non semper erit aestas. | fics ☼

Sugar, Baby o1: Vanilla Coffee

pairing: Avery and Kross; cafe/bakery AU
    Kross belongs to yourwifesboyfriend
2392 words; 13040 characters
[edited: one time as of 8/31/19]

Tuesday the 14 of June, 2016

Valentine's Bakery- named for Samantha's only child, of course- was small, so it was rare that Avery forgot a regular's face. There was a small list of regulars; June Widmann, who always ordered a caramel latte and a blueberry muffin; Mr. Vogel, who came in with his daughter and ordered two slices of strawberry cake every Friday; Annie Loen, who always ordered a peanut butter brownie and a vanilla shake. Then there were the semi-regulars, but there were more of them, and Avery didn't have all of them memorized completely yet.

Recently, Avery had added a new face to the list.

Kross Mayer ordered almost exclusively black coffees, which Avery despised, but he was polite, and funny, and interesting– not to mention very, very attractive.

Kross came in at least twice a week for awhile, and then it was three times a week, then four. He rarely changed up his order, bouncing between plain black coffee and occasionally a latte. On top of that, he seemed to know which days were busy, and which days weren't- and he always managed to come on the days that weren't very busy. When Avery was behind the counter on those days, they had lovely conversations. For awhile they were mostly normal conversations; chatting about work, arbitrary things like music or movies or talents (like Avery playing the guitar, which they had talked for nearly 15 minutes about). Recently, Avery had been almost-flirting, but was being subtle for probably the first time in his life. Still, most of them were just... nice. Avery found himself always looking forward to seeing him walk in.

When Avery wasn't working the counter when he came in, more often than not Samantha would excuse herself before she got to the counter, announcing a 'he'll be right with you!' as she made her way back into the kitchen, before she shoved Avery out the door. He wasn't sure how she caught on so quickly, but she did, and she definitely took advantage of it. If she wasn't able to switch places with Avery, she would always come back to the kitchen and tease him. "He was disappointed you weren't there to take his order," she would say every time, and Avery would roll his eyes- but he would be a little disappointed too, every time.

Today had been a shockingly slow day for the bakery cafe; Samantha had been busying herself in the kitchen, testing some new recipes, but had declined Avery's offer of help, so he had been stuck in the front of the store, waiting behind the counter for something to happen.

He almost didn't look up when the bell above the door rang, but dropped his pen on the counter, momentarily abandoning his doodle of a simple daisy chain (the fifth one he had drawn on this napkin) and leaned across the counter to see who had come in the door.

At the sight of Kross, Avery grinned. "About time you came in," he teased, leaning back across the counter as Kross got closer and was more in his regular field of vision. It was unfair how attractive he was, really– more than once Avery had to remind himself not to start staring in the middle of conversations. Once he was in front of the counter, Avery stepped back and hopped up on the opposite counter, kicking his feet a few times as he watched him (and pretending that this all wasn't just a way to display the entirety of his outfit, which he thought he looked very good in). "I was about to die of boredom."