Faery Godlover

“I’ll have a black coffee, plain, piping hot,” he said suddenly.

It dawned on her that he had been playing her the whole time. She wanted to smack the beautiful smile off his face. What a douchebag.

“Yes, sir,” she said, her customer service smile stiffening so that her cheeks ached. Jasmine rang it up and took his card, which was almost supernaturally sparkling, as though it were made of the essence of light itself. At first she suspected that, like his initial order, the card had to be fake. But it ran through the register without a single hiccup. She was beginning to realize that everything about this man was a gimmick of some sort. How tiresome.

“Sign the receipt, please,” she instructed, handing him the little slip of paper. He produced his own writing utensil from a pocket she somehow didn’t notice before on his shirt. Her eyebrows twitched up as he signed the receipt with a long, elaborate, glittering quill. It was adorned with the lush plumage of some exotic bird she didn’t recognize. Where the hell had this guy even come from? A magic shop? A fever dream?

At first she simply took the receipt from him and slipped it into the register without looking at it. The man gave her an admittedly charming wink and then moved on, leaving Jasmine to gawk after him as he slid down to wait in front of the barista counter. Enzo poured his coffee and slid it across the counter towards him. Enzo, clearly confused by the man’s over-the-top appearance, tossed Jasmine a questioning glance. And when they looked back, a split second later, the man was gone, as though he’d simply disappeared into thin air.

The rest of Jasmine’s shift carried on uneventfully. She tried to keep her mind distracted, and luckily the afternoon tea rush helped. She raced back and forth, taking and preparing orders, working in tandem with Enzo until finally it was time to clock out.

“Don’t forget to check for your tips,” Enzo remarked as Jasmine hung her apron on a hook on the inside of the break room door. She rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue at him.

“Yeah, I’m sure the two dollars I’ve earned today will really make a big difference in my lifestyle,” she quipped.

“Hey, you never know. I got a ten-dollar tip from a cougar the other day. She was pretty hot, too,” he said, shrugging.

“Mhmm, well, I don’t exactly attract wealthy suitors like you do,” Jasmine laughed.

“Just because you’re a douchebag magnet doesn’t mean you can’t potentially reel in a good guy every now and then, too. Then again, you always turn them down, don’t you?” he prodded emphatically. She knew he was referring to the five or six times she’d rejected his advances so far. He always backed off respectfully, and it had been a long time since the last incident. Nowadays he treated her like a friend rather than a potential hookup, but he still liked to make jokes about how they were actually soul mates and she was just too blind to see it.

“Well, the next time you wanna ask me out, just give me a ten dollar tip instead and see how that works for you,” Jasmine teased. Enzo laughed and gave her a gentle nudge on the shoulder.

“Okay, if you’re not going to look through your tipped receipts, I will,” he said, picking up the little stack of slips. Jasmine gave him a dubious look. “What? I’m curious!” he said defensively.

“Knock yourself out,” she replied, shaking her hair down from its messy bun. Her hair fell in thick golden-brown waves just past her shoulders and was one of the few traits she actually liked about herself. She knew she wasn’t unattractive, but overall, she had always considered herself pretty boring to look at. With green eyes that crinkled when she smiled and creamy white skin that blushed at the slightest little thing, Jasmine was often told that she had a warm, inviting appearance. She was appealing in an innocuous, girl-next-door kind of way. Not that her looks had ever really done much for her beyond attracting the very worst kinds of guys.

“Holy shit, Jaz,” Enzo said suddenly, his brown eyes going huge and round as he peered down at a receipt in his hand.

“What?”

“Oh my god. What the hell? This… is insane.”

Jasmine walked over and plucked the receipt out of his hands. In the tip line, which an unfortunate majority left blank, there was the number 500.

As in five hundred dollars.

“No,” Jasmine breathed, holding it up to the light as though it had some kind of invisible ink message that would indicate it was a prank. But it looked totally legitimate. The tip was real.

“What’d you do to get that?” Enzo asked, dumbfounded. “Who was it?”

Jasmine checked the name. All it said was Prince Duada. That could not be a real name. She couldn’t imagine to whom a moniker like that would belong. Until it hit her… the strange, hot guy with the dark glasses. It had to have been him. Nobody else stood out today in the least.

“That guy with the sunglasses. The tall one,” Jasmine answered her eyes wide.

“Oh my god, of course,” Enzo replied. “Girl, go cash that shit in immediately.”

“I don’t know… this has to be fake,” she murmured. “What if it’s a trick?”

Enzo stared at her open-mouthed, as though she were the dumbest human being on the face of the planet. “A trick? You’re not being punked, Jasmine. It’s totally real.”

“I—I don’t know what to do. I doubt we even have enough money in the till to cash this tip, Enzo. Cynthia is gonna flip.”

“Who the fuck cares? It’s your money! Hey, I have manager keys. I’ll do it myself. Come on, let’s get your money!” he said enthusiastically, dragging her over to the master till in the back office. There was just enough cash to make it happen—today had been busy. Jasmine blinked down numbly at the money in her hands. It was mostly in smaller bills, and it was a ridiculous looking stack of green.

“I need to go home and, like, take a nap or something,” Jasmine said quietly, still in utter shock. Enzo patted her on the back.

“Aren’t you glad I made you look at your tips?” Enzo laughed as she walked out of the cafe and toward the back parking lot in a trancelike state. Her mind was racing, utterly caught up in how fantastic and bizarre this was. Who in the world tipped five hundred bucks on a two-dollar cup of coffee?