AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Diego, I have one for you too,” Penelope said holding out a pin to Diego. Diego felt his own tears start to form but he blinked them away so both of the owners wouldn’t be bawling when their first customers entered.
He accepted the pin and was then pulled into a crushing hug by Penelope, who grabbed her brother and beckoned Obie and Seth over. Diego wasn’t the biggest fan of people other than Frankie touching him, but as every person he cared about most, save maybe his cousin, hugged him, he felt incredibly lucky.
The day passed in a coffee and pastry filled haze. To Frankie’s absolute delight, they ended up selling over three-fourths of their pastries and ran out of one type of coffee. Diego knew he shouldn’t get used to this number of customers and income since at least half the people who came were friends and acquaintances, but there were a fair amount of strangers who remarked on how much they’d been looking forward to the cafe opening, and how convenient it would be for them to come every day before or during work.
As they closed up shop for the day, Frankie did inventory and got to work preparing pastries for the next day. Obie and Diego counted sales and Seth and Penelope cleaned up the front room.
“You got two resumes and fifteen people inquired about applications,” Obie commented while Diego miscounted his stack of twenty-dollar bills, again. The first time he’d been distracted by Frankie bending over to place something on the bottom shelf of the oven. Obie had just rolled his eyes and waved the next stack of bills waiting to be counted in Diego’s face.
“That’s incredible, but I don’t even know when we’ll be able to consider hiring people.”
Obie put down the laptop he was using to review their credit card sales. “There is no way you would have survived today without us, Diego. I don’t mean that in a negative way; it’sincrediblehow much business you had. You’re going to need staff if you continue bringing in even a quarter of the number of customers you had today.”
Diego sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a massive stress and caffeine headache, and all he wanted to do was hold his boyfriend. This honeymoon period was brutal.
As if he’d been summoned, Frankie appeared in front of him. Diego only vaguely heard Obie say he was going to go check on Penelope and Seth because suddenly Frankie was straddling his lap. Diego wrapped his arms around him and let out an inappropriately loud groan, considering their friends and family were in the other room.
“Mon chou,” Frankie murmured in a teasing voice, but when his lips met Diego’s, his kiss was anything but teasing. It was hot and needy and filled with so much affection Diego thought he might burst.
“Mi querido,” he whispered back.
Frankie let out a bubbly laugh. “Yeah, good save earlier.”
Diego rolled his eyes. Frankie looped a finger through the lanyard Diego had forgotten to take off. After a few moments passed, Frankie began to fidget, and he looked a little nervous. Diego caught his wrist and brought his hand up to his mouth to kiss his palm.
“I… uh… sort of got you something to put on your lanyard, which I guess means Lopi and I have some sort of psychic sibling connection, but you don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to.”
Diego cocked his head to the side, and Frankie squirmed on his lap for a moment before hopping up and walking over to his desk. He rummaged around for a moment and then stood and stared down at whatever he was holding.
“Franklin, you don’t have to give me whatever it is, if you don’t want to, but I need you back in my arms immediately.”
That seemed to break Frankie out of his indecision because he quickly rounded the desk and dropped back into Diego’s lap. Diego was wearing his forgotten packer today, using it a bit like how a knight would don his armor and shield. It had the added bonus of rubbing quite nicely against his dick when Frankie sat on it, and he did his best to stifle another moan.
He knew Frankie was nervous when he didn’t try to wiggle or tease at all. He just sat anxiously looking down at his closed fist for another full minute. When Frankie finally opened his hand revealing a pin of the trans pride flag, Diego’s breath caught somewhere in the bottom of his rib cage. Frankie quickly closed his hand again. “Sorry… it’s stupid. I’ll just—”
He tried to climb out of Diego’s lap, but Diego locked his hand around his opposite wrist, trapping Frankie in his arms.
“Franklin.”
“Diego, they’re going to come back any second. Let me just put this away—”
“Frankie.”
“D, seriously, just let go, I’ll—”
“¡Querido!”
Frankie immediately stopped struggling and looked guiltily up at Diego.
“I love it. Thank you for thinking of me, and supporting me, and wanting to stand by my side as I wear this pin, in this beautifully inclusive space you helped create. It means the world to me. Will you put it on for me?”
Frankie’s eyes filled with tears, and he ducked his head, fingers trembling as he reached for Diego’s lanyard. He pinned the pink and blue flag right above the rainbow one Penelope had given him. Diego felt the tears from earlier return and this time he let them come. They held each other for several minutes and when Obie popped his head back in, Diego waved him away. He spent the next twenty minutesfinallyholding his boyfriend.
The next day Diego got several positive reactions to the pin, and the day after that, when Penelope returned for her next shift, they shared a brief moment at the coffee station. Diego swore he saw gears turning in Penelope’s mind as she stared at the pin, but in the end, she just nodded and smiled at him, and he smiled back.
By the end of the following week, Diego was in total agreement with Obie that they needed to hire more staff, and quickly. It had only been two weeks, but their sales numbers hadn’t dwindled. Apparently, they’d been added to some sort of queer newsletter, making Diego feel like heliterallyhadn’t gotten the memo, but the news had spread, and it seemed like the entire queer community showed up in droves to support the cafe.
Seth and Frankie began planning theme nights while Diego and Obie poured over resumes and cover letters and scheduled several interviews. They decided to hire two additional staff, whom they would train on everything cafe related, keeping the business aspects reserved for Frankie, Diego, and Obie.
