Work Text:
"I'll take a footlong turkey on wheat, please," says the most gorgeous girl Zoey's ever seen. She must be making some kind of face, because she can hear Mira snorting from off to the side, where she's manning the veggies and condiments. It's only the years of food-service experience that allows Zoey to pick her jaw off the floor and reapply her customer-service smile at all. "What kind of cheese?"
"Provolone, thanks," the woman says. She looks about the same age as Zoey, maybe a little older, with wavy, immaculately dyed purple hair that extends down to her shoulder blades. She's got on light-wash jeans and a black long-sleeve that highlights the world's most gnawable forearms. Zoey wonders how much she benches. Probably more than Zoey weighs. God, that's fucking hot.
Zoey doesn't exactly see herself working this job forever, but she is proud of how good she's become at it. She'd even entered into one of those speed-sandwiching competitions and gotten twelfth place in the country! She knows how to build a killer sub, and fast.
Her attempt to make a sub for this woman, however, is one of her most heinous, a travesty eclipsed only by her first clumsy forays into sandwich artistry many moons ago. It takes her way too long to find the meat, even though it's exactly where it always is; the cheese refuses to cooperate and goes onto the sandwich partially torn up (that one's not actually all her fault; they switched from halves to whole slices and it's worse, she can prove it's worse!), and she nearly drops the toasting tray as she goes to retrieve it. But like, can you blame her? At least the woman's a good sport about it, offering her a small smile and telling her to take her time.
After an uneventful ring-up, the woman thanks them both graciously. Mira glances at her as she leaves, then at Zoey, and gives her a knowing smirk. Zoey would say something, but Mira'd timed it well—it's the middle of the lunch rush, so Zoey has no choice but to stew in the knowledge that she's been read to filth.
Fuck.
—
The woman comes back two days later, around three in the afternoon, and orders the same thing. Zoey, alone on the line, recovers much quicker this time, and manages to get through the whole order with—you know what? Aplomb. She handles that shit with aplomb.
As soon as the woman is gone, Zoey runs over to the back, where Mira is in the middle of prepping tomatoes. Mira raises a questioning eyebrow.
"Dude," Zoey says.
"I know."
"Dude."
"I know."
"How can you be so calm about this? She's like the hottest fucking girl I've ever seen!"
Mira just shrugs, though her lips twitch upwards. "She's a customer. It's, like, the least sexy thing you can be."
"Yeah, but like…" Zoey groans. "You're right. Kind of. Point taken, I mean."
Mira just snorts and cores another tomato.
—
She comes back three more times that week, always mid-afternoon. At this point, the mystique has started to wear off the slightest bit; she's no longer the mysterious lavender-haired goddess that blew through her sub shop one fateful day, but rather that one super hot regular. Perfectly manageable. One might even say ideal—she gets all the benefits (looking at a pretty girl) with none of the drawbacks (risk of making her a fuckass sandwich). It does strike Zoey as a bit odd that anyone would love subs enough to get them as often as this woman does, but some people just really like consistency. She ate Uncrustables every day for two years in elementary school, so she's not one to judge.
"Footlong turkey on wheat?" Zoey asks as she puts on her gloves. Some people appreciate it when you learn their orders, and she's pretty sure this girl is one of them.
The girl in question nods, and her earns redden just a bit. "Yes, please! With quadruple of the shredded cheddar mix."
Zoey feels her eyebrows start to raise, but she schools herself quickly, hopefully before the woman notices. "That's gonna be a thirty-five hundred upcharge. Is that okay?"
"Yes, totally okay!"
It's hardly the weirdest thing Zoey's been asked to make, though it seems a bit out of character. Before now, this woman had only ever gotten the exact same thing, and delivered her order the exact same way. But like, whatever, right? Maybe she's just having a hashtag shredded cheddar moment.
As Zoey makes her the sandwich, she catches the woman giving her this look on more than one occasion. She doesn't know her well yet, but if Zoey had to guess, she'd say it's one of anticipation—though she couldn't tell you what for.
—
Miss Tall, Purple, and Handsome comes in wearing tight black short shorts and a yellow long-sleeve that rides deliciously high. At one point, she leans back to stretch her arms out over her head and the barest sliver of midriff is becomes visible, and holy shit holy shit is that a six pack holy shit! Zoey wants to lick the sweat off her stomach so fucking bad it's unreal. Wants it badly enough, in fact, to barely register the order of spicy shrimp with triple American, avocado, and nothing else as she's making it. The woman in question seems vaguely annoyed by something, but Zoey's way too focused on not drooling all over this sandwich to think much about it.
As soon as she's gone, Mira's head appears from around the corner. "Did she just order—"
"Yeah."
"With triple cheese?"
"She ordered quadruple once."
"And what kind of person needs that much meat for lunch?"
"Maybe she eats it for two meals. You don't know."
"You're impossible."
—
On Monday, the woman orders an egg and mayo wrap with barbecue sauce, no veggies, and a gratuitous amount of black pepper. On Tuesday, she orders roast beef, tuna, and bacon with half their available sauces and a selection of vegetables that corresponds to a checkerboard pattern of how they're arranged on the line. On Thursday, she can barely meet Zoey's eyes as she asks whether they could just ring her up a straight-up loaf of bread. Zoey has to call Bobby up and see if they're even allowed to sell those.
Mira becomes increasingly irate with each order, but it's stopped phasing Zoey at all. At this point, she's confident it's all for some kind of extended bit, because the woman looks vaguely annoyed during every order but is never anything less than delightful to her. It's too bad, then, that no one has ever committed to a bit harder than Zoey.
—
The guy she's serving is pretty handsome, she supposes, in a generic-boybander type of way. He's tall, with a mop of black hair and a pink dress shirt loosely tucked into jeans. His order's nothing special, but the corner of his lip occasionally twitches, like he's trying not to break into a smile. Zoey glances around, but there isn't anything amiss that she can see, and her outfit is just the standard black shirt and pants, albeit with a turtle pin above her heart. What gives? Does he just not fuck with turtles or something?
The man takes a leisurely stroll over to one of the tables and sits facing the door, making no move to unwrap his sandwich. It's hard to tell from this angle, but it looks like he might be watching the door. Maybe he's waiting on a friend.
About ten minutes later, That One Super Hot Regular steps through the door and immediately freezes upon seeing the guy. She flushes, her face flashing through all five stages of grief in about a second, which is honestly impressive.
"Rumi!" The guy says, throwing his arms up and standing to greet her. "How are you, buddy?"
The woman—Rumi—suddenly looks exhausted. "Hi, Jinu," she sighs.
"What a coincidence, running into you here! I was just about to have lunch. Would you care to join me?" Jinu's heightening his delivery just slightly, like he's speaking for the benefit of those listening rather than for Rumi.
Zoey watches Rumi's face as she considers Jinu's words. This could definitely be a case of this guy being a total creep, at which point she and Mira would be more than happy to throw him out on his ass. But while she's clearly annoyed with Jinu, Rumi doesn't seem uncomfortable around him. That, combined with the way he's talking, leads Zoey to believe he's just ragebaiting her for unknown reasons—and she's never been one to get in the way of someone else's bit.
Besides, Rumi's kind of cute when she's annoyed. Sue her.
"Fine," Rumi eventually says, and walks up to order. "I'll take footlong turkey on wheat with provolone, please."
Zoey blinks. What? "What?"
Rumi flushes. Off to the side, Jinu does a weird cough that might have been a laugh.
"Sorry!" Zoey says, feeling her own face start to heat up. "Sorry, sorry, sorry! I don't know why I said that. I guess I was just expecting something more, uh, complex?"
"No no, that's fair," Rumi says. "I guess I'm just in a simple mood today." Her eyes flick off to the side for a split second.
After she pays, Rumi thanks Zoey extra graciously, then stomps over to Jinu and pull him up by the arm. "We're leaving."
"What? Why?" Jinu says, scrambling to grab his sandwich before Rumi pulls him out of range.
"You know why! I can't believe you'd go through all this trouble just to fucking—" The door closes behind them.
—
Rumi enters the shop four days later—the longest she's ever been away since starting to come here—and gives Zoey a sheepish smile. "Sorry about my friend the other day. I know we made a bit of a scene."
"Oh, it's totally fine!" Zoey says. "I'm just glad you were friends with him. I was worried I'd have to kick him out."
"Eh, he's harmless. An asshole, but harmless." Rumi rolls her eyes, but there's the hint of a fond smile on her lips.
The rest of the order—double mushroom with nothing else—passes uneventfully, and Rumi actually sits down to eat for once. As Zoey refills the chips and napkins and restocks the line, she can't help but steal glances at Rumi whenever she gets. Even doing something as mundane as eating a sandwich, she's effortlessly striking, and the little grimaces she tries to hide with every bite are adorable.
She's refilling the lettuce when Rumi gets up to leave. "Have a good one," she calls out with a smile and little wave.
"Bye, Rumi!" Zoey says in return. Rumi stiffens and blushes, and Zoey's heart leaps into her throat as she realizes what she's just done. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I super should not have called you that without your permission. I just heard your friend call you it the other day, so it was in my head, but obviously if you wanted me to call you that you would have told me and I should know better than to—"
"It's fine," Rumi interjects. "I really don't mind. I just… wasn't expecting it." Then her cheeks redden further, and she gets this look on her face, lips pursed and off to the side a little bit, a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth at the same time.
"To be honest," Rumi says, eyes toward the floor, "I was debating telling it to you anyway."
Zoey just about manages to stammer out her own name in return before her brain totally shuts down.
—
She and Mira go out for drinks on Friday night, a much-needed change of pace from their usual itinerary of "go home, play a board game, then watch something 'til we crash." The place they pick isn't too far from work, and it's early enough that it hasn't gotten too busy yet. That means there's ample room at the bar.
The bar that's currently being tended by Rumi.
She's got a totally different vibe from when she visits the shop. Her hair is pulled back into a neat ponytail, she's got killer wings, and she's wearing a black tank top that displays her arms in their full, rippling glory. That's not even mentioning her ink, a complex multicolored web of flowers, vines, and other plants that runs along both arms and connects by way of her back—a back that flexes distractingly as she reaches to pull a bottle off a high shelf.
"Holy shit," Zoey whispers. "Holy shit."
"Huh. What are the odds?" Mira says. "Well, whatever. Let's go." She begins to walk toward the bar, and Zoey grabs her wrist almost on reflex. She glances back at her with eyebrow raised.
"Sorry!" Zoey says. "It's just… should we still, like… go up?"
"Why wouldn't we?"
"I don't know! Is it, like, weird somehow?"
Mira fixes her with a flat look. "She comes into our place of work and torments us with awful sandwich orders almost every day. Why would this be any different?"
As if on cue, Rumi glances up and notices them still lingering by the door. Her face flashes through about a million emotions in the span of a couple seconds before settling on an easy smile, and she waves them over. It's hard to tell in the low light, but as they approach, Zoey thinks Rumi is blushing.
"Fancy seeing you here," Mira says, voice light and breezy as she slides into a barstool with a smile. Zoey does her best to replicate the motion, but alas, she is short and the stool is high.
Rumi gives her a small, friendly smile, then turns to Mira. "No kidding! I suppose it's only fair that I get you back for all those lunches." The way she says it is so easy, so casual. She'd always seemed a little tightly wound at the sub shop.
"Well," Mira says, "it's really mostly Zoey that's helped you out." She nudges Zoey's shoulder. "Isn't that right?"
Zoey, who'd been focusing mostly on Rumi's arms, snaps to attention. "Oh! Yeah, I guess so. But that's mostly because you hate people."
Mira scoffs, holding an affronted hand to her chest. "One, I do not 'hate people.' I just know my strengths. Two, it's always slow when she comes in, so we only need one person on the line. And three, I seem to recall you telling me you'd rather die than ever prep the tuna again."
"That shit is a sensory nightmare and you know it! It comes in those weird slabs with shit packaging, it's got a bad texture while you crumble it, and the smell is terrible! Not to mention the amount of mayo they make us mix in with it—"
Rumi takes her out of the flow with a soft laugh that makes her stomach flip. "You two have known each other for a long time, huh?"
Zoey smiles reflexively at the question. "Yup! Since middle school, right?"
"Something like that, yeah. She gave me my first dye job. It was awful."
"It really was," Zoey laughs, "but it pissed your parents off soooooo bad!"
"And that's when I knew we'd be bonded for life." Mira gently knocks her shoulder against Zoey's own for emphasis.
Another gorgeous little laugh. "It's nice to see two people so close. What can I get you?"
Zoey does her best to focus on Mira, who's talking about some stupid shit her brother said, but her eyes keep drifting back to Rumi. It's not that she doesn't care, because she does! Mira's her best friend in the whole world! But watching Rumi interact with the other patrons is just kind of enthralling. She moves efficiently from person to person, all smoothness and swagger, giving each of them just enough of a look and a smile to make them feel like more than a face in the crowd. It seems genuinely effortless.
Then Rumi glances over at her, stumbles, and almost immediately drops a glass. She flushes beet red and bows an apology to the guy whose drink she just delayed. As she moves to clean up the pieces, she gives Zoey—specifically Zoey—a sheepish little grin that makes her stomach flip.
—
"Are turtles your favorite animal?" Rumi asks as she makes Zoey her second drink. She nods down to the pin on Zoey's shirt.
"Oh, definitely! You could say I'm a bit of a turtle person, tee-em."
Rumi's eyes light up. "Do you want to tell me about them?"
"Oh." The question has her straightening in her seat. She opens her mouth, then closes it again, because she likes Rumi a lot, and she's not sure she's ready to cross this particular threshold with her. How many people had she gotten to this point with, only for them to realize how much she could really be? The thought of weirding Rumi out in particular sends something hot and sharp through her.
She feels Mira press a hand to her thigh and give a single squeeze of reassurance. Zoey loves her so much.
Zoey takes a quick breath to steady herself. "Um. So like, I do? But once I get started, it might be hard for me to stop? And I know you're like, literally at work right now, so I don't wanna be disrespectful of your time or anything?"
"It's really alright," Rumi says, with so much sincerity that it stops Zoey cold. She chews on the inside of her cheek for a moment, seemingly considering something. Then she leans in, smiling almost conspiratorially. "I'm kind of a plant person, tee-em, so I get it."
Something warm and bright and golden starts to bloom in Zoey's chest. Fuck it, she thinks, and lets the floodgates open.
Zoey tells Rumi that there are over three hundred species of turtle in the world, and that their sizes range from three inches to over six feet—"Oh, uh, eight to a hundred-eighty-eight centimeters"—and that the leatherback sea turtle is her favorite of all but that's just for right now and it'll probably be something else next week like maybe the western painted turtle, that one's got a really pretty pattern on its underside, but honestly every turtle will probably be her favorite at one point; and that she's really been meaning to get a turtle tattoo somewhere but she keeps putting it off because she can't figure out where to put it or which turtle to get because she loves literally all of them.
As Zoey talks, she keeps glancing at Rumi, watching for any sign that she's bored or annoyed, but it never comes. Rumi's angled fully toward her, nodding and "mhm"-ing along as Zoey goes, only ever interrupting her so she can make someone's drink. Each time she excuses herself, Zoey's convinced that this will be the time where she doesn't come back to hear the rest of it, but Rumi always, always does. By the time she and Mira leave, the warmth in Zoey's chest has grown so much that it's almost bursting out of her.
—
Rumi features in Zoey's dreams that night. She can only remember a series of impressions: them hanging out on the couch, Rumi's strong arms wrapped around her from behind, soft kisses pressed to pillowy lips. It's not not horny, but mostly it's just… nice. It does make taking Rumi's order the next day quite a bit more awkward, though.
She tells Mira about the dream after Rumi leaves, and Mira's mouth turns further and further upward as she goes. By the time Zoey's done, Mira's grinning. She never grins at work. "You've got it bad."
"Ugh. I know," Zoey groans.
Mira raises an eyebrow. "'Ugh?'"
"Well, you know how it is having unrequited crushes. All the pining and shit."
"What are you talking about? She's clearly into you, too."
"What, because she listened to me talk last night? No way, dude. She's just nice."
"Did you really not see how she was looking at you during that? How she was looking at you today?"
Zoey flushes. "Tee-bee-aitch, I was too embarrassed about the dream to look at her for most of it."
"Hold that thought." Mira takes her hands out of the tuna bowl, throws her gloves away, then promptly turns around and flicks Zoey in the center of the forehead.
"Ow! What the fuck?"
Mira gently takes her by the shoulders. "Zoey. Babe. Have I ever lied to you?"
"No."
"Would I ever lead you astray?"
"You got us lost on the way to that boba place once."
"Zoey—"
"You also recommended that corn dog place in Itaewon that gave me food poisoning."
"Zoey!"
"Of course not! I trust you implicitly, Mira."
Mira's face softens, and she gives Zoey a small smile. "Ditto. So trust me when I say she's into you, and that you should consider doing something about it. Okay?"
"Okay."
—
"I had a thought," Rumi says as she swipes her card, "about your tattoo dilemma."
"Awww, Rumi," Zoey teases, "have you been thinking about me this whole time?"
Rumi flushes and glances away. "I mean, a little? It wasn't, like… constant, or anything." God, she's adorable.
Zoey giggles. "I'm just messing with you, dude! What happened to Bar Rumi? You were so suave and confident and h—uh, cool." She coughs once. From the back, Mira barks a laugh.
This only serves to make Rumi blush harder, which hadn't not been the goal. "Oh, that was work mode. Hot, confident bartender equals better tips." Had she just called herself hot? That's hot. "Being 'on' like that all the time is exhausting, so I try to limit how much of that I do when I'm just out doing stuff. You know?"
"Kinda?" Zoey says. "For me, it's more like I'm 'off' at work, if that makes sense? Like, I go way harder outside of work than in. I'm kind supposed to be a generically happy robot whenever I'm here."
Rumi hums. "That's a bummer. For what it's worth, I really liked seeing you 'on' the other night."
"Oh." Fuck, what's she even supposed to say to that? "Rock on, dude." Nope. Rumi, at least, doesn't seem to mind, just giving her a confused little smile.
Zoey clears her throat. "What, um… what thoughts did you have? About the tattoo?"
"Oh, right. I think you should get the leatherback sea turtle."
She'd remembered the name of her favorite turtle. It's normally only Mira that remembers things like that. Zoey's ears heat up. "Yeah? Why do you say that?"
"Well, people have a lot of different reasons for getting one tattoo or another. Some people care only about the aesthetics, some people want every piece to be deeply meaningful. I have a mix of both." Rumi rolls up her left sleeve up to the elbow (yum) and points to one of the flowers. "This is a red spider lily. I got it to remember my mom. But these water hyacinths here are just because they were my favorite flower at the time."
"Because they're purple?"
"No comment."
"Was that also around when you dyed your hair for the first time?"
"Point being, these are both so old now—I was a totally different person back when I got them. I don't really, like… actively remember who I was, or what I felt, or why I felt it so strongly that I wanted these flowers on my body. But now that I have them, they're like… a snapshot. A little reminder of my thoughts back then, and who I used to be."
Rumi looks up, meets Zoey's eyes, and immediately looks away again. "All my pieces are like that, and I just think it's nice to remember how I got here, you know? I like that idea that the you right now is worth remembering, even if it doesn't feel like anything special is going on. So, uh, I guess my point is, I think you should just go for it and get the leatherback."
"Whoa," Zoey breathes, finding herself speechless for the second time in as many minutes. Every time she thinks she couldn't possibly be more into this girl…
"I think what she's trying to say," Mira calls from from around the corner, "is that that was really beautiful sentiment, Rumi."
Zoey manages a quick little nod. "What she said."
"Oh. Thank you."
"Yeah." Zoey swallows. "Do have any thoughts on, like, where I should get it?"
"Oh. On your upper back, near your shoulder. It would be super cu—or, well, that is, I think it would look good on—um. Okay, bye." Rumi nearly sprints out of the building.
"Don't," Zoey says, thrusting a finger out towards where she knows Mira will be standing, "say a word."
"Seems like you already know what I'm gonna say," Mira replies, and Zoey can hear the amusement in her voice.
Zoey books a tattoo appointment that night.
—
Zoey comes out of the bathroom to find Mira staring at her with wide eyes and a huge grin. "Rumi was just in here," she says. "Guess what she ordered."
"Skirt steak with double lettuce and nothing else," Zoey says without thinking.
"Nope."
"Mushroom and egg slices, no cheese, with barbecue sauce?"
"Not even close."
"Oh, oh! Rotisserie chicken, but triple toasted without cheese, then double shredded cheddar, then exclusively black olives and garlic aioli!"
Mira actually gags at that one. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"You asked, dude! Not my fault."
"But that's exactly it! It is your fault!" Mira grabs Zoey by the shoulders. "She ordered a footlong turkey with provolone just now, Zoey."
Zoey freezes. Ponders. Lets the implication wash over her. "No."
"Yeah."
"There's no way."
"There's every way."
"But that doesn't make any sense!" Zoey splutters. "Like, what am I even supposed to interpret that as? Flirting? Via sandwich orders? What could possibly be sexy about literally anything she's ever ordered? Why wouldn't she just—just flirt?" She groans and slumps down in one of the booths.
"I've got no idea. But do you wanna know the worst part?"
"What?"
Mira's eyes are crinkled from the width of her smile. "You're totally into it."
Oh fuck, she's totally into it.
—
"Do you want a tour of the back?"
Rumi cocks her head. "I'm sorry?"
"A tour of the back. The back of the shop."
"Oh. Um. Maybe?" Rumi frowns. "What's back there?"
"Oh, y'know," Zoey says, voice light and noncommittal. "Walk-in fridge, freezer, some dishes, the prep bench… and me."
Rumi frowns at that for a second, and then realization dawns all at once. She flushes all the way from her ears down to the base of her neck, way beyond pink, and she buries her head in her shirt seemingly as a reflex. It's incredibly cute.
"Did I read it wrong?" Zoey says, a flicker of uncertainty worming its way into her stomach. "It's totally possible I did. And that would be on me! But, like… I really don't think I did?"
"…You didn't," Rumi eventually replies, voice muffled by her shirt. She pulls her head out and looks Zoey in the eye, and oh fuck, when did her eyes get so dark? Nothing's even happened yet.
"I was hoping you'd say something eventually," she continues. "I didn't want to be the one to make the first move, because I'm a customer first, you know? So I'm glad I didn't have to. But…" She flushes even deeper. "I kind of expected a number written on a receipt, or something. I didn't think you'd, well…"
"Offer you a tour of the back?"
"…Yeah."
God, she's so cute. She's so cute. Zoey wants to clamber over the counter and kiss her right now, but she needs to make sure everything's cool first. "It's really no trouble if you'd rather not! We can do this totally normal style."
Rumi quirks an eyebrow, then gives an adorable little giggle. "What's 'normal style?'"
"You know! Phone number, texting, coffee date, whatever else. Normal stuff. And I've lowkey been thinking about what a date with you might look like for weeks, so like… super down for that if that's what you want." Zoey leans over the counter. "But also? Total honesty?"
"Yeah?"
She goes for the kill. "I really wanna kiss you, and I really don't want to wait for the first date."
Rumi's mouth falls open, big brown eyes wide and somehow even darker. "Yeah?" She asks, and her voice is low, low, low.
Zoey gulps and nods. "Mhm."
Something shifts in Rumi's demeanor, and she walks—saunters, really—over to the half door separating the dining area from the line. She runs her hands along it. "Is that all you want to do?"
"Um."
"Because that's not all I want to do." Rumi pushes through the door, and Zoey realizes this is the first time there's been no physical barrier between them at all. Rumi drags her eyes up and down Zoey's body, a hungry little smile forming as she does so. She might be in danger.
Rumi walks right up to her, right up to her, and Zoey takes an involuntary step back, then another, until they've moved all the way into the back and she's pressed up against the door of the walk-in. Her whole face is pink, her breathing is slightly uneven, and up this close, Zoey can see that her eyes have gone nearly black with want.
"Do you want me to tell you?" Rumi whispers.
Zoey nods. Rumi tells her. She closes the distance and captures Rumi's lips in her own.
—
"There's one thing I still don't get, though," Zoey says around a mouthful of chips that they're technically not supposed to just take but that no one counts.
"Yeah?"
"Why did you decide to flirt by ordering all those weird-ass subs?"
Rumi flushes. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Zoey snorts. "Dude, what? In what way?"
"It was like…" Rumi pauses, considering. "I think it was something like, oh, I like this girl, but I'm also a customer."
"Famously an extremely unsexy thing to be, according to Mira."
"Right. And I don't really know how to flirt even when there isn't that dynamic at play. I just kind of exist around people until they decide they like me. So I was like, if we're gonna talk at all, I need to do something that will prompt a conversation."
"So you decided you'd order a bunch of insane sandwiches and what, hope for the best?" Zoey's actively laughing now. "You know you're upcharging your subs by like sixty-five hundred plus every time you come in here, right?"
"I'm very aware."
"You didn't even know if I liked women, and yet you decided you'd get lunch here almost every day and spend ridiculous amounts of money on sandwiches you presumably didn't enjoy eating, just so I'd notice you?"
"Well, it obviously worked, didn't it?" Rumi pouts, crossing her arms and slouching in her seat.
"I'm like, deliriously attracted to you right now."
Rumi huffs, but her eyes are bright. "Same. And not just because you just gave me the hottest experience of my life or anything."
"Uh-huh." Zoey leans over the table to give her a theatrically wet kiss. "Speaking of which, I probably should get back to it. We've been crazy lucky no one's come in yet."
Rumi nods. "I should get going, too. But"—she smiles, blushes, and glances away, as if their hands hadn't been up each other's shirts twenty minutes ago—"I'll take that phone number on the receipt now."
Zoey declines to point out that she could just put her number directly into Rumi's phone—simply grins, gives her another big kiss, and goes to grab a pen.