce, applies the espresso, swirls the plastic cup so the flavors mix, and adds the milk with light ice.

As Ace lids the drink, about to call out to Luna for her drink, but she was waiting at the same place bar, looking like she watches the whole thing with an interest in the drink.

Ace smiles softly at Luna and hands her the drink.

“Here you go.”

She looks at the drink in curiosity and starts drinking it.

Her eyes after taking the first sip, looked happy and satisfied with the drink.

Ace out of curiosity asked, “How is it?”

Luna also softly smiles at him and says, “It is really good, thank you.”

He smiles back at her, “You’re welcome.”

They stared at each other for a moment, pulling Ace back into work mode seeing that drink stickers are piling up. So, a small gesture waved at her and went back to work.

Ace began to pull the stickers and concentrate on his work using his knowledge of how to make each drink and sped up on getting through multiple drinks at once. Realized that request for that restocking did not come through because they were all still taking orders. So he began to go rush back and forth on restocking the milk enough to last through all of his drinks.

Noticing that Luna was sitting down with Alisa realizing that Luna is the new person in the store who will be starting today.

Ah, she is the new person in the store, I didn’t think about it until she sat down with Alisa. Well, I hope she fits in.

In his thoughts, Lena who is working in Drive Thru orders asks Ace about the drinks she is waiting for.

“Yes, it is coming, just quickly restocking because I didn’t have enough milk.”

“Do you need any help, Ace?” Lena asked.

“No, I will be okay, my café orders are almost done and I working on Drive-thru drinks at the same time. But can you grab more cups for me please?”

“Sure.” As Lena walks to the back room and grabs the sleeves of cups needed for restocking as she is finished, Ace almost caught up on his orders, slowing down the pace a bit for a breather.

Ace’s last hour and a half of his shift goes by completing drinks and restocking what is needed for the staff later. He lets Alisa who is with Luna train her in the back staff room, know that his shift is done, and Lauren who is coming in to relieve his position.

“I am all done, I am heading home now and playing more games and watching anime. I’ll see you later..”

As he gathers his things, Alisa caught his attention to introduce Luna.

“Wait, Ace. I have at least introduced you to the new person starting today. Her name is Luna Ito.”

“Yeah, I know she ordered a surprise me drink, I figured it was her.”

He turned to her, softly smile, and greeted her.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Ace.”

She smiles back, as he looked at the time on his phone.

“Well, I got to go, I have a game event I need to do. See you when I see you.”

He waved and quickly headed out. Along the way saying his byes to his other co-workers.

“See ya, good luck on the rest.”

Ace heads to his car starts his engine along with his music and drives off. But had him think.

Luna is kinda cute but there is no point in thinking more than that.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another side, another story

Luna arrived at her new workplace at Starsilver, she goes to the front register where Ash and Alisa are talking and asking.

“Hi, my name is Luna, I am starting today.”

Alisa replied, “Ah, yes I’ll grab your training but please grab a drink and take a sit in the café.”

Luna thanked them, “Thanks, then, I don’t know what to get, you can surprise me with an iced caffeine drink.”

Ash put in the order and direct her to Ace for him to grab the drink he finished. Luna walked to the side of the bar waiting for her drink to finish then surprised by Ace calling out to her. After asking what kind of drink, she wanted. He went back to the bar and started to make the drink,

Luna stared at Ace working on her drink.

Quietly saying, “He seems like a hard worker. And a nice person.”

After their exchange of completing the drink order, she noticed from his smile made her quietly whisper to herself as she walks to a table.

“Why does his smile seem so… sad?”