Work Text:
Thomas' first day of work had started out rather slowly. He had expected a big rush around 9 that morning, as that was probably prime-time for Starbucks, but apparently the Starbucks in the Barnes and Noble was not most people's go-to before work pick-me-up spot. He had spent most of the morning wiping down clean table tops and alphabetizing the tea bags. His coworker, a boy around his age named Minho, had spent the morning sleeping in one of the couches. Thomas wasn't 100% convinced that Minho wasn't actually a part-time model/actor doing research for a film or something, because he had never seen someone look so effortlessly beautiful who didn't have a team of 200 makeup artists following them around. Thomas desperately wanted to join him for a nap, but he also didn't want to take any chances. He really need this job, and he had a feeling the assistant manager, Gally, didn't like him very much.
He was behind the counter, trying to get a spot out of the display case glass, when Minho appeared beside him, his hair looking incredibly perfect for someone who had spent the last 45 minutes asleep on a couch. He nudged Thomas with his foot. "Head's up greenie, our first customer. It's going to be a big one."
"What? What do you mean 'big one'?"
"It's the daily Barnes and Noble Coffee run." He nodded towards the entrance of the store. Walking in, was arguably the most gorgeous boy he had ever seen, which was really saying something considering Mr. Abercrombie and Fitch was standing two feet away. This dude had a jaw like no other, with a smirk to match. His sandy blonde hair was shiny enough to compete with Minho's, and Thomas vaguely wondered if good hair was a requirement to work at this Barnes and Noble. He sauntered up to the counter and gave a bright smile when he saw Minho. Thomas was a little bit afraid his legs might give out if this boy actually talked to him, but he was on register duty, so he had to calm down and do his job. He took a deep breath.
"Can I take your order?" His voice came out almost normal and only a tiny bit breathy. Thomas mentally patted himself on the back. The boy finally noticed he was standing by the register, and seemed mildly surprised by his presence.
"Oh! You must be new" and fuck. He was british. This was just unfair. "Here, I uh... wrote it all down." He said, as he pulled out a slip of paper and handed it to Thomas. He started to ring up the order, but got a bit distracted when the boy decided to speak again.
"Is this your first day? You look a little bit lost. Not that it's a bad thing or anything, Minho here looked the exact same way his first day, if you can believe that. It was kind of adorable, actually" Thomas vaguely registered Minho scoff behind him "I'm Newt, by the way. I work in the bookstore so I'll probably be seeing you around quite a bit" It took a moment for Thomas' brain to register that the boy- Newt had stopped talking, and another for him to realize that now he was supposed to talk.
"Thomas. That's my name, I mean. My name is Thomas" He should probably just shut up now. "Your total is $28.52" Newt laughed quietly to himself as he pulled out the necessary cash. Thomas really wished he could just melt into the floor or something.
When everything was paid for, Newt went to the corner of the store to sit, and Thomas turned to Minho, who was already a quarter of the way through the drink order. Minho didn't say anything, but the look on his face implied that he was really enjoying Thomas making a complete idiot of himself. He could feel Newt's eyes on the back of his head, so he picked up a cup and started to help Minho with the order, 'medium coffee, black, two pumps vanilla'. The sooner this was done, the sooner this whole mortifying ordeal would be over.
Newt came in again the next day. Thomas saw him walking from the other side of the bookstore, so he had a little more time to mentally prepare himself. He wasn't stalking Newt or anything, It's just, he could see most of the bookstore from behind the register and there wasn't really anything better to look at...ok. maybe he was stalking just a little bit. But nobody needed to know. This order went much the same as the last, but with significantly more actual sentences coming out of Thomas' mouth, which Thomas was very proud of.
Newt had come in almost every day for the past four days, and each time they ended up talking until Minho would rudely interrupt them by finishing the drink order, thus giving Newt no actual reason to stay. Newt had left with his drinks almost twenty minutes ago, but Thomas had still not thrown away the little piece of paper covered in Newt's delicate handwriting. He may have been imagining how good his name would look in that handwriting, and how good that hand would look writing his name, and how good that hand would look doing other things...And Minho was unabashedly ignoring all his actual work in favor of staring at thomas with a stupid grin on his face.
"Looks like someone's got a crush" Thomas turned a bright red all the way down to his chest, but stood his ground.
"I have no Idea what you are talking about"
"You want to fuck him. Or you want him to fuck you...i'm not really-"
"Shut up!!" He clamped a hand over Minho's mouth "Someone will hear you! There are probably children around! I do not want to..." He looked around "Fuck Newt" Minho made a grunting noise that sounded like "yeah right" Thomas removed his hand and swore that he would not talk to Minho for the rest of the day, which lasted about an hour. He also swore that he would not look for Newt for the rest of the day, which lasted about 5 minutes.
The next day was Sunday, which meant he had a day off, and he spent most of the day trying to stop himself from going to the bookstore and buying something he didn't need just to see Newt. He wasn't that pathetic. He was above that. He went out to a bar with some friend instead and got wasted. When he finally made it home, he found out just how pathetic he was, because apparently, he wasn't above thinking about beautiful golden brown hair and deep brown eyes staring at him as he jerked off that night.
When Thomas got in Monday morning, He was greeted by Minho leaning against the counter, looking smug and ready for a vogue photoshoot.
"Guess who came in yesterday?"Thomas really wasn't in the mood for questions this early in the morning, he still had a bit of a hangover, and he told Minho as much by flipping him off.
"Come one, don't be like that! Don't you want to know?" Thomas sighed, but took the bait.
"who?"
"Your boy"
"I don't have a boy"
"Newt. He was in here yesterday for coffee again."
"yeah, if you didn't notice, he comes in for coffee every day" Thomas was quickly tiring of this conversation. He didn't need his stupid crush and it's lack of reciprocation rubbed in his face.
"He didn't used to" That caught Thomas' attention.
"What?"
"Before you came, all the barnes and noble guys would switch off" And holy shit.
"really?"
"Yup, guess something changed their mind... And yesterday, when Newt came in, he asked where you were" Newt really asked about Thomas? He was kind of freaking out.
"Do you know what this means Thomas?"
"um..."
"It means that he likes you too. And don't try to give me that crap about how you don't like him. I see those puppy dog eyes you give him" This didn't make any sense. He decided that Minho was probably just reading into things. He wasn't going to jump to any conclusions. He had had enough of embarrassing himself, thank you very much.
"Don't be stupid, Minho. He probably comes in to get out of work for a few minutes. I would too"
"Thomas. You are literally the most stubborn, obvlious person I have ever met" Thankfully their conversation was put to an end when Newt walked in. He looked around, then smiled when his eyes met with Thomas.
"Hey there Tommy, Missed you yesterday! I had to talk to Minho. It was awful" Thomas' bad mood immediately lifted at the new nickname, and he returned Newt's smile.
"I'm sorry. Nobody should have to go through that" Newt laughed, and he kind of never wanted him to stop.
Thomas and Newt had been making eye contact all day from across the store and it was kind of messing with his ability to function. So far it had caused him to overfill three cups and drop about 30 bottles of syrups, but Minho had left already, so hopefully nobody saw. At about 2:50, 10 minutes before Thomas got off, Newt came walking back towards the coffee shop. Thomas expected him to turn left towards the self help section, but instead, he kept going straight. Right up to Thomas' register.
"Another coffee run?"
"Actually...um...it's just for me this time...I'm a little tired today" He seemed a little nervous, which was confusing, but also overwhelmingly adorable. He handed Thomas a a small scrap of paper with 'medium coffee, black, two pumps vanilla' scratched across the top. As he handed the coffee off to Newt, their fingers brushed, and Thomas almost collapsed. Newt didn't say anything as he left, but looked back at thomas before he was fully out the door. Thomas stared at the little scrap of paper. Why would Newt write his order down if it was just one drink? He couldn't think of any reason other than that Newt was just quirky and adorable like that. He walked over to the trashcan, and was about to throw the paper away, when something one the back caught his eye. He turned the paper over in his hand, and there, in that same floaty handwriting he had been staring at for the past week, were ten numbers, and right below, "Coffee?"