#uptonhalstead

Hey Upstead friends! It turns out I have no self-control, and I wrote another fic. I started writing this from Hailey's POV and about halfway through, my brain went "Outsider POV??" and this was born. I've never written anything like this before, so any thoughts are appreciated.

Summary: Maddison is a barista at a little mom-and-pop coffee joint, and she appreciates all her regulars. She has favorites, of course, and one day, when everything she thinks she knows gets turned on its head, Maddison makes an assumption. [Outsider POV of Hailey and Jay’s relationship.]

Maddison Knight had been a barista for forever. For way too long, actually, considering the bachelor’s degree in astrophysics hanging crookedly on her bedroom wall. But she’d grown to appreciate her job—she’d go insane if she didn’t—and working at a mom-and-pop joint had its perks. The regulars, mainly, and the quasi-relationship Maddison felt she shared with each one of them.

There was Old Jim, who insisted she actually call him Old Jim and who sat at the little window-table reading the paper every morning. He was a war vet and sometimes startled when the espresso machine whistled too loud, and he had brought her a small bouquet of flowers last month when he realized her birthday had just passed.

And there’s Kimmy, the undergrad from Central Chicago U who brought her knitting on Wednesdays and Fridays and was usually covered in cat hair. She was always scatter-brained and frizzy-haired, but she never failed to put her change in the tip jar.

There were about ten others Maddison knew by name, but her favorite regulars were the husband and wife duo that had started coming in a few months ago. They were an enigma, this Hailey and Jay. Quiet and to themselves and rarely in the café without the other, always inches apart and buffeting around each other like binary stars.

Continue reading on AO3!