RATHDRUM — Most people expect to be served coffee by a couple of guys when they drive through Bro Latte in Rathdrum.

Customers are often surprised when they pull up to the window and see the two young women who own the little coffee stand, said Alexis Blum.

Blum, 22, and her best friend, Marisa Randock, 21, bought the coffee business three months ago. After discussing the name, Blum said they decided Bro Latte would be perfect — and the story behind the name is what makes it so special.

Blum and Randock's boyfriends, Donavan Puga and Ian Everett, were killed in a car accident in North Dakota in March 2015. Puga and Everett were passengers in a Dodge Ram when they were struck by another vehicle, killing them instantly.

Puga and Everett were from Coeur d'Alene and both were 21 when they died. They had been working in North Dakota on workover rigs in the oil fields. Blum said the two men had been best friends since high school.

"Those two called each other 'bro' all the time," Blum said. "It's like, they didn't call each other by name, it was always 'bro this' and 'bro that.'"

Randock said Everett, her boyfriend for a year and a half before he died, had been nicknamed "Ian BroChill" and her dog is named "Bro Tank." One of the signature drinks at the coffee stand is a Zipfizz drink called the "IanBroChill." Another signature drink, named for Puga, is called the "Dirty Donny."

While this is Blum's first time working in a coffee shop, Randock, originally from Spokane, had five years prior experience in the coffee business. She lived in North Dakota at the time Everett was employed at the oil fields and said he used to come in every day to the coffee shop where she worked. He asked her to hang out many times before she finally said yes. By that time she was living back in Spokane and he had come home to Couer d'Alene for a short time. Soon after, she moved back to North Dakota with him.

"Ever since then we were best friends and super close," Randock said.

Blum, from California, met Puga at a small college in Fresno where they had three classes together. She said it was such a tiny college that having three classes together was practically unheard of. She didn't speak to him for the first two or three months, but after she did they were virtually inseparable.

"We just really clicked, and we were both 18 and didn't think anything of it," Blum said. "Just thought we would hang out and get to know each other — and then he fell in love with me."

A month after he went to North Dakota for work, Blum followed him. She said she moved to Coeur d'Alene after the accident because that was always "the plan" for her and Puga.

"He has all of his family here, which they have been my family from day one," Blum said. "They have always welcomed me."

Randock and Blum said many people in the Coeur d'Alene area knew the two young men because they were "social butterflies," so naming the coffee shop in their memory seemed right. Blum said they originally wanted to open a shop in Coeur d'Alene but it wasn't in their budget at the time. Eventually they hope to open a chain of Bro Latte shops.

They said the situation is still difficult, having lost the two young men so suddenly, and they just take it day by day.

"I just hope that they are proud of us," Blum said.