Today we have word prompts. The followingwords must be incorporated into your fic in some way:
ice crystals - cooking - candles
It was snowing outside, thick, fluffy snowflakes falling from a grey sky.
In the café, a waitress stood at the counter, looking out of the window, bored. The glass was covered by beautiful ice crystals. There was only one guest at the café. She looked over to him. He had ordered a coffee – “no milk, please, but if you had some sweetener instead of sugar, that’d be lovely. Thank you.” – but hadn’t even sipped from it yet. Instead, he was reading in a small book that looked used. The man pushed back his hair every few minutes when a loose curl would fall over his eyes, disturbing his reading.
The waitess looked up when the door opened, the new guest letting in some of the cold air with himself. He shook his head to rid some of the snow from his hair. It was short and styled into a quiff. His eyes lit up, wrinkling with a happy smile when he spotted the other man at the corner table.
“Hey,” he said, going over to hug his friend. When he was seated across from the man with long hair, the waitress walked over, asking for his order.
“Just tea, love. Thanks.”
While she prepared the tea, she listened to them talking, and apparently, it was about a Christmas dinner.
“This time, we gotta make him do some of the cooking,” the man who had been reading said.
“You know him,” the other one argued, “that won’t be easy.”
The door opened again and a blond man rushed in. He came up straight to the counter, winking at the waitress. “Make that two more, would you? Thanks.”
The others greeted him with hugs, and he laughed at something, clear and bright, filling the room with his happiness. It was as though it had swooped in right beside him. The waitress smiled to herself as she prepared another cup of tea.
“... but he’s coming?” she heard the blond man ask.
“Of course,” the curly haired guy replied. “I reminded him this morning.”
The one with the kind eyes shrugged. “We just have to be strong this time, not taking any of his bullshit.”
The door swung open and another man came in, hands in the pockets of his jacket and his hair messy. He hugged all of the other men and added a kiss on the lips for the long haired one.
“About the annual Christmas dinner...” kind eyes said.
“We thought about switching up everyone’s tasks this year,” the blond one suggested.
The guy who had come in last nodded, looking around the table. “I’ve been thinking about that, too.”
“Really?” the curly one asked, looking genuinely surprised.
The other two men exchanged a look.
“I should take some responsibility,” the man exclaimed, nodding firmly. “So this year, I’ll take care of buying all the candles we need for the dinner.”
The waitress grinned to herself, already knowing the other three wouldn’t stand a chance.
