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Dan sighs loudly as he stands behind the counter, bored out of his mind, hopefully waiting for a customer to come in. It’s a weekday, so it’s not particularly busy today. He hates slow days the most. Plus, it doesn’t really help that it’s the winter season, so not a ton of people are going outside in the chilly weather.
“Bloody hell,” Dan grumbles as he pushes himself off the counter. He looks around. He’s already cleaned the front of the store like three times now, and he still has three hours to go until closing.
Dan looks over as soon as he hears the familiar sound of the door ringing, alerting him that there’s a customer walking into the shop. He raises his eyebrows curiously when he gets a good look at the man, and he sees that he’s covered in dirt and mud.
The man looks up and blushes when he sees Dan staring at him. “Apologies. I- I know I’m a mess- but, there was nowhere else I could go to clean. Is there a bathroom I can use?”
Dan blinks, hardly paying attention to whatever the man is saying, because all he can think about is how cute he is. The man must be in his mid-twenties. How can someone in his mid-twenties be so adorable?
“Uh, sir?”
“What? Yes?” Dan replies, looking up at the man again, who’s all but staring at him. “Oh, bathroom. Yes. Uh, follow me.” He quickly turns, and leads the man into the customer’s bathroom. He opens the door, and watches the man walk into the bathroom. “Is there anything I could get you?”
“I might need some extra napkins to clean up this mess,” the man tells him.
“Right. Napkins. Yes. We’ve got plenty of those,” Dan says. He walks out of the bathroom, and takes a deep breath once the door is shut. “Get it together.” He hurries over and grabs a handful of paper towels, and takes them back to the bathroom. He stops when he sees that the man has taken off his jacket, revealing his muscly arms through the longsleeve shirt he’s wearing.
“Ah, thank you so much. Gosh. I feel like such an idiot right now,”
Dan hands the man the paper towels. “You’re quite messy. What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Oh. I was taking a stroll through the park, as you do, right? And I was so distracted by the scenery that I didn’t see the huge muddy puddle on the sidewalk, and I went tumbling down,” the man laughs.
Fuck. Even his laugh is cute? I’m so screwed,
There’s no way Dan can let this man leave his shop without getting his number.
“Wow. Sounds messy,” Dan replies, trying to keep himself calm.
“It’s a little messy,” he agrees, nodding.
Dan looks up at him, unable to keep himself from laughing softly. “You got distracted by the scenery?”
“Yes?” The man looks at him, frowning a little. “What’s so wrong with that? London is beautiful.”
“No, no. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just- the way you said it, I guess. You’re right. London is beautiful,” Dan mumbles, and that’s not the only thing in London that’s beautiful.
“Well, that should do it,” the man says, checking himself over in the mirror. “Well, it’ll have to do for now until I get home, at least. Luckily I don’t live too far from here. Thanks for letting me use your bathroom.”
“No problem. I had no customers anyways,” Dan shrugs his shoulders.
“Slow day?”
“The slowest,” Dan complains, before opening the door, watching the man walk out of the bathroom. “Uh, what’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?” He follows the man.
“I’m Phil,” the man introduces himself, turning to look at Dan. “Nice to meet you, Dan.”
“How did you-?” Dan stops himself, and glances down at the nametag on his shirt that says his name in big black letters, and blushes. “Right.”
Phil chuckles. “Thanks for the great service. I’ll have to leave a positive review on yelp,”
“Yelp?” Dan asks, blinking. “You actually go on that site?”
“No,” Phil laughs, and Dan’s heart melts a little more. “Of course I don’t. But, I will be telling my friends that they should come to your coffee shop. Great service, and cute Barista’s.”
“Thanks. I appreciate-” Dan stops, realizing Phil had just called him a cute barista.
Phil smirks. “See you ‘round, Dan,” he says, before walking out of the coffee shop.
Dan’s head snaps up. “Wait-!” He groans, and really hates himself for not asking for Phil’s number, because clearly Phil thought that he was cute, and was flirting. That’s something. Now, he’s gone, and Dan doesn’t know if he’s going to see him again or not.
A few days later, Dan’s honestly still a little upset about not getting Phil’s number, but he’s got a job to do, so he doesn’t have much time to cry about it even though he’d love nothing more than to do so.
There’s plenty of fish in the sea, he has to keep telling himself.
However, on a Friday evening, Dan hears the familiar sound of the door ringing again. He looks over, and he has to contain his excitement when he sees Phil walking into the coffee shop. He’s with a blonde girl, but Dan’s trying to not to think about how that could be his girlfriend.
“This is cute,” the girl says as she glances around. “You were right about that.”
“I never said the coffee shop was cute, Louise. Were you even paying attention to our conversation?”
“No, but I rarely do when you start talking about boys,” Louise laughs when Phil rolls his eyes.
“Hello,” Dan greets, earning both of their attention. “Is there something I could help you two with?”
“Hello again,” Phil replies as he walks up to the counter, the girl following behind him. “Yes, we were hoping to get some hot chocolate. It’s quite chilly out there, you know?”
“Quite,” Louise agrees, nodding. “December’s good for that.”
“Shut up,” Phil says, playfully shoving her.
“Two hot chocolate’s coming up,” Dan says, turning around to make the hot chocolate.
“You were right about the cute Barista’s though. I’ll give you that,”
“Louise,” Phil hisses, and Dan can’t help but feel his cheeks burning up. Phil was definitely talking about him to his friend, who’s definitely not his girlfriend. That’s such a relief to Dan. He still has a chance.
Dan makes the first hot chocolate, and the cup hands it to the girl, writing Louise on it.
“Oh, lovely. Thanks for spelling my name right,” Louise says when she looks at her name on the cup.
“Do people often spell Louise wrong?” Dan asks curiously, looking at her.
“Yeah. You’d be surprised,” Louise chuckles, and takes a sip of the hot chocolate. “That’s so nice.”
Dan smiles a little at her, and turns around to start making Phil’s hot chocolate. He writes Phil’s name on the cup, and he hesitates, before writing his phone number at the bottom of Phil’s name, because he’s not going to let Phil get away that easily without trying. He hands the cup to Phil.
“Thank you,” Phil says, taking the cup from Dan. He glances at his name, and smiles, as he looks up at Dan. “I’ve heard really good things about your shop. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t grab anything on my way out last time I came here. I was in a bit of a rush.”
“Yeah, well. Falling in mud will do that to you,” Dan chuckles.
“You fell in the mud? Oh my God. I’m not even surprised. You’re so clumsy,” Louise shakes her head.
Phil glares at her. “Shut it,” he hisses. “I can’t help it that I’m clumsy, okay?”
“It’s okay. I’m clumsy too. I totally understand. On my first day here, I spilled coffee on my manager. It was a disaster. I was lucky she didn’t fire me right then and there,”
“Might have something to do with your good looks,” Louise says.
“Okay. We’re leaving,” Phil says as he grabs a hold of Louise. “It was great seeing you again, Dan.”
“Oh, come on, Phil. You’ve been talking about him for like three days now. You're not even going to ask for his number?” Louise complains as Phil drags her out of the coffee shop.
“You’re such an idiot, Louise. It’s a good thing I love you,” Phil grumbles. He glances back at Dan, and smiles at him, before shutting the door.
Dan lets out a laugh, and leans against the counter, feeling relieved. He’s glad that he had the confidence to leave his number on Phil’s cup. Now he only has to hope that Phil will call him back.
It takes Phil an hour to message Dan, when he’s getting ready to clock out for his shift.
unknown number:
hey it’s phil
so, you totally want to go on a date, right?
dan:
what gave you that impression? ;)
phil:
you’re really going to make me work for it?
dan:
no, of course not
although i should since you made me wait three days :p
phil:
i was busy
i promise our date will be worth it
how does tomorrow at seven sound?
dan:
7:30
i have to work tomorrow and i’ll need time to look presentable
phil:
you always look presentable but okay
7:30 tomorrow
I'll have to pick you up so message me your address :D
“What’s got you so smiley, Daniel?”
Dan looks up to see his co-worker Chris, and smiles even more. “I’ve got a date tomorrow evening,”
“A week before Christmas?” Chris laughs. “See, I told you. You won’t be lonely on Christmas after all.”
Dan rolls his eyes. “Chris, I haven’t even been on the date yet, so we don’t know that,”
“No, but you seem smitten with the guy, so my guess is it’s going to go well,” Chris says.
Dan lets out a sigh. “I can only hope,” he says.