The Cosplay Connection

Dinner was very good, a nice meal of Polish food, which spoke of JJ's ancestry. The conversation was pretty much as one would expect, questions about his family and his job and education. JJ answered many of the questions, including how they had met at the coffee shop.

"Is that how you remember it, Jack?"

"Well, you get up in the morning, you stumble through getting ready for work half awake, knowing that things aren't going to clear up until you get that coffee. You walk like a zombie into the coffee shop and the face of a beautiful angel with a halo of gold around it hands you that cup of coffee. It is the thing dreams are made of!" JJ actually blushed when he said that. "It took a lot of mornings and a lot of cups of coffee to work up the courage. I'd go in there several times a week and finally one Saturday morning the rush was over and I asked her out."

"Good thing you did! I was actually considering asking you! Oh, don't get a big head, but I'd noticed you and you're constantly checking me out. Whenever you could you took the high top in the middle so you could watch me behind the counter. I was going to write my number on your coffee cup." Jack managed to blush a bit, whether she knew it or not, he had preferred that seat to watch the cute butt behind the counter.

They chatted away after dinner, coffee and pie in the family room, Jeopardy came on and they enjoyed it together, he and JJ actually doing pretty well calling out the answers before the contestants. And Jack behaved himself, not getting too handsy with her.

She walked him to the truck. "I'll be working at the bakery in the mornings. I have two classes Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and a lab on Wednesday afternoon. So when will I see you again?"

"I have the whole week off! I was going to stay in the hotel down there until Wednesday then come home and chill for a couple of days while cleaning up the apartment before heading off on drill. I can pretty much be anywhere you wish at any time you wish until about 1500 on Friday!"

Getting coffee in the mornings became much more of a must that a maybe. Tuesday morning he slept in until almost 8, a good two hours later than he usually did. A quick shower and he put on his best workout gear and headed to the coffee shop. He was rewarded by the view he had come to admire over the last few months. When he got to the counter to order, he looked at the clerk and smiled, "Okay this will sound a bit off, but please just call it out? I want a black coffee with a kiss."

The girl was probably high school age and gave him a skeptical look, but he glanced and nodded over at the blonde head of hair busy making up orders with her back to the counter. He tapped his card to pay and headed to his usual table. "One black coffee with a kiss!" was called out. The rest of the patrons seemed to do a double take, like did they really just hear that? He saw the blonde head swing toward the clerk and sudden realization seemed to hit. She turned the other way and caught sight of him settling into his seat. Less than a minute later JJ walked out from behind the counter and joined him at the table, she sat his cup of coffee down and very deliberately grabbed his head and kissed him with a big smile.

"Hello, sailor! Come here often?"

"Fairly regularly, but I think it will be more often now!"

"I'd like that! Not sure I can always guarantee a kiss with your coffee, but I sure will try!"

"Sounds good to me! Blow me a kiss if nothing else!"

His standing in the coffee shop went to the top of the list. He could walk in and they knew what he wanted and took great delight in calling out the order. Sometimes he got a scone or breakfast sandwich to go with it, but the kiss was always the important part. Even the owner, who completely flipped out the first time he heard it, thought it was fun. The regulars had great fun watching the reaction of the visitors to hearing the order called out.

Now that they were no longer in the same hotel room and back in their normal habitats, as well as the normal work/school routine, the text string between Jack and JJ went crazy. The first week wasn't bad, he had taken the whole week off so was free to pretty much do whatever he wished. JJ only had a few shifts at the coffee shop during the week. He had set expectations with her that the work day prevented him from responding immediately and there were times when he wouldn't have his phone, such as when he was working out.

The first week she would get off work and head over to his place, sometimes in his truck, sometimes on her own. One evening she even surprised him by showing up after her classes. Those first few days they tried every surface in the little apartment. The couch, his recliner, the kitchen table, the shower, his desk, even the fireplace got their chance to be a focal point. For the most part, the bed was the logical and most comfortable place, though the couch and shower saw lots of use.

"Okay, look, I'm heading for drill weekend. Don't panic if I don't get back to you for several hours! That is going to apply to normal working hours as well as drill weekends. I often am not allowed to take a phone into a facility during an inspection due to classified material. And in others the machinery blocks most phone communications. Please realize that I have completely fallen for you and am not going to ghost you!"

"I get it. I promise not to be too needy. Hey, next Saturday there is a big local cosplay thing. It's a sort of tryout weapons thing. People make safe weapon replicas and try them out against each other. Great fun to watch! And none of the crew from the convention know that you are here! They will be very surprised to see you with me! My friends are starting to check in on me. They know how depressed I got after the con last year and are probing to see if I'm crashing again! Little do they know! We have to surprise them!"

Jack picked her up and they grabbed a bite to eat before heading over to the sports hall for the event. The look of surprise on the convention group was pretty satisfying as realized he was actually there and that he and JJ were a bona fide couple. "Oh, yeah, I've even met her parents!" Two of the guys and one of the girls had weapons that they were going to try out. Jack attended the safety briefing and paid close attention to all the rules. And to their surprise, Jack actually signed up.

"But you don't have a weapon!"

"Exactly!"

One of the first to go had a large sword that they were sweeping back and forth, the lightweight device moving surprisingly fast. The length was such that it would sweep by and before you could get close enough to get to the welder it was coming back again. Everyone that went against it was caught in the back sweep, not being fast enough to get within striking distance.

"Any other takers?"

"I'll give it a go!"

Jack stepped up. He knew the individual sweeping the sword was getting tired, even in the lightweight version it was long and bulky. He waited for the second sweep to start and ran at the fighter. Just when it looked like the sword was going to take out his feet he dove forward over the blade at an angle. He did a full forward roll and came up pretty much on top of the sword bearer and simply wrapped his arms around his opponent.

Over the next couple of hours, he did pretty well, either totally avoiding the defensive ability of the opponent and coming in so close to them that they couldn't react, or basically taking the weapon out of their hands. Once one of the big weapons was sent on a path, it was almost impossible to redirect the energy. One of his successful strategies was that while the majority of people were trying to stay away from their opponent, Jack would move into them, going inside their weapon so it couldn't be used.

They had dinner with the original friend group, who were pretty excited to see him and really find out more about him now that they knew he wasn't a one weekend stand.

The two of them settled into a routine for the semester. The standard was dinner with her family on Sunday evenings, which allowed him to come even on drill weekends. Her parents didn't kick up a fuss when she didn't come home many Friday or Saturday evenings. So the standard day started off with coffee and a kiss. Once or twice a week they would have dinner together.

"Okay, I'll make a deal with you. You are so close to finishing your degree. You can do it next semester. You only need 12 hours, that's 3 or 4 classes. I'm more than happy to help you study. When you graduate, we will get a place big enough for the two of us."

Jack debated for a long time about the best way to do it. He'd had a long talk with Frank who was more than delighted to give him his blessing. And finally Jack made his decision. He knew JJ would get off work about 11 on Saturday morning and there wouldn't be much of a crowd, mostly some of the regulars that settled into read the newspapers, do the crosswords and chat with real humans.

He put on his dress whites and headed over. As he expected, it was pretty quiet and only one person was in line in front of him. "The usual?" The girl at the register was eyeing his uniform and he handed her a slip of paper. She read the words and her eyes got big as she looked up at him. He just nodded and she rang up the order. After he tapped his payment card she took a deep breath and called out, "One black coffee with a kiss and a yes!"

JJ was halfway through pouring the coffee when she connected with what had been said. She whirled around and saw him standing at the pick-up counter. She walked over the few steps and looked at him, mouth agape. He pulled the small box out of his pocket and opened it up, the ring glinting in the light. She dove under the counter to get to him, he grabbed the ring box and her. The coffee was forgotten as she delivered the kiss and a dozen yeses. They were both shaking as he slid the ring onto her finger.