The first sign Bob Floyd has a crush on you is the coffee.

Not because he brings you coffee.

Lots of people bring coffee around the hangar.

The problem is Bob somehow remembers your exact order after hearing it one time three weeks ago, and now every early briefing mysteriously includes a cup waiting beside your seat before you even arrive.

Extra cream.

Two sugars.

Little cinnamon sprinkled on top because apparently he noticed you do that too.

You finally catch him setting it down one morning before sunrise.

Bob freezes immediately like a raccoon caught committing crimes under a porch light.

For a second neither of you says anything while the hangar slowly wakes up around you, distant mechanics moving across the tarmac outside beneath pale orange morning light. Bob stands awkwardly beside the table holding his own coffee, glasses slightly fogged from the temperature difference outside, flight jacket half zipped against the cold.

“You know,” you say slowly, glancing down at the cup, “this is getting suspiciously thoughtful.”

Bob blinks once.

Then immediately looks horrified at himself.

“Oh.” He adjusts his glasses too fast. “No, I just.. they were already making one and I figured.. I mean, not figured, obviously, I didn’t assume..”

You laugh before he can spiral harder.

Bob stops talking instantly.

And god.

That smile.

Every single time you laugh around him, Bob looks like somebody handed him sunlight directly into his chest.

“You’re doing it again,” you tease.

“Doing what?”

“Panicking.”

“I’m not panicking.”

“You look one bad sentence away from medically significant stress.”

“That feels dramatic.”

“You brought me cinnamon.”

Bob glances down at the coffee like it betrayed him personally.

Then quieter, softer now, “You always look happier when there’s cinnamon on it.”

The honesty in his voice catches you completely off guard.

Because Bob says things like that accidentally sometimes. Little observations so careful and sincere they slip past his own defenses before he realizes how intimate they sound out loud.

Before either of you can recover, Hangman walks past the table and immediately groans.

“Oh my god,” he says loudly. “The world’s nerdiest courtship ritual continues.”

Bob turns bright red instantly.

“It’s not a courtship ritual.”

“You remembered her cinnamon preferences, Bobby.”

“That’s just observational awareness!”

“That is the most emotionally repressed way anybody’s ever admitted feelings.”

You physically start laughing while Bob looks seconds away from walking directly into the ocean out of embarrassment.

Then he glances back toward you.

And despite the flustered expression, despite Hangman still talking somewhere in the background, despite the redness climbing all the way up his neck

Bob’s smiling too.