"You have a front," someone said in his ear.

It was true, Wirt reflected to himself. He did put up a front. Though Halloween had long passed, still he covered up his true face with a mask of calm collection, just as still waters on the surface of a lake could hold deep turbulence within them. But a mask is a flimsy disguise, and anyway, it wasn't as though he'd even worn a real mask for his Halloween costume-imagine if he'd gotten stuck in the Unknown while wearing a plastic superhero mask or something. Would it have stayed on? Maybe he'd have gotten lucky and the mask would have been knocked aside as he fell in the water, just as his metaphorical mask had been.

"Front," said the voice impatiently.

"Oh, right," he said, dropping his wet cloth and scrambling to hit his mic button. "Sorry, sorry, I've got it." Wirt wadded up the cloth into a ball and tossed it in the sanitizer bucket, most slipping on the puddle it made as he skidded to the register.

"Hey, sorry about that wait, what can I get you?" he said (the words running together into one multisyllabic monstrosity, a product of reciting them so often). Wirt's fake smile vanished when he recognized the customer in front of him. "Jason Funderberker," he added bitterly.

"Heyyy, Wirt," Jason said. The nasally greeting stretched on long enough for Wirt to glance at the clock on the monitor beside him. Two more hours on his stupid shift. "I didn't know you worked here."

Wirt huffed. If Jason Funderberker planned on making small talk, he'd have to do it alone. "Yeah. What can I get you?" he repeated.

"I dunno…" Jason put his finger to his chin and tapped it, staring at the menu. "Uhhhhhhh. I feel like something… cold. Do you have anything cold?"

Wirt knew looks couldn't kill but he tried anyway. "We can make everything cold. What sounds good to you."

Jason hemmed and hawed. "Lemme get a… cah-fey mihst-o?"

"Cafe misto," Wirt corrected. He usually didn't bother correcting anyone on their drink orders if he knew what they meant. Jason was going to be an exception. "That's, like, the one drink we can't make cold. You managed to pick out the one drink we can't make cold."

"That's okay," Jason said with an easygoing shrug. "As long as it's not too sweet. I don't want anything real sweet." A group of customers came in and got in line behind him; Wirt's finger was hovering over the order screen, tapping out the cafe misto order and ready to pay.

"What size?" Wirt asked quickly.

"Oh, though, can you put some caramel in it? And some whip cream. And it has to be decaf."

"We can do that as a pourover, it'll be a few minutes," Wirt said automatically, inwardly relishing the idea of keeping Jason Funderberker waiting at the bar for ten or fifteen minutes with a shrug and 'oh, sorry, was that your drink?' when he handed it off. "What size."

"And make it with coconut milk, mm! I love coconut milk," Jason continued conversationally. Another customer entered. Jason was officially holding up the line. "You know, last night, I made Sara this drink with coconut milk and lime, and she was like, 'Jason, this is gross,' but I told her-"

"You were with Sara last night?" Wirt's voice was a squeak. His heart dropped to the pit of his stomach, his hand still hovering over the cup sizes.

"We were studying," Jason said flippantly. "Everyone was there. Kathleen, Jimmy, the whole gang." Wirt's heart rate finally dipped back to a nearly healthy rate.

"O-oh," he said weakly. "Good for Sara. Cup size?" Then he caught himself and stammered, "W-w-what size drink did you want again?" all in a rush.

"You should come hang out with us after work. We're all gonna meet up here. I'm picking up their orders now."

"There are more orders?" Wirt said weakly.

"Yeah. Okay, so Jimmy wanted a large vanilla bean-"

"Wait, wait, Jason Funderberker, what size did you want your drink?"

"Eh…" Jason frowned at the cup display beside him. "Your larges are small, right? And the other way around?"

"What? No!" Wirt picked up a cup and spent two full minutes explaining cup sizes before Jason decided on getting "a medium, I guess" and thankfully handed over his phone to Wirt to type in the study group's orders.

"We'll have that for you at the end of the bar," Wirt said to Jason, who took his sweet time looking at the chocolate espresso beans and biscotti before finally moving out of the way for the customer behind him.

The other customers were either sympathetic or at least polite and fast, which was even better in Wirt's eyes. The line dwindled down quickly and Wirt scooted over to the bar to help finish drinks.

The sticker machine had printed out all the orders, and while Wirt was inclined to gripe and groan about how impersonal the thing was, it did considerably speed up the process. He yanked a sticker off and was about to slap it on a cup when he saw the name.

* SARA *
Gr Latte
Add Hazelnut

His heart, having worked double-time when Sara was last brought up, decided to take a well-earned short vacation and skip a few beats.

He'd do latte art. He should give her latte art. That would be perfect.

Though when he steamed the milk and it spurted in Wirt's face and all over the counter, he changed his mind.

"Right, okay," he muttered underneath his breath as the milk screamed beside him, staring at the soulless logo on the cup as if it'd blink. "I'll, I'll draw on the cup. That would be nice, right?"

Another sticker printed out on the machine-a mobile order. Wirt had to hurry. He scribbled Sara's name on the cup and poured the latte in a decidedly unartistic way.

And then, at the last second (and with a glance around to make sure she hadn't arrived yet), Wirt scribbled a quick ︎heart beside the name.

"Wirt, you ready for your ten?" came his shift supervisor's voice in his ears.

"Yeah, just a second," he said as he tapped the mic button.

The door opened. And there Sara was, chatting happily with Rhondi and strolling to the counter to see if her drink was ready.

It was now or never.

"Hazelnut latte for Sara! Thank you!" he called out, setting the cup on the bar and hurrying to the back of the cafe without a glance behind him.

She hadn't noticed. She probably hadn't noticed.

Wirt kept telling himself that for ten minutes straight as he whittled away his break, scribbling disconnected fragments of lines of poetry on an extra receipt that he stuck in his pocket at the end.

At least it was over. He could tell as soon as he came out on the floor that Sara's group was gone, leaving a trail of scone crumbs and cafe misto splashes on the floor behind them. Wirt grumbled "Jason Funderberker" under his breath like it was a curse word and did a U-turn to grab a broom and dustpan.

He was so focused on concentrating all his Jason Funderberker hatred into what he hoped would be a psychic laser beam to zap the stupid smirk off Jason's stupid face that he didn't notice Sara until she touched his shoulder and said, "Wirt?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin and he did drop the dustpan handle with a clang! "S, Sara! What're you doing here? I mean, your group, and, studying, and, Jason Funderberker."

She smiled at him. "I wanted to thank you for the latte. I didn't know you had a job here."

"Yeah, well." A nervous smile flitted across Wirt's face in return as he bent to get the dustpan. "All in a day's work?" That sounded stupid. He sounded so dumb. Where was all that sesquipedalian poetic loquaciousness when he needed it? "'Cuz, I mean, yeah, I work here, I gotta… save up for college? Y'know?"

"School's important," Sara agreed. "Where were you thinking of going?"

"I've got a lot of places in mind?" Wirt phrased it like a question. "I, well, I want to talk about it, but I'm sort of on the clock, and, yeah." He started sweeping again.

"You're not getting behind on schoolwork with an after-school job?" Sara asked, fiddling with the coffee cup sleeve.

"It's not too bad," Wirt said, trailing off. He wanted to stare at her fingers as they undid the cardboard glue and folded the sleeve corner back and forth, but more than that, he wanted her not to know he was staring, so he watched the crumbs he was sweeping instead. Super interesting crumbs.

"There's that big test in English, though," Sara said. Wirt glanced up to see her pressing her lips together tightly and then smoothing them out, and he looked away before he'd get caught. "You should really spend some time studying. It's easier with a partner."

"Oh," he started, and then said, "oh."

Sara reached out to take his wrist. It got in the way of his sweeping but he let her, hoping she wouldn't feel his pulse pounding again. "Come by my place after your shift, okay? Our group should be done in an hour, and I've got the evening free. We can study and quiz each other."

Wirt laughed, then he wondered why he'd laughed. "Um, yeah, that, that sounds good! I'll bring you my markout? I get, like, infinite free drinks too."

"Awesome. Then let me order early: I want another latte just like this one. In case we need to stay up late." Sara leaned in and pecked Wirt's cheek. He was pretty sure he died on the spot, or maybe that he'd already died and gone to heaven, or maybe that he'd never gotten out of that lake after all. "I think they're waiting for me in the car, but I'll see you soon, okay?"

"Okay!" came out of Wirt's mouth. His hand reached up to touch his cheek, where she'd kissed him, but she was out the door before he realized it.

And then, not wanting to think about it, he kept sweeping. Until he heard the door open again and perked his head up.

"Wirt?"

But this voice wasn't Sara's.

"I don't think my drink is right, it's hot. Can I get another? Maybe one of your frap-ees? Those are healthy, right?"

With joy in his heart and murder in his eyes, Wirt went around the counter and checked the clock as Jason stumbled through a re-order.

One hour, thirty-five minutes.

Wirt could make it until then.

"What are your sizes, again?"

...he thought.