Cora was naturally an early riser, one of the dreaded “morning people” that were spoken of in hushed tones, mixed with a combination of awe and disgust. Every single day, she rolled out of bed at about 5:30 in the morning, though what she did with her time varied depending on her schedule. Some days, it was yoga, some it was journaling, and some days it consisted solely of getting ready to go off to work. Today had been one of the work days, because today, Cora worked the morning shift. If she was being completely honest, the morning shift was one of her least favorite to work, solely because it meant dealing with people who weren’t really even people before their caffeine kicked in. The joys of the service industry were never ending, and though she had a reputation of being perky this early in the morning, there were still people giving her a hard time for being this perky.

However, today was one of the good days. Cora had good coworkers with her, Lennox hadn’t shown up, nobody had treated her as less than human yet… it was a good morning. It had just started to slow down from their typical morning rush, and her coworker up front had just gone on her break, when the door chimed. Cora turned, and a bright smile curled across her lips as a familiar—and handsome—man walked into her cafe. Jae was a familiar face from the halls of Phalanx, and she would be lying if she said that she hadn’t been keeping an eye out for him after the day that he had happened upon her in one of the many practice rooms, trying and failing to talk herself into using her power again. He had been the light spot that she had desperately needed to get out of her own head, and she personally thought that they had bonded over their mutual love of bad horror movies. Unfortunately, she definitely wasn’t telepathic, so there was no real way for her to know one way or the other.

Cora made her way through her typical script, since one look at the man had told her that he was, at best, half awake. However, she did see the moment that his face brightened, even with the exhaustion still in his eyes. Something like relief flooded her, and whatever butterflies were currently resting in her stomach fluttered all over again. “I mean for what it’s worth, I definitely thought you were going the Silver Surfer route. I know I’m pretty great, but I’m no superhero.” She laughed, carefully punching in the order for the quad espresso that he had rattled off while standing half-asleep in front of her register.

“Well, caffeine definitely helps.” She pulled a cup towards her, thinking back to the latte that she had ordered that morning to help her function a little better. Even early risers needed a little something to get them going sometimes. “But so does going to sleep before dawn.” She arched an eyebrow at him; it had been a complete guess, but considering there had been very, very few times that she had seen him before two pm, she had a feeling that it was a good one. “If it weren’t for the fact that you live in Louisiana, and that I have personally seen you in the sunlight more than once, I would start wondering whether or not you were a vampire.” Looking down, she remembered that her job was not to banter with Jae, and that she actually needed to finish taking his order and make his coffee, since she was currently the only one up front who was working. At least, for the next twenty minutes. “That’ll be $5.15. Also I should tell you I feel a little worried about your heart considering the amount of caffeine you’re about to put in your body.” She tilted her head, looking up at him with a perplexed look on her face. “Why are you among the living this early, anyways? Not that I’m complaining, of course.”