Chapter Text
Kit woke up in the morning to the sound of rain and his phone being bombarded by message notifications.
Dru Blackthorn (Nook)
heyyy, last night at the nook was a bit hectic
left a little mess
sorry!
He stared at the messages for a solid minute before dropping the phone to his side and groaning in frustration. Amazing. Wonderful. Splendid. His day was already ruined, before it even had a proper chance to start.
You see, it was a rainy day in California, which was a clear sign that the café was going to be busy. For some odd reason, rain attracts the worst type of people to shelter themselves in shopping malls (out of all places!) and waste their time in capitalistic chain coffee shops. The type of coffee shops of which Rook’s Nook was a perfect example, incidentally.
His dad’s little coffee shop had picked up in popularity a few years ago, causing him to turn it into a soulless cash grab, a decision that was very in brand for his father but which Kit himself despised. Originally, Rook’s Nook had been a local, cozy café in a rather hipster area of Los Angeles, created as a last resort to make ends meet for Johnny Rook. It was actually a relief when it all started, as his dad had a history of earning his income through various shady methods, and this was the first time he had an honest, normal type of a small daily business.
However, the moment there was a sign of profit to this business, Johnny Rook’s moral compass started to tilt back to its past position, and the café moved into a shopping mall to maximise customer pool. Eventually, a couple more coffee shops had been opened to turn the concept into a franchise, and Rook’s Nook (or as the employees liked to call it, the Nook) had become a capitalistic success story of the century.
At the end of the day, Kit wouldn’t care too much about what his dad did with his business, as long as it was legal. The problem was mostly the fact that he himself needed to work there. After not being able to get any other job, his dad had allowed him to start working at the Nook to make himself some savings. In reality, Johnny Rook desperately wanted Kit to make enough money to move out of his home; he was already turning 19 after all, which was a prime age to become independent and stop spending your dad's money (or whatever his dad would typically say to him).
A lot of people probably thought it was easy to work for your own father; that you would get to slack off, decide your own working hours, maybe eat the food at the café for free and earn money from it. For Kit though, working for Johnny Rook was nothing short of a nightmare.
He had to be absolutely perfect at everything he did, or his dad would fire him. Most of the time, his dad treated him like a personal servant whose salary could be paid whenever he felt like it. Kit could drop a spoon to the ground while doing the dishes and his dad would make him take inventory all by himself (Kit hated taking inventory). And it’s not like he could complain to anyone about it; he just had to suck it up and make sure he didn’t make any mistakes at all.
In fact, being at work had become so stressful that Kit had started to do closing shifts almost exclusively, since it meant his dad wouldn’t be watching over him while he was working, and he got to do his job somewhat in peace.
This morning was an exception, though. The employee who usually did the second morning shift– her name was Thais or something– had broken her wrist a couple days ago, which meant that she had to take a sick leave for a whole month. And because Kit’s dad is a capitalist swine, he refused to hire a temporary replacement for her, forcing Kit to take on the mornings until she got back to work. Johnny himself would work the evenings for Kit.
It was surprisingly noble of him to do so, to be honest. As the boss he would usually just spend his days in the office doing paperwork instead of any of the actual physical labor (“You wouldn’t understand how hard answering emails can be,” Johnny would say to him if he ever mentioned it. “People can be so idiotic sometimes. It really takes skill to stay professional!”).
It was the first morning shift in a while for Kit, and he was feeling extremely groggy about it. Looking over his messages once again, he knew that ‘a little mess’ in Dru’s vocabulary meant a rather huge chaos, and they probably didn’t have enough time to clean everything up before opening. Also, when Dru worked evenings, she never remembered to take the trash out, which meant the morning shift had to do it, or otherwise the trash bins would pile up and overflow just from the morning rush.
The worst part was that Kit didn’t even feel mad about any of it, because Dru had somehow managed to charm him into liking her. How she did it, though–beats him. But she had that effect on most people, especially on his dad; Johnny Rook absolutely loved Dru, so much so that he let her basically do whatever she wanted at work. And generally, she did a decent job at the Nook. It’s only that during his time working there, he had learned to read the hidden messaging behind Dru’s texts, and this one was clearly saying Bad News, Prepare for a Chaos.
Finally getting up from his bed, Kit started to go through all of the things he needed to do in his mind. He had decided to prioritize sleep over breakfast, so he was kind of in a hurry to get out of the house. Running upstairs to the bathroom to brush his teeth, he pulled out his phone to check who he was going to be working with this morning from the work group chat. You know, just to mentally prepare for how much of a catastrophe this day was going to be.
He opened the chat, eyes taking a moment to find the correct day on the schedule and– Kit paused on the spot, toothbrush resting dead in his mouth.
His heart skipped a beat.
Next to his name, on the first morning shift that day, was written down Tiberius Blackthorn. Or how everyone in the workplace liked to call him, Ty. Kit didn’t know him that well, so he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to call him that. But in his mind, secretly, he used the nickname when thinking about him. Not that he thought about him that much.
Looking at his name in the shift list, Kit figured that maybe his day wasn’t entirely ruined after all.
Ty was Dru’s older brother, and had started working at the Nook about a year ago, possibly thanks to his connection to Johnny Rook’s favorite employee. He only worked morning shifts, the same one every time, five times a week. It happened to clash with Kit’s habit of working mostly evenings. Even on the rare occasions when Kit was doing an earlier shift, they somehow never managed to work at the same time, and only saw each other for short moments between shift changes.
While Kit had no idea of how Ty would be like as a coworker, he had heard from other employees that he was diligent, meticulous, and near perfect at his job. Johnny Rook had put him in charge of taking inventory monthly (much to Kit’s pleasure), and pretty much anything that needed precision or organizational skills, so it was clear that Ty was quite a competent employee. Although Kit wouldn’t really know that for a fact, to be fair.
What Kit did know, however, was that Ty was devastatingly gorgeous.
Ty had a black hair, tousled around perfectly to frame his face, and his eyes were the shade of an illuminating gray, like moonlight; they were a challenge to look away from. Ty was slightly taller than him (but just slightly!), and he was always wearing oversized, dark clothes, headphones dangling off his neck. Kit wasn’t quite sure how he was allowed to have headphones at work with him, but it must’ve been a benefit Ty had gotten for being related to Dru.
Okay, so maybe Kit had spent some time for the past year admiring his colleague despite them never working in the same shift. So what? He was just a visual person, and appreciated beauty when he saw it. There was nothing else to it.
Spitting out the toothpaste from his mouth, Kit felt himself getting nervous about going to work all of a sudden. He looked at his disheveled reflection in the mirror, eye bags visible from the lack of sleep, his hair slightly greasy. He usually didn’t care too much about the hair, since they had to wear a headband, so chances of looking good were nearly nonexistent anyway. But if he was going to be in the same shift with Tiberius Blackthorn, he had to look somewhat presentable. Not because he wanted to look good for him or anything. He just wanted to make a good first impression, or first working-the-same-shift impression at least.
Kit threw on a simple white T-shirt (the company rule was to wear simple colors without any logos) and took some time to wash his face properly, even to the point of shaving the little stubble of a beard on his chin. An alarm went off on his phone, reminding him to leave on time. It was the first alarm out of three (he had a habit of forgetting the passage of time, so it was necessary to have three alarms to remind him about it).
Going to the fridge, Kit tried to see if he had anything to eat on-the-go. To his disappointment, the fridge was entirely empty; neither he nor his dad had bothered to do the groceries on time. He looked around the kitchen, spotting two bananas on the counter just as the second alarm went off. “Shit,” he muttered to himself as he picked one up and shoved it into his bag.
He then ran back to his room down in the basement to look for his denim jacket. He had tossed it somewhere yesterday as he got back home in the evening, and now he regretted not placing it in a more strategic location. He finally found it after looking around for some time, behind his laundry basket (how did it get there?), and ran upstairs just as the third alarm went off. Quickly putting his shoes on, he grabbed an umbrella and headed outside, right on time.
⋆˙☕︎☕︎☕︎˙⋆
The smell of freshly baked croissants filled the air as Kit stumbled into the Nook through the backdoor, almost tripping on an empty cardboard box in front of the door. I knew it, Kit thought to himself, Dru did forget to take out the trash.
He jumped over the pile of boxes and settled his bag on the small office table in the backrooms, where employees generally ate their lunch alone when they had the time. Kit logged himself in the shift and picked up his apron, bracing himself for entering the café, where Ty would already be–the shift logging system showed that he had already logged in five minutes ago.
Kit tied his work apron carefully around his waist, checked from the tiny mirror on the wall that his hair looked okay, and took in a deep breath before stepping in.
The café looked mostly normal, if not a little messy. There were plenty of dirty dishes left on the tables from last night, and an abandoned shift drink stood by the cash register (based on how it looked, it was probably Dru’s last night’s matcha latte). A couple counters further, Ty was gracefully preparing bagels for the morning rush.
Kit walked to the espresso machine, and Ty glanced at him in acknowledgement. “Morning,” he said quickly. His voice sounded unused, a little strain in it. The black apron they all had to wear as part of their work uniform was tied around his waist tightly, accentuating the shape of his body in a way that made Kit’s throat a bit dry. He decided to look away and focus on turning the espresso machine on.
“Morning,” Kit answered him, wiping off the dried espresso stains from the machine that Dru should’ve cleaned up. He picked up a bag of espresso beans from a drawer next to the machine and poured them in from above.
Being in the same room with Tiberius Blackthorn made him feel nervous. What if Ty was judging him for the way he poured in the beans to the grinder? Should he have started from cleaning the tables or taking out the trash? Did he give off a lazy vibe for going straight for the espresso machine to make himself a shift drink? Ty didn’t have a shift drink next to him. Was he not tired?
Kit set the machine to pour him two espresso shots when a timer went off, indicating that something needed to be taken out of the oven. He looked over to Ty, whose hands were occupied with measuring the correct amount of cream cheese on the bagels, and decided he could help him out. He scurried to the oven in between them and opened it, almost grabbing the baking tray with his bare hand before realizing what he was doing. He halted his movements, picked up a mitten, and pulled the tray out carefully.
“Leave them in for another minute,” Ty said then from where he was standing, placing exactly four slices of goat cheese onto each bagel. Kit looked at him in confusion.
“You didn’t even check what they looked like.”
“They’re not ready,” Ty just answered. Kit nodded hesitantly and put the croissants in the oven. Feeling defeated, he stalked back to his perfectly pulled, one shot of espresso, picking up a pitcher and pouring lactose-free milk into it.
(His ex-girlfriend Hazel had tried to get him into drinking almond milk, especially since his stomach couldn’t really handle lactose overall, but he personally just didn’t get the hype around it. Besides, cow’s milk just steamed much better in the pitcher, the perfect silky texture coming out much easier than on any other milk he had tried.)
He began steaming the milk, a silent hiss escaping from the pitcher, and sneaked a glance at Ty, who seemed to be finished with the bagels, neatly wrapping them up and placing them on the display one-by-one, perfectly aligned. Kit’s pitcher started to burn his hand a bit and he pulled it out from the steam wand quickly.
“So,” Kit started to say as he wiped the steam wand clean of milk and purged it, “We haven’t been on the same shift before, have we?”
Ty turned to the oven, taking the croissants out. They looked absolutely perfect. “It’s because you don’t do morning shifts,” he shrugged.
“I’ve done some morning shifts,” Kit remarked.
“Okay,” Ty said.
Kit swirled the milk in the pitcher a couple times until he reached his desired, silky texture for the milk, and started pouring it into his cup. “I’m just not really a morning person, don’t really sleep that well,” he said. Effortlessly, he created a heart in his coffee– which was admittedly the only latte art he knew how to do, and also the easiest one to make– and felt a little proud of himself.
Ty was placing cinnamon buns onto the baking sheet now, taking a moment before answering. “Maybe the morning shifts will help you change your rhythm,” he said eventually.
Kit took a sip of his drink. He didn’t really know what to say anymore. Dear God, this is so awkward, he thought to himself as his brain scrambled for something to do. Ty seemed content placing the freshly baked croissants on display in a perfect line.
Deciding he needed more time to activate his brain for a better flow of conversation, Kit ran off to clean out the tables from yesterday’s drinks, preparing himself mentally for his shift.
⋆˙☕︎☕︎☕︎˙⋆
To Kit’s dismay, there wasn’t actually that much time to talk to your coworkers during the morning shifts. Especially during mornings like these, where a dozen customers were already waiting outside the café before opening, ready to barge in the moment the clock hit half past seven.
It was a miracle in itself that the two of them managed to get the café in a presentable condition in time. Ty had organized the bagels and toasts into beautiful assortments in the display, as well as the sweet foods; there were cakes, muffins, cookies, a selection so wide it would’ve been impressive, if most of the foods did not come to the café ready-made and frozen. It was another way for Johnny Rook to make things more ‘efficient’ at the workplace, as he liked to put it. In Kit’s opinion, paying eight dollars for a defrozen piece of a carrot cake was nothing short of a robbery. But then again, who was he to complain? He was just working there.
Kit made his way to the entrance to open the café. Just as he had predicted, a cluster of customers flooded inside the moment the security door started to roll up out of the way. He hurried back to the counter as a steady line built up in front of it, and assumed his place behind the register, since Ty had relocated himself behind the espresso machine.
Trying to ignore the excitement the presence of his colleague next to him brought him, Kit braced the best smile he could for the first customer that stood behind the counter. The smile broke onto his face easily. “Good morning,” he said, adjusting his voice into a customer service tone. “What can I get for you?”
The customer in front of him was a man in his mid-thirties, wearing a simple plaid shirt and black jeans. He had a lethargic essence to him, too tired to even return the greeting. “Can I just get a normal coffee?” he asked.
The smile on Kit’s lips started to feel artificial. What a specific order you have, very helpful! was what he wanted to say in response. “Do you mean an espresso-based coffee, or perhaps a drip coffee?” he said instead.
The man looked at Kit like he was the source of all inconveniences in his life. “None of that stuff, just a normal coffee.”
Oh my god, it’s not even eight in the morning, Kit thought to himself. His face stayed in a patient smile, though. If there was anything he was proud of in himself, it was his capability to keep up his cheerful customer service persona regardless of the levels of frustration he felt at times. So, he nodded slightly and suggested a latte for the man, since he clearly wasn’t super knowledgeable on the different types of coffees that existed in the world.
The man rolled his eyes in response. “Yeah, that’s what I ordered.”
And Kit blinked, and he reminded himself again that his smile never falters. It’s what he is good at, smiling at customers. A silence fell between him and the customer.
Ty started pulling the shot of espresso next to him. “Regular milk with the latte?” he asked when Kit hadn’t continued with his script (he had been focusing on smiling). It was the wrong thing to ask, because it made the customer groan loudly. “Normal coffee, normal milk, normal everything!”
“Coming right up,” Kit just said to him, and rang his order up. Ty shrugged and started steaming the milk, and the customer moved to wait at the other end. Kit stole another sip and greeted the next customer cheerfully.
They easily fell into a steady routine for the morning rush, with Kit taking in orders and Ty preparing drinks in an efficient, quick manner. They seemed to flow perfectly together in their roles, not having to watch over each other too much, and Kit found it quite peaceful to work with him. And aside from the rude man in the morning, the rest of the customers were quite bearable. Most of them seemed to be regulars, which became clear to Kit since Ty knew their orders even before they came up to the register.
If Kit wasn’t so smitten with the guy, he would’ve maybe found him a little annoying with how good he was at this job. Ty steamed the milk perfectly into the drinks, the correct amount of foam every time (a lot of it for a cappuccino, and barely any for a flat white). The most annoying part was that it didn’t seem to matter which milk he was using– cow’s milk, almond milk, soy milk, even the new weird oat milk that they had taken into their selection– because the latte art turned out beautifully every single time. Ty made the classic swan, rosetta, and tulip patterns beautifully, and made the little hearts Kit poured pale in comparison.
Once the morning rush had finally dissipated, the two of them had time to start cleaning. Rushes always left behind a huge mess in the forms of spilled coffee, milk stains and dropped spoons. Ty was diligently wiping clean the surroundings of the espresso machine; he had a smudge of ground beans on his left temple, and Kit was contemplating whether he should mention it to him or not.
He decided to ease into it by stirring up some small talk. “So, when you and Thais work in the mornings, what’s your usual schedule?” he asked.
Ty had moved onto wiping the steam wand clean with a fiber cloth, firm hand moving up and down in a swift motion. Kit’s gaze naturally drifted toward it, for no particular reason. “There’s usually two rush times in the morning, and we just passed the first one,” Ty said while he wiped, purging the wand before leaving it alone, “and the second wave comes around eleven, when the middle shift comes. We try to have our lunch break then, so that there would be two people by the counter at all times.”
Kit swallowed. The words took a little longer to register, but once they did, he halted his movements. “Wait,” he said, “You guys have lunch breaks in the morning shift?”
Ty turned to him, confusion clear in his face. “You’re legally supposed to have at least one unpaid lunch break during your shift.”
He looked straight at Kit, although his gaze landed somewhere in the space between his left ear and temple. Kit felt a bit flustered being under Ty’s attention, so he looked away, anywhere he could. His eyes landed on the shift drink he made an hour ago, all cold and forgotten. “There’s not really much time for me to take a lunch break in the evening. Sometimes I eat one of those bagels you make for the display while I work behind the register to keep myself going.” He picked his drink up and took a sip, and disappointment washed over him immediately. His shift drink tasted horrible.
Ty looked like he was about to say something, but before he could do that, a customer barged in the coffee shop again. Kit turned around and prepared himself to greet them, but his smile dropped immediately as he saw who it was.
Oh. No, no, no.
In walked none other than Johnny Rook, the owner of the café, and his lovely father. The sight of him had an instantaneous effect of souring Kit’s mood. Why was he here? It was only half past ten, and he wasn’t supposed to show up in at least another three hours.
Johnny Rook was wearing a pair of sunglasses and a striped T-shirt that made him look like a villain from a superhero comic. “Hello Ty!” he said cheerfully as he strode over to where Kit was standing, and ruffled his hair. “Came here to check up on my son, to see how he is surviving from his first morning shift in ages.”
The way he worded it could be mistaken as him actually caring about Kit’s feelings, but Kit knew what he actually meant was that he didn’t trust him to be doing a good job. Essentially, he had come here to monitor him. Great. “The morning has been going fine,” Kit said, brushing his hair back into place from where Johnny had ruffled it into a mess. His headband had almost fallen off, and he had to readjust it. “No big problems at all.”
“What do you say, Ty?” Johnny asked, eyes glancing over the display cases and espresso machines. It was clear he was scanning for mistakes, something he could criticise Kit for.
“Nothing unusual,” Ty said in response, “Kit has been very helpful.”
Butterflies erupted in Kit’s chest by the compliment, and he felt his cheeks heat up. Stop it, Kit, he tried to tell himself. He is just defending you, you’re being so weird about it.
Johnny Rook just nodded in a pleased manner. Before Kit knew it, his dad grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him into the staff room. A customer seemed to walk in at the same time, and Ty was left alone to deal with it.
The staff room was very small, including a cold storage room and a freezer, all stuffed in the same, tiny space. There was one office table, usually occupied by either Johnny or the shift manager Diana, but the employees could occasionally use it as a lunch table during their break, which Kit had just now learned they were allowed to have legally.
“It seems you have been doing fine this morning,” his dad said as he sat down by the desk, pulling up a laptop. “I was worried you were going to oversleep.”
“That has never happened to me,” Kit mumbled back, “but thanks for the trust.”
Johnny balanced the laptop on a pile of papers on the desk. It looked like no one had organized the staff room in ages. “Dru is coming to the middle shift today, so I assume you’ll do fine until the end of your shifts without me,” Johnny said. “How has working been with Ty?”
Kit got startled by the sudden mention of his colleague. “F-fine,” he stuttered out, “It’s only been a few hours, though. Why do you ask?”
Johnny appeared to be going through some emails absentmindedly. “Ah, it’s just that he works so well with Thais, I was a bit worried putting you in the shift all of a sudden would throw him off,” Johnny said. “He’s a weird kid, that’s all.”
Kit rolled his eyes at the words. “I don’t think a boss should be saying that about his employees.”
“I’m not criticising him at all, he is a great employee, very good at everything, much better than you at most things, actually,” Johnny continued to say. Kit’s mood was growing exponentially worse. “It’s just that kids these days, you know, they all have anxiety disorders and stuff. I gotta stay up to date with these things so they don’t quit the job because a routine gets mixed up and they freak out or something.”
Some days, Kit wasn’t sure how he was related to this man. “I’m pretty sure Ty doesn’t have an anxiety disorder,” he said. In all honesty, he didn’t know why he even bothered to pick a fight with his dad about this. Johnny Rook had the empathy of a toad, after all. And that was kind of a hurtful thing to say for toads.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter, he seems to be doing fine either way,” Johnny responded off-handedly, clearly not caring about what Kit had to say to him. He was about to shoo Kit away when the backdoor to the café opened, and Dru walked in. She was twenty minutes early to work, which was out of the ordinary if you ask Kit. Her hair was put in two braids, and she was carrying a huge, black umbrella with her. “Oh, hi,” she said as she entered.
Johnny’s face lit up in joy at the sight of Dru. “Drusilla, great that you’re here!” he exclaimed, waving his hand at her.
Dru was one of Kit’s closest friends at the Nook, but at the same time she was also the most infuriating coworker to have. He couldn’t understand how she had managed to manipulate his dad into liking her so much. It could be that she lured in a lot of customers, whether it was due to her looks or her personality (or in some cases both). A lot of regulars came to the café just for her (and she didn’t even know how to properly steam milk, by the way), so clearly she was bringing in profit for his dad’s business.
In Johnny Rook’s eyes, Dru could do no wrong. She could probably burn the entire shopping mall down by accident, and his dad still wouldn’t fire her. In Kit’s eyes, however, Dru had a lot of things about her that made him want to bang his head against a wall. She also happened to be just about the most loyal person you could ever get to know in your life. He wondered how she would react if she heard the things his dad was saying about Ty just a moment before.
“I came early to check up on how Kit and Ty were doing,” she said politely to Johnny. “I left the place quite a mess yesterday, it was such a busy day.”
Johnny got up from the desk and ruffled Kit’s hair again (Kit really wished he would stop doing that). “Nothing my boy cannot handle,” he said, a grin breaking to his face, “I raised him to be a competent young man, after all.”
That’s not how you were speaking a few minutes ago, Kit wanted to say. Instead, he retorted to just smiling sarcastically and readjusting his headband, again.
To make things a little bit more chaotic, Ty popped his head into the backroom suddenly. “I need help with the customers, there’s a rush,” he said, noticing Dru. “Hi, Dru.”
“I’m starting my shift at eleven,” Dru said to him, and Ty just nodded. “I know,” he said to her, “But there’s a rush right now.”
Kit took this as a sign to leave Dru in the backroom to entertain Johnny. She was good at that, after all. He followed Ty out of the staff room, and prepared to see a huge line of grumpy customers waiting for them.
However, to his surprise, there was not a single customer by the register as they reached it.
“I thought you said there was a rush,” he said as Ty pushed a cup into his hands. Kit looked down at it in confusion, but took it. “What’s this?”
“Your shift drink had gotten cold,” Ty said, eyes fixed on Kit’s collarbone, away from his face. “I made you a new one.”
Kit looked down at the cup. The latte art on his drink was in the shape of a bunny. “I think we’re only allowed to have one shift drink,” Kit said.
“I didn’t have one, so you can have it,” Ty said. A smile broke onto Kit’s face, unable to hold it in, his heart pooling over with immense joy. It was as if the room lit up in sunlight despite the rain outside, and Kit’s ears had been surrounded by the singing of birds. “Thanks,” he breathed out, staring into the cup like he had just discovered the stars in the sky.
They stood there for a moment, and Kit saw Ty tug on his hair in his peripheral vision. “It’s a regular latte,” he explained, “I made it with oat milk, because I don’t really know which milk you prefer.”
“I prefer any milk you give me,” Kit said absentmindedly while taking a sip. It tasted absolutely perfect, even if he actually didn’t really like oat milk (Ty didn’t need to know that). Then he realized what he had just said, and felt his heart climb up into his throat in embarrassment. “I meant to say that I– I didn’t mean it like that. I meant whatever milk–” a cough escaped his mouth– “whatever works.”
Ty looked at him worriedly. Kit kept coughing; he had gotten something stuck in his windpipe. It was really embarrassing. Luckily, he didn’t have to suffer for long, as someone walked into the café again, providing a distraction from the awkwardness of the situation.
Kit walked over to a sink to drink some water. The person who walked in was a girl, about their age, her hair and eyes the same color as Dru’s. “Ty, you have coffee on your face,” she said as she walked up to the register. She barely even glanced over to Kit. Then she reached over to wipe off the smudge from Ty’s temple with her sleeve.
“This is my sister Livvy,” Ty explained to Kit, seemingly not caring about the fussing. “She wants to buy a cold brew with hazelnut syrup.”
“Sure thing,” Kit said. He wiped on his mouth, and walked back to the register to ring up her order. Luckily, drinking water had helped him get over his coughing fit.
The girl– Livvy– seemed to notice him then, and leaned over the counter to take a closer look at his name tag. Almost instantly, her face lit up in recognition, and a grin spread across her face. “Now tell me Ty,” she said in a weird tone, “why didn’t you say you were going to be in the same shift with Kit?”
Ty didn’t say anything, but Kit felt his stomach flip. “Why would he?” he asked.
Livvy stretched her hand toward him, and Kit grabbed it in confusion. “You’re kind of famous,” she said. She opened her mouth to continue, but then hesitated for a moment, glancing over to Ty who had walked away from them to prepare her drink. In a snap moment, the hesitation cleared out of her face, and she turned to Kit smiling as if nothing had happened at all. “It’s just that Dru talks about you a lot.”
Oh. Disappointment crushed Kit momentarily. “Right, Dru,” he said, scratching the back of his neck with his hand. He felt awkward again. “She’s quite nice.”
Livvy eyed him suspiciously.“I know, she is my sister.”
“Right, right,” Kit said.
Ty brought her the cold brew then, and she stuck a straw in, taking a huge sip of it. After swallowing, she sighed in relief as if being without coffee had caused her actual physical pain. Then, her eyes focused back on her brother. “Any updates on Malcolm?” she asked.
“Hasn’t stopped by today,” Ty answered nonchalantly, his hands fidgeting with the strap of his apron.
Kit’s interest peaked at the mention of a name. He was, of course, a person who didn’t like drama, and generally minded his own business. But simultaneously, he absolutely lived to hear about the gossip regarding customers. After all, it didn’t hurt anyone if he knew about it. To be honest, Ty didn’t strike him as a person who would be interested in gossiping about customers, but his sister Livvy definitely seemed like someone who would have some dirt on everyone around them. She probably knew something juicy.
He was just about to ask about this Malcolm they were talking about, before Dru barged out of the staff room, stealing Livvy’s attention right away. She came up to greet Livvy with a hug, not at all surprised by her presence, and just like that, the opportunity to be let in on the gossip had passed.
Dru’s arrival also indicated that it was lunch break time for the morning shift, and Ty chose to go eat first. Kit felt a bit annoyed that his peaceful alone time with Ty had now been completely stolen by not just one, but two of his sisters. Either way, he was grateful that Dru came to take over the cash register; she was much more natural in her way of interacting with the customers, adjusting her behavior to match everyone like a chameleon. While Kit wasn’t bad at customer service, Dru excelled at it– most of the customers left the register with a smile on their face, regardless of how grumpy they looked upon arrival.
Livvy moved away from the counter after a couple of minutes, opting to sit at a nearby table, pulling out a computer in front of her. She was sipping on her drink in even intervals, but otherwise her gaze was laser-focused on whatever was happening on the screen.
“What is she working on?” Kit asked from Dru, unable to help his curiosity.
“Oh, she’s an engineer,” Dru said. “She’s tried to explain to me a couple of times what exactly she does, but to be honest I don’t really– Hello, welcome, what can I get for you?”
A customer had quietly appeared behind the counter, a man with strikingly white, blond hair. Strikingly beautiful too, if Kit must admit. He was a loyal man, having eyes for only one person at a time, but he can recognise beauty where it’s present.
The man smiled shyly at Dru. “Uh, I would like an earl grey tea, thank you.”
Dru nodded. “Sure thing,” she said. Kit grabbed a large tea mug and started filling it with hot water.
“Thanks,” the man said again. “Your braids are very pretty.”
Well now Kit’s ears perked up. He picked up a tea strainer and poured some earl grey leaves in, exactly one spoonful. Dru just smiled at him. “Thank you,” she said, and took the teacup from Kit, pushing it on the table in front of the customer. Then he paid for his tea and left.
“Dude,” Kit said after he was out of earshot, “did he just flirt with you?”
“Probably,” Dru rolled her eyes. “Happens all the time.”
It was true. Kit had seen it happen in the past as well. Dru was a very beautiful, young woman, and there was a particular type of men who tend to delude themselves into thinking that just because a barista smiles at you and is pretty and a woman, it means they want you sexually or something. There were a couple of times where a sleazy customer tried to beg her to go on a date with him after a shift, and would get angry if she declined the offer. So, it was kind of understandable why Dru would feel disdain toward compliments from male customers. This man seemed different, though.
“I think he was being genuine, just complimenting you,” Kit said to her. “I thought he was pretty good looking as well.”
Dru had turned to the espresso machine to prepare her shift drink. “He was good looking, but it doesn’t change the fact that dudes like him, they think they can just say one compliment to a chubby girl and she’ll fall on her knees begging to date them,” she said, bitterness laced in her tone.
Kit furrowed his eyebrows. “What if he complimented your braids because he sincerely thought they were pretty?”
“You know, for someone who claims to be progressive, you sure are defending this random guy adamantly right now,” Dru said. “If he wants to get something out of me, he needs to be a bit more creative than that. I know my braids are pretty.” She took a pitcher and poured almond milk in it. “Besides, I don’t date customers. That’s like, kind of problematic. Raises a lot of questions with authority roles and power dynamics and such.”
Kit crossed his arms across his chest, coming to a conclusion that it wasn’t really a topic that was worth pissing Dru off about. “Of course I’m on your side on this,” Kit said. “He needs to court you like a prince courts a princess before he deserves you.”
“Now that’s what I like to hear,” Dru said, and started steaming her almond milk. It screeched like it was being tortured in hell. Kit cringed at the sound.
All of a sudden, a flood of customers crashed into the coffee shop, forcing Dru and Kit straight into action. It was typical for everyone to decide to come to the coffee shop at the same time, in random sprints, and suddenly the line was super long and everyone wanted a large cappuccino or a caramel frappe or any other drink that took way too long to make for the type of a hurry they were in. The rush didn’t let up even after Ty had come back from his lunch break, and all three of them were so incredibly occupied with work that Kit completely forgot to have his own break.
⋆˙☕︎☕︎☕︎˙⋆
After a rather chaotic rest of the shift, Kit was finally clocked out of the shift with Ty. His dad had taken over the counter– surprisingly on time– and they were in the dressing rooms now, Ty’s locker across his. Kit was in the middle of taking off his name tag and apron when Ty spoke to him.
“You’re on the shift with me tomorrow,” he stated.
“I’m doing the morning shift until Thais is back from her sick leave,” Kit said. He glanced over to Ty, and found him already staring at him. Or more precisely, his hands that were untying the apron. He looked away immediately, but Kit still saw it.
“Okay,” Ty said. “We will get to know each other.”
Something warm grumbled in Kit’s stomach at the words. “Yeah, it’s nice.”
“You didn’t have your lunch break today,” Ty said then. It caught Kit off guard. “Uh,” Kit started, hand shooting up to scratch his neck as a nervous response, “It’s not that big of a deal, we had a rush.”
“I think you should have a break despite there being a rush,” Ty argued back.
Kit felt confused. Why did Ty care about this? It’s not like he didn’t get to have a break himself. “Try telling that to my dad,” he said sarcastically.
“We can go tell him right now, if you want,” Ty said. “I can help.”
Kit shoved his work clothes inside his locker, not caring to hang them up neatly, but instead just throwing them as a pile at the bottom. “It was a joke,” he said, “it’s pretty useless to talk to my dad. The man doesn’t listen.”
Ty didn’t answer anything to that, and for a moment Kit was afraid he had offended him somehow, but when he closed his locker and turned to look at him, Ty was occupied looking at his phone. “My brother is picking me and Livvy up soon,” he said then, “I have to go.”
Kit quirked up an eyebrow. “How many siblings do you even have?”
“Six,” Ty just answered. He then closed his locker door, and waved goodbye to Kit. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” Kit said as he waved at him. He watched Ty walk out of the locker room, elegantly as ever, and his heart felt a pang by the sudden absence of the boy. The intensity of the feeling surprised him.
A thought came into his mind then: For a whole month, he would have to share his mornings with Tiberius Blackthorn. It might end up being the death of him.