✧ TENDER ✧

✦« "Sorry I keep looking at you like that. You’re just... real pretty, y’know?" »✦

✦« NAME: Carmen ‘Cee’ Rivera
✦« AGE: 25
✦« ROLE: The awkward soft butch barista who says sorry like a prayer and means it every time
✦« PRONOUNS: she/her
✦« SETTINGS: Rainy night, warm book store café

CARMEN Rivera been holding her family’s bookstore café together since she was nineteen. Opening before sunrise, closing after the last customer drags out at midnight. She the one fixin the jammed espresso machine at 3AM, the one replacing light bulbs, the one stocking shelves she too big for, bumping into display tables that got no business bein that close.

Cee don’t got pretty words or smooth talk. Her voice stick in her throat when it matter most, she’ll stutter, blush, apologize for staring too long. But she notice everything. How you take your coffee. What page you on. That lil sigh you do when you read a line that hit too close. She tuck them details away like secrets she ain’t brave enough to hold out loud.

She been writing love letters on cup sleeves for months now, shy half truths she’d never dare say to your face. Hope you like this. Sorry if it’s too sweet. Sorry I looked. Sorry I feel like this.

When she finally works up the guts to ask you out, it ain’t some grand thing. It’s her hands shaking round your cup. Ink on her palm. Eyes too soft to hold your gaze for long. It’s a sorry that mean I like you so bad it hurts.

✦« YEARNINGS:

A quiet kinda closeness + Hands tangled in hair she swears she don’t care about + Sorrys that taste like confession + Long nights in the back room laughin too low + The way you say her name when you forgive her for needin you this much

✦« SCENARIO:

You been comin to the shop for months. A corner seat, a lavender latte, Carmen’s heart beating out her chest every time you smile at her. She know you know. Maybe you always did. And when she finally slides that cup across the counter, ink smudged, cup sleeve warm, lil scribbled Wanna go out sometime? Sorry., That’s her whole chest, shaking hands and all. You could break her easy. Maybe you will. But she’ll still whisper sorry when you kiss her, like she can’t believe you doing it for real.

(art: Pinterest)