Chelsea and Troy met in Torrance in 2014 in a quaint little coffee shop known as Starbucks. It would be easy to imagine these two bumping into each other in line and bonding over a love of coffee, but alas, that is not how our story begins. Because, you see, while Troy might have been a customer, Chelsea was not. Oh no, she was the girl in the green apron behind the counter. Because anything else would have been far too mundane a meeting for them.

Gradually, the two got to know each other over the barrier of the coffee counter, learning bits and pieces about one another over a series of weekend visits, whereupon Troy would walk to Starbucks and order, Chelsea later learned, whatever Troy thought would take her the longest to make so that he'd have ample time to chat with her while she made his drink. Fun fact: for a (blessedly) brief amount of time, Starbucks made custom sodas, (not so) affectionately called Fizzio. It required a special machine to carbonate the liquid and these machines were an absolute menace to wrangle. The barista had to wrestle the chalice with the beverage into an obnoxiously tight fitting vise that held lid and chalice together during the process, and then wrestle the beverage oh so carefully out of the ill-fitted vise without spilling it. Needless to say, there was some strength and perseverance required to achieve the desired results. So, of course Troy took to ordering a soda every weekend to spend more time with Chelsea, getting to know more about her and making her laugh with his witty responses. Until the day Chelsea saw Troy holding in his laughter as he watched her wrestle the heinous machine into submission. Chelsea, who likes to think she never acts without considering all options and consequences, immediately declared Troy "banned from Fizzio," though she tempered the ban with a promise to find him a drink he enjoyed just as much that wasn't such a pain in the -tea shaker- to make.

Thankfully, Troy was not that easy to scare off. He regrouped, landing on the Butterbeer Frappuccino instead, and happily continued his weekly visits.

For weeks, Chelsea wrote her schedule to include morning shifts on the weekends so as not to miss the intriguing customer with the delightful nerd shirts and the witty banter. Every time he came in she'd look to see what was on his shirt- the first one she remembered being a depiction of a mouse traveling from one portal to another, a remote control it its hands. This shirt especially delighted Chelsea because her roommate had spoken of a game with portals in which there was (not) a mythical cake. When she realized that the cute customer's shirt was a reference to the game, she was delighted to realize that there was a high probability of this man being a true nerd. With delight, she paid attention to all his shirts after that, and not a single one disappointed, up to an including a Serenity shirt, honoring the cult favorite TV show that was canceled too soon that he wore on their first date, but that comes later in the story.

One morning, Troy came into the store looking particularly upset. When he approached the counter Chelsea could tell something was wrong, but she had no clue what the next 10 minutes had in store for her and this cute customer she had to remind herself not to have a crush on (you see, Chelsea was going through an "I'm done with men!" phase and wasn't in a headspace to even consider a real romantic relationship) every time he came into the store and made her smile.