WHO: Ren & Noah WHEN: After the weekend. WHERE: The Coffee shop and Bookstore. SUMMARY: Ren owes Noah a free drink and he comes to pick it up. WARNINGS: None yet, will update accordingly.
Morning rush had mostly come and gone. Rush being a sort of relative term for Repose. There were the regulars who came in and usually just wanted their coffee, the group of older men who gathered by the table near the window, and another group of women that had their book group on Monday morning. All of them had predictable orders and so Ren had made them up, offered smiles he didn't feel, and then returned to cleaning out the lower cabinets in the lull between anyone coming in. He didn't feel like doing that, but he didn't feel like going out and checking the bookshelves and risking being talked to. Getting away for the weekend had been exactly what he'd needed, but there was still underlying restless unease.
He'd thought he was over whatever he'd had with Louis. They hadn't talked for weeks, months maybe even? It felt as if it had been for forever, and Ren had never managed to stay friends with anyone after breaking up with them, not really. Why Louis should have been an exception was beyond him, and certainly the evidence suggested that he wouldn't have been, so why he felt restless and edgy now when the other man had left town, he couldn't even say. He stood up, ran a hand through his hair, wiped both hands on his trousers and reached for a mug to brew a couple of shots of espresso into.
In the general chatter of the early morning people, he let the espresso brew, staring into space out the window. At least he'd let him know. It would have been worse to just have found out when the shop never opened, because Ren could only assume it wouldn't. He'd ridden his motorcycle by it when he'd come back into town and it hadn't been. But how long would it have taken him to notice?
The bell attached to the door pulled his attention away from the window and towards the door. He stepped away from his own espresso drink, and a half grin pulled at the edges of his lips. "Here for your free drink?"