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And love, it never happens like you think it really should.
- Homewrecker, Marina and the Diamonds
This particular week has been anything but mundane for Baz. Fiona’s stock of ingredients fell so low that he had to take care of raging customers asking why exactly they couldn’t get their regular order.
Because my aunt’s well stupid , he’d find himself wanting to say. Because we’re out of stock, he’d find himself saying instead.
He works here alone. Him, and occasionally Ebb, who strolls down to the cafe to give Fiona a basket of muffins or scones. Those are the days where Baz strikes gold.
“Why don’t we have any fucking honey, Fiona?” Baz asks, stumbling about in the back storage area. The store has about an hour before they open, and as soon as Baz was about to check if they had enough of the basics to last them the week, he’d noticed that the spot where the honey usually was had been replaced by dust.
Baz sneezes into his arm, cursing at how dusty the room had become. “At this rate, we’re going to run out of everything else - Fiona!”
But what he encounters outside of the storage is an actual customer. It’s a Friday; nobody comes here on Fridays. Baz snatches a glance at his watch, covered with dust. He wipes it off quickly and is greeted unpleasantly with the fact that he was two hours behind and the store’s been open for the past hour.
Baz fumbles to fix his shirt and messily wipe at his face, attempting to compose a greeting. All that comes out of his mouth is, “Customer?”
The bloke ruffles his hair and his lips turn up in a light smile. “I’d like to think I am, yeah.”
Baz stands there, stunned. Covered in dust and flour, eyes wide. “I- Apologies.” He rushes to the register and dusts off his apron. “Welcome. What can I get for you today?”
He has freckles , Baz notices. He has freckles.
“I’ll get an, um. A, what’s it called? Lemon tea honey?”
Baz stifles a laugh, inwardly rolling his eyes, “Sir, do you mean honey lemon tea? I’m afraid we’re out.”
“Oh- What types of tea do you have? They’re all hot right?”
He’s an idiot , Baz thinks. A good looking idiot who stumbled upon his aunt’s shitty cafe on a day where nobody usually comes. It’s expected - the cafe is empty on Thursdays and Fridays and weekends and they make no profit whatsoever because it’s so run-down and obnoxiously disgusting, and there isn’t anything Baz can do about it.
They’re out of honey and milk, running on obscenely low amounts of flour, and Baz has no idea what he’s supposed to do.
“Yes. We have green tea and-”
“Yes! Okay, I’ll, um, take a green tea. To-go. Small.”
Baz tells him the price, prints out his receipt, and heads towards the back to make the green tea, wrapping the cup with a napkin and sending the man off with nothing but a monotone “ have a nice day .”
Baz notices his hair isn’t blond. It’s not dirty blonde either, it’s more golden, more bronze. His curls fan across his forehead as he heads out the door and Baz finds himself gripping the counter a bit harder than he should.
This is the last time Baz will see that bloke, he reassures himself that okay , he made a fool out of himself and okay , maybe he acted a bit more aloof than he should’ve but at least, at least , he maintained eye contact.
But he won’t see that bloke again, and he thinks maybe, it’s for the best.
~*~
Fiona comes late in the afternoon. Stumbling in with nothing but a busted lip and a pack of fags in her hand.
Baz doesn’t say anything, though. He throws an empty cup at her head and yells at her to go to the supermarket sooner or later. She throws the pack of fags at his chest in response and heads up to the flat on top of their cafe.
Baz knows she never stays quiet, always needing to get the last word in before she slams the door. And he wonders what happened today.
~*~
The bloke doesn’t come back until next Friday.
The other days flew by without Baz paying much attention at all. His schedule was to listen , to assure , to make , and then, to say goodbye.
Most of the time, assuring the customer wasn’t even needed. None of them said more than a word, and Baz was fine with it. He’d rather not make small talk when the both of them knew that they were just here for one thing.
He burns his hand making coffee for a customer while thinking about the nameless bloke. He spills a customer’s tea wondering if he would come in today. That’s not reasonable , he says to himself, he’s only been here once, who’s to say he’d come again?
Baz doesn’t get time to put any ointment on his hands. The cafe’s been packed ever since it opened.
But it’s Friday . They have a schedule . This shouldn’t be happening. But it’s business, and this means that they won’t have to worry about the lack of honey or flour shortages. So he pulls through.
An hour before closing, there’s nobody inside the cafe. College students that usually stay in to do their work packed up long ago and left, leaving Baz with a couple broken mugs and coffee stains on his shirt.
He gets to work real quick, heading towards the back storage room to grab a mop to clean up the spilt tea. Once that’s done, he rummages around Fiona’s office to find a first aid kit and he brings it to the front to apply it to his hands.
Baz’s just about to wrap the gauze around his palm when the door slams open. He drops the gauze on the floor in surprise. “Hello-?”
The bloke wheezes, and that’s when Baz notices that it’s the same boy from last time. Same freckles, same dimpled smile.
Same obnoxiously loud presence.
“Hello? Sir, is there anything I could do for you?”
“Yeah,” he pants, “Just gimme a sec.”
Baz stands there awkwardly, the gauze on his hands hanging loosely, not having been put on properly.
“Okay, um, do you have tea?”
“Yes, could I interest you in green tea?”
“No, that’s what I got last time. Um, black tea? Do you have black tea?”
“We should have some. Is this all?”
“Yes.”
Baz heads back and makes his order, hissing when his hand hits the hot cup. He prints out the receipt, wraps the cup in a napkin, and sends the bloke off with another monotone “ have a nice day.”
~*~
He tries not to think about him. But in reality, it’s all he does. The curve of his lip when he came in the first time, seeing Baz covered in dust. The freckles dusted across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. His curls, not blonde, not gold, but bronze .
“Basil.” Fiona snaps her fingers in front of his face. “I’m going out with Ebb. Watch the shop for me, alright?”
Baz shrugs and pushes her out the door. It’s not like he doesn’t take care of it on a daily basis; he doesn’t understand why she frets.
And then, it being a Saturday, he’s left with his thoughts. They’re loud enough to occupy the empty cafe.
--
It’s Friday. And the freckled bloke didn’t come.
It’s not surprising, though. Baz thought he’d only come twice anyways. Who’d come here for anything except for their disgustingly cheap coffee? It’s weird enough that he comes for tea. He doesn’t even look like a bloke who enjoys tea.
The whole day’s been slow. Nobody came, just the occasional jingle of the windchimes hung up outside the door and the rustle of the leaves coming through the open windows.
Baz spends the rest of the day cleaning. He doesn’t even bother flipping the sign to show that the shop’s closed.
He grabs the mop from the closet in Fiona’s office, a bucket from the storage room, and a bandana safely secured in his pocket. He fills the bucket with water, wraps the bandana around his face like a mask, and ties his hair into a low bun.
Baz is just about to be finished cleaning the dining area when the door opens and a rush of wind comes flowing in.
His eyes widen and he pulls his bandana lower so he can speak clearly. “Sir, I apologize but we’re closed.”
It’s the Freckled Bloke.
His lips twist into a frown, “But the sign says you’re open..?”
Oh. oh.
“Oh.” Baz props the mop on the wall and washes his hands, placing the bandana back in his pockets. “Sorry, I’ll take your order. That was my mistake.”
The bloke stands there with his mouth open. Baz holds back the urge to tell him he’ll end up catching a fly. He waves his hand infront of the boy's face. “...Hello? Sir-”
His eyes fly up to the menu and then down to Baz’s nametag. “Do you have basil tea?”
Baz nods. “Great! I’ll have that.”
Baz’s hands fly of their own accord, printing his receipt, making his tea, wrapping it up with a napkin, and this time, the bloke says goodbye first.
“See you next time, Baz.” He leaves the shop with a lazy waggle of his fingers, and Baz thinks that he likes Baz more than Basil.
~*~
“Hey, Fiona?”
She hums in response, stacking the shelves with the sour cherry scones Ebb had brought in earlier today along with a couple of muffins.
“Can you possibly change my name tag?”
“Huh, why? What’s wrong with Basil? It’s your name, innit?”
Baz bites the inside of his cheek and avoids her gaze. “Can we change it to Baz? Maybe?”
She laughs and shakes her head, whispering, “What am I going to do with you?”
But she didn’t say no, so Baz stays hopeful.
~*~
He comes again. On Friday. It’s almost a guarantee that the Freckled Bloke will come on Fridays.
Sometimes he’d show up an hour before closing, and sometimes the idiot would come an hour before the shop had even opened. Baz would let him in anyways - he’d never had the heart to say no.
But this time when he comes in, he’s dripping wet, shaking his head like a dog. Baz lets out an undignified yelp and ducks behind the counter to avoid getting splattered.
“Hey-!”
“Sorry, Baz. What’s the special today?”
Baz stands from where he was squatting. “We don’t… we don’t have a special. But, um, we have sour cherry scones?”
And it’s like his eyes light up. His eyes that Baz has never really paid attention to, the blue so ordinary that it doesn’t necessarily catch anyone’s eye until you pay close attention to it, and Baz feels himself get lost in them. Until he isn’t.
The bloke is pressing his face against the glass of the display case, a dopey smile plastered across his face and Baz feels himself smile along with him.
“You must really like those.”
“Yeah! My Mum used to make them for me when I was young. I miss them…”
“Oh. How many would you like?”
He stands up, and gets his wallet from his back pocket. “I’ll take… five.”
So Baz gives them to him. Placed carefully in a cardboard box, taped on the side with the receipt; he sends him on his way.
Baz might’ve given him two extra.
~*~
“Baz, why do we have less scones than what was written down in the inventory?”
“Because I sold them to a customer. What kind of questi-”
“No. You sold him five, we have seven less.”
“I may have given him two extra.”
“Baz!”
~*~
Baz marks down the days he thinks the freckled bloke will come. He marks each Friday with his red marker.
The bloke comes in, most of the time, right before they close. When Baz is just about to turn the lights off, lock the door, and head up to their flat, he’ll come crashing through the door with his curls tumbling around in the wind. Baz never has the heart to say they’re closed.
Sometimes, the bloke will sit on the bar stools near the counter and try to make conversation with Baz.
That’s how he learns that the bloke’s name is Simon. Just Simon. For now, at least.
He learns that, like Baz himself, he’s also a Uni student, except that he’s a year older.
Baz learns that Simon is majoring in art. Sometimes, he’ll bring his sketchbook over and sit in the far corner of the cafe, scribbling on his paper all night long until Baz claims that it’s closing time.
Sometimes, Simon will call him out on his bullshit and stay an hour longer, talking to Baz about whatever comes up. The cafe, Uni, Baz.
And then he leaves. And Baz always ends up thinking about him before he falls asleep.
The way he always waggles his fingers instead of actually giving a proper wave. The way he gives the ‘ a’ in Baz’s name a slight drawl when he leaves. The way he smiles despite the fact that Baz can’t hold a proper fucking conversation.
Baz turns over in his bed, shutting his eyes tighter before his thoughts get out of hand.
I’ll see him soon , he thinks.
~*~
Fiona asks him why he’s been coming up late on Fridays. They usually close shop at 12 am sharp, but he’s been coming up later and later everyday. It’s worrying her more than it should.
Baz assures her nothing has been going on. He says it’s the weekly deep clean, and her office has been spectacularly dirty.
She throws her shoe at his head in response.
~*~
Their conversations have been going deep into the night. Simon comes in at 12 am, sharp. And Baz always has a cup of tea ready. Which, more often than not, Baz ends up drinking, because apparently, Baz was right. Simon is not the type to drink tea.
He says he prefers something sweet. Something cold, with a touch of salt. Baz calls his taste weird and Simon throws his head back, laughing.
“So, why’d you buy all that tea at the start?”
“It was for my friend, Penny. She really, really loves tea. It was exam season, and it was cold, so I went out and got it for her.”
Baz feels his face soften, and his lips curl up into a small smile. “You’re a very sweet friend, you know that? She’s lucky to have you.”
Simon’s face flushes a deep red and he tucks his face into the crook of his elbow and turns his chair around. “Baz! You- you can’t just-”
“Have I said anything wrong-? I’m- I apologize. That was probably-”
“No, no, no. Baz,” He turns his chair around, and he’s still smiling. “It was fine. You’re fine. It was perfect.”
You’re wrong , Baz wanted to say. You’re perfect.
~*~
Baz keeps what Simon said in his head. I like sweet things. Cold, with a touch of salt.
And he gets working on a recipe, an iced caramel macchiato. Fiona says it’s a waste of time, but Baz will only find that out when he sees Simon’s reaction.
He comes in on Tuesday, in a rush between all the usual customers, and Baz never gets the chance to show him what he’d found.
He stumbles in and rushes his order out. One small iced coffee, two green teas, 4 sour cherry scones, and a carrot muffin .
It’s so out of the ordinary that Baz doesn’t question it, rushing to make his order without spilling anything on his old burn.
He fumbles to give the bag to Simon, and he rushes out the door without even saying goodbye.
He might be a little disappointed. But he has no right, they’re not even friends.
~*~
“You’re looking quite dejected, boyo. What’s the fuss?”
“It’s nothing.” He says, scrubbing at the water rings on the dining tables with the hem of his sleeve.
Fiona swats at his hand. “Stop that scrubbing, you only do that when something’s bothering you.”
The door jingles, signally the arrival of another customer. Baz raises an eyebrow and heads towards the counter.
“Don’t look so smug!” Fiona yells, “I’ll get it out of ya!”
Baz stifles a laugh and flips her the bird.
~*~
He doesn’t come in the Friday after Tuesday. So Baz buries the recipe in his pockets and wills himself to forget about it.
He keeps to himself as always, busying himself once more with cleaning the store. Dusting the tiny crevices in the storage room and humming a sound of satisfaction when he sees the room practically sparkling.
Throughout Friday, he keeps his ears tuned into the jingle of the bells on the door.
Throughout Friday, he keeps his eyes tuned to his cleaning.
But when it strikes 12 am, his eyes dart to the door on their own accord. And Baz decides that okay, maybe, maybe he missed Simon. And then he realizes that he might have a bigger problem on his hands.
~*~
“Why do you sneeze constantly when you clean?”
Baz stopped mopping and gave Simon an odd look. “I have an allergy.”
“To…?”
“To dust, you moron.”
“So why do you clean? Why doesn’t anyone else do it?”
Baz scoffed at Simon’s idiocy. “Nobody else works here. My aunt Fiona owns it. I work here, she pays me.”
Simon opened his mouth once more to say something, but Baz beat him to it. “Look, if it bothers you, you don’t even have to be here.”
“No, I mean, why would you do it even if you know the dust is gonna make you sneeze?”
Baz resumed his mopping and mumbled, “I don’t know. It’s nice. Knowing that the place is clean. It makes me feel like I’m doing something.”
~*~
Simon comes in again, and this time on a Thursday, with a friend.
He introduces her as Penny. Long curly hair, dyed purple at the ends, kind of short. But she radiates a presence that says she knows how much space she’s taking up. Standing tall, with her chin tilted up, she tells him that the tea he makes is really good.
Baz laughs and rub the back of his neck, telling her that he’s glad because he know fuck all about tea.
They end up taking a seat at the back where the sofas are. Simon falls asleep as soon as he sits down, and Baz can hear Penny scoff through the silence of the cafe. She pulls out her laptop from her bag and starts clacking away with one hand, the other guiding Simon’s head to her lap, playing with his hair while he sleeps.
It’s a type of tender that makes Baz melt on the inside, and he wishes he could do that for Simon too.
~*~
He shows up on Friday, this time. Baz’s been wiping down the counter, his eyes constantly darting to the old clock hung up near the dining area.
11:59 pm, it reads, and Baz thinks he may still have a chance.
The keys feel heavy in his pocket when it reaches 12, but when he goes to lock the door, he sees Simon’s face plastered on the glass, his nose squished between his face and the door.
Baz eyes widen and he stumbles back a bit before bursting into laughter. Idiot , he taps on the glass. What an idiot .
“Lemme ‘n,” he slurs.
Baz opens the door. “It wasn’t locked.”
“Yeah, but I’d rather not surprise ya.”
“Are you drunk?”
“What? Nah, just wired.”
Baz furrows his eyebrows and starts to wipe the counter anew. “Are you high?”
“No! I’m just- high on caffeine, alright? Are you like my mum or something?”
Something in his heart twinges and he feels a bit more hurt than he should. Baz rubs at a spot of the counter a little bit harder.
“I didn’t make your tea. Sorry.” It was a kind of tradition for Baz to make Simon’s tea. For Simon to deny it, say that he doesn’t like it, and force Baz to drink it.
Simon waves his hand dismissively, pulling out a pencil and his sketchbook from his bag. “It’s alright. I never drink it anyways.”
Baz wants to tell Simon look! I found something for you . Maybe he’d even like it. But when he sees Simon shuffle back to the sofas, nowhere near him, he thinks that maybe today isn’t the day.
~*~
“Basil.”
“Yes?”
“Do you still want me to change your name tag?”
“...No. I’m alright. Thank you, Fiona.”
Fiona gives him an odd look before patting him on the back and heading upstairs to their flat with a pack of fags in her hand.
~*~
“Baz?”
“Yes?”
“How do you work so late at night? Do you not have lectures the next morning?”
“...I’m taking a gap year, of sorts.” Baz would say that the sentence was a synonym for insomnia.
Simon looks at him, his lip quirking up. “Is that so?” he says, then goes back to scribbling in his sketchbook.
~*~
Simon comes in on Tuesday with another girl he introduces as Agatha. It’s not to say Baz doesn’t like her, but he hasn’t heard anything about her.
Is this his girlfriend…?
The two of them order a muffin and two sour cherry scones, and Baz rings them up with nothing more than an “ enjoy your food .”
He can hear Agatha ask Simon if Baz talks that monotonously all the time, and Simon shrugs in response.
He sees Penelope walk into the cafe, and she shoots him a pitiful look. She heads over to their group, sees Agatha wave at Penny, and move over so that she sits in between the two of them.
Penny looks up and gives him a slight smile and a thumbs up.
Huh .
~*~
Simon stops coming in for a few days, and it’s like Penny replaces him.
She’s not as loud as he is. She’s not as obnoxious as he is.
But she’s nice to have around. Baz finds out that she’s half Indian, to which he replies that he’s half Egyptian. Her face lights up and she bombards him with different questions.
What’s it like living in the UK? Do you speak any other languages? Who’s Egyptian, your mother or your father?
“Simon never told me that you were Egyptian.”
“Simon talks about me?”
She shrugs. Baz can tell it’s a bad habit she picked up from Simon because she grimaces whenever she does it. “Yes, you’re almost all he talks about. He used to say that you were plotting, because you always have this-” she gestures to his face, “-look.”
“What look?”
“Your eyebrows are always furrowed, you always look like you want to kill someone. And apparently the fact that small talk is not your forte is also a reason why you were plotting. He thought you’d want him to die of embarrassment.”
“Oh. Oops.”
Penny snorts into her drink, sipping the last of her tea before handing the mug back to Baz, a small note left underneath. “Here. I’ll be here on Wednesday again.”
Baz waves her goodbye, and as soon as she leaves, Fiona comes stumbling in.
“Jesus Christ . You’re a storm, Fiona.”
She grumbles, but tosses Baz a jar of something he can’t quite make out. “What-” He fumbles behind the counter, trying to make sure the jar doesn’t fall onto the floor lest it be made of glass.
“It’s honey. Fiona-”
“Look. I had an old woman yell at me because we didn’t have any honey available for her lemon honey tea. It’d better not run out quickly.”
Baz’s eyes dart from the small jar of organic honey from Ebb’s farm to Fiona. “Fiona, this is the smallest jar of honey I’ve ever seen. What were you thinking!-”
“Listen. Ebb’s coming over here tomorrow with more. Relax.”
So, Baz tries.
~*~
Penny starts coming over more often. The clacking of her fingers on the laptop is soothing and different to the usual silence of the cafe.
Baz places his hands on the counter and buries his face into his arms. “What’re you working on?”
“A psychology paper. Hey, Baz, why are you so awkward?”
Baz sputters and moves his head to glare at Penny, his fingers pulling his sleeves up to scrub at the counter top. “What the hell?”
“No!- I mean-”
“I get it. Yeah. I don’t know. I was homeschooled for a lot of my life. From after nursery to uni. I’ve only ever had two friends, and one of them was because he was my cousin. I don’t really even talk to them.”
“So. you’re awkward because you have no friends?”
“No, I have friends-!”
“Do you consider me a friend?”
Baz eyes Penny warily, “I mean. I’d like to think you are.”
Penny hums happily, “Okay. What about Simon, does he count as your friend?”
Baz looks down at where his hands are scrubbing and wills them to stop. “I don’t know.”
Penny raises an eyebrow.
“I’d like to- maybe- he- I want to be more to him. Though. I don’t know.”
“Well, there we have it. I think we know what needs to be done, correct?” She says, eyeing his phone from the counter. “Give him a call. I know he hasn’t been here in a while.”
And with that, she leaves Baz alone with his thoughts.
~*~
He calls Simon on Friday, three days after Penny originally told him to. He told himself it was because it was a tradition . Fridays were theirs. But, in short, Baz was a coward. He got himself to call Simon soon after Ebb and Fiona left the shop together.
He was just about to press the call button until the door slammed open. “What the fuck-”
His phone fell on the floor in his initial shock, and when he looked down to pick it up, he saw that the screen was cracked.
“ Shit . No- please-”
“Baz? Basil?”
“Simon?”
Simon sighs in relief, his shoulders relaxing. He places his backpack on the countertop and sits on the bar stool. “Hey, you.”
“Hey yourself.” Baz snorts. “I didn’t make you your tea. Again.”
Simon waves his hands dismissively and tells him that it’s alright. It’s not like he was the most punctual coming in the past few weeks.
“Where’ve you been?”
“I’ve been… nowhere! Uni, Baz, uni.”
“Oh. Okay, well, can I get you anything?
Simon waggles his eyebrows and points towards the display case filled with sweets. “Sour cherry scones, the usual.”
Baz huffs out a laugh and moves to warm up the scones for him, placing them on a plate and bringing it to him. “What brings you here.”
“Your shitty coffee and your wonderful scones. But mostly you.”
“What?”
“Listen, I know why you’re mad. I’m sorry for not coming, but I had uni! I wasn’t avoiding you-”
“Simon, I haven’t even said anything. Calm down, eat your scones, we have time.”
Simon all but shoves the first scone into his mouth like a heathen, scarfing it down as quickly as he can before he opens his mouth to continue. “ Anyways . I’m sorry. I’m not here for your coffee or your scones. I’m here for you. And if I’m right, you’ve been staring at that god forsaken clock waiting for me to come crashing through the door.”
Baz is gaping.
“Basil. Baz , I like you.”
His face is so, so close to Baz’s and Baz wants nothing more than to surge forward and capture Simon’s lips with his. He can feel Simon’s breath fanning across his cheeks.
“Can I… Can I kiss you?”
Baz nods, and Simon moves forward, his lips just barely touching Baz’s before Baz moves back and remembers something.
“What-”
“Wait here. I have something.”
Simon snickers when Baz scampers off to the back, yelling out, “ where else am I gonna go when you owe me a decent kiss, you bastard!”
Baz hands move quickly as he makes the iced caramel macchiato for Simon. He pours it in a thick plastic cup to make sure Simon can’t see what’s inside.
“Isn’t this just iced coffee?”
Baz flicks Simon's forehead. “Just drink it.”
So he does. “What is this?”
Baz smirks and leans on the counter, his face parallel to Simon’s.“It’s an iced caramel macchiato. Fiona recently got us caramel so I’ve been fucking around with it.”
Simon lifts the cup to Baz’s lip. “You try it.”
Baz snorts and tries it, licking the froth off his lips when Simon tilts the cup at an odd angle.
“Good?” Simon asks.
Baz smiles, pressing a quick kiss to Simon’s lips. “Good.”
I'm just asking for a kiss
Give me one good movie kiss
And I'll be alright
-Mitski, Nobody