Chapter Text
“Whoa, careful!” Jack moved to correct Tyler’s form, then hissed out a curse when a drop of scalding hot milk splashed onto his hand.
“Oh, shit!” Tyler cried out. He quickly put down the frothing pitcher onto the rubber mat, pushed the lever up to shut off the frothing wand, and grabbed a wet towel to thrust at Jack, as if that would help. “Dude, I’m so sorry, are you okay?”
It hurt, of course, burns always hurt, but it really wasn’t that much milk that had hit him. He’d be fine in a few minutes. “Yeah, I’m fine. But remember, as soon as you start hearing that high-pitched screaming, it means the milk is burning.”
“Right, yeah, but they asked for extra hot and no foam?” Tyler said, looking so confused and nervous that Jack almost felt bad for him.
He remembered his first few weeks of working at Grounds Control, trying to keep all his training straight when the drive-thru was full of cars and the café was filling up, drink orders piling up on the bar, and customers getting antsy. This was Tyler’s first morning shift, and throwing him on bar wasn’t proving to be the best way to get him acclimated to the workflow. Some people really responded to being thrown in the deep end, but clearly Tyler wasn’t one of them, and Jack had to swallow hard against his annoyance, when he made to explain. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean to burn the shit out of it, even though I think we both know that’s what it ends up tasting like,” he joked, though from the despairing look on Tyler’s face, it must have fallen flat.
Jack gave Tyler what he hoped was a friendly punch in the arm and sent him to take over for Melanie on DTO while he, himself, took bar to get caught up enough on the morning rush. Truth was, Jack really liked being on bar more than he liked any of the other positions because it was something he could really put his head down and focus on without having to do too much talking with the customers. Plus, he liked the uniformity of it—the recipes were easy to follow once you got the pattern, and there wasn’t too much experimenting to be done.
Things slowed down after an hour or so, and Tyler was able to take back over on the bar, allowing Jack to make himself a cup of plain, black coffee and head into the back for a short break before he started preparing the daily deposit. Or at least, he intended to head into the back for his break, but a familiar blond head caught his eye and he veered off to the table tucked in the back of the café.
“Euh, hey, Parse—” he debated sitting down across the table, but when Parse didn’t nudge the chair out for him, he awkwardly shifted his weight and continued, “It’s good to see you.”
Parse looked up from his laptop and Jack was treated to the ever-so-painful production number that was Parse pretending that he wasn’t mad by half-smirking and generally acting like a world-class douchebag. “Oh, hey Zimms, didn’t know you were working,” he said, dismissive as anything.
“Yeah, I…sorry,” Jack said, falling back as he often did on his innate Canadian politeness when he felt uncomfortable, even though he was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything wrong. “We were pretty, euh, slammed or I would have, um, noticed you were here before.”
Parse shrugged and picked up his “for here” mug—crap, he really must have been here a while—to take a sip of whatever super sweet confection masquerading as coffee he’d ordered today. (Parse was one of those regulars who never actually got the same thing; it was kind of annoying not being able to predict it, but also maybe a little bit charming…) “S’all good, man, no worries. I mean, I can take a hint, you know.” He flashed that little smirk again, his green eyes sparkling with mirth. “I’d find another coffee place, but unfortunately this one’s the closest to campus.”
“You don’t have to—ugh, Parse, c’mon,” Jack said, annoyance getting the better of him. He took the un-offered seat now, feeling suddenly quite stubborn, and set his own cup down with enough force that a little bit of coffee sloshed over the rim. He ran a finger through the splash as he said, quietly enough for only Parse to hear, “this doesn’t have to be weird.”
“Who’s making it weird? I’m not making it weird. Who’s making it weird?” Parse asked, though he mercifully kept his voice down to a decent level.
Jack sighed angrily, feeling the fight start to build in him. “I’m not trying to make it weird, and I’d just…look, Parse, I thought you—I thought you understood. You said you understood,” he argued.
Parse opened his mouth as if to retort, but he couldn’t hide the brief flash of something real in his eyes, something that looked like sadness or at least disappointment. But he had to know—Jack had been very forthcoming, very honest about where he stood, and Parse had just looked him in the eye, with his hands fisted in Jack’s sweatshirt at his chest, and said “Sounds good to me, babe.” Parse had seemed, at the very least, to understand that it was just a hookup. Just one night. Nothing more.
“I’m sorry,” Parse then said, the sincerity in it surprising Jack into meeting his eyes again. “You’re right…I knew—I knew what you wanted.”
Because Jack didn’t have time for a boyfriend, and more than that, he didn’t want one. He had classes and hockey and his job and figuring out what he was going to do with his life, and a boyfriend—even one as hot as Parse—just wasn’t in the cards for him now.
So why did he suddenly feel so bad?