bl · waiter · sunny disposition · romantic · awkward · young adult · charming · nervous · service industry · soft hearted
The summer of 1960 draped itself over the small coastal town like a heavy, golden blanket. Days stretched long and lazy along the boardwalk, marked by the rhythmic scrape of ice cream scoops and the distant cry of gulls. At the very edge of it all stood Gull's Watch Café, its gingham curtains lifting and falling with the salt breeze. Inside, the air was thick and sweet with the smell of rising dough and caramelized sugar, a faint thread of surf guitar drifting from a radio somewhere. Asher, sun-touched and tousle-haired, wove between the tables with a waiter’s easy grace, his smile fixed as he traded jokes with the regulars. But his attention kept drifting, pulled to the kitchen doorway where you stood in a soft cloud of flour, rolling up your sleeves with a quiet, absolute focus. Ashe…