Even if I didn’t know all the servers here were omegas, his biological status was obvious from his soft scent alone. Buttery, mild, pleasant. It drew me in immediately.
“Hello, Felix,” I replied with a smile.
“Did you get a chance to look at our menu, sir?” Felix asked.
I raised a brow, then patted the table and found nothing. “No, I don’t think I was given one.”
“Oh my goodness,” he mumbled. “I’m so sorry. Let me fetch one for you.”
I waited for Felix to return, and with it came thewhooshof his pleasant scent again.
“Here you go.”
The laminated paper slid on the table and I touched it. No braille. Usually restaurants kept a braille menu behind the counter, but I decided asking was a bit more of a hassle than I felt like engaging in right now. Besides, it would be more fun to have a cute omega read it to me instead.
“Ah, that’s okay,” I said. “I know what coffee I like, so maybe you can just read the food section out loud.”
“Read the . . . Oh!” Felix’s voice went high-pitched with embarrassment as he gasped. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were--”
I always thought it was difficult to miss a large dog with a red vest laying beneath a table, but it happened almost daily. River was trained to curl up to be as compact as possible, and was always quiet.
“Visually impaired?” I offered.
“Yes. I’m sorry, we really should have braille on menus. I’ll talk to somebody about that.”
I smiled. Usually I could hear the pity in people’s voices when they realized I was blind, but there wasn’t any in Felix’s tone--just genuine shame, like he was the one personally doing something wrong instead of whoever was in charge of accessibility.
“It’s all right,” I told him. “I’ll have a regular coffee, one cream, no sugar please. Medium.”
He scribbled it down. “Certainly. And to eat . . . What kind of food do you usually like?”
“I’m in the mood for something sweet. What do you recommend?”
“I love our mille-feuille, and eclairs,” Felix suggested.
“Hmm. Anything with more chocolate?”
I heard the smile in his voice when he replied. “Ooh, we have a fantastic chocolate cake. The cake itself is chocolate and has a fudge icing that we make in-house!”
“I’ll take that, then,” I told him, matching his smile. “Thank you, Felix.”
“You’re welcome, mister . . .?”
“Cortez,” I said. “Elijah Cortez. Just Eli is fine.”
“Wonderful. I’ll get those rung in for you right away.”
Felix left with brisk steps. At the same time, a group of people seemed to be arriving at the table next to me. I heard the voice of the omega from the front kiosk guiding them.
“Here we are, gentlemen,” he said. “Your server will be with you shortly!”
A gruff voice-- an alpha’s voice, probably--responded. “Thanks, sugar.”
The server didn’t reply, but I imagined the grimace on his face at being called a pet name by a stranger. Even if this was a gimmicky café with omega servers, there was no need to act like a caveman. Before I lost my vision, I had plenty of encounters with rowdy alphas like those. It was times like this I regretted having a guide dog instead of a cane--that way I could’ve given that alpha a quick poke in the eye.
I tuned out their voices as they began chatting. I wasn’t going to let their presence ruin my experience. Besides, I knew from word-of-mouth that this café had a zero tolerance policy about customers harassing their employees. If someone was truly uncomfortable, the perpetrators would be kicked out immediately.
Unfortunately, it was when Felix returned that the trouble began.
“One coffee and one slice of chocolate cake for Mr. Cortez,” Felix announced brightly. The plates slid onto the table with a gentleclink. They already smelled amazing.
Mr. Cortez, huh? Still too shy to be informal, I guess,I thought in amusement.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Dude,” an alpha suddenly crowed, obnoxiously loud and unmistakably in my direction. “Is that a fuckingdog?”
