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dracoqueen22a/n: This is the last of A Thousand Words, my series of original short fics. It's also directly related to snapshots 3,4, and 7.
Title: What's Left of Me
Series: A Thousand Words
Rating: T
Warning: language, light slash
Pairing: Jason+Kale
Description: For once, the first step is Jason's to make.
“Jason! Wipe down the tables!”
Working his jaw in irritation, Jason inclines his head. “Okay,” he replies, inwardly seething, and grabs a clean wet cloth from the steaming water, wringing it out carefully.
He swears that the manager, Mr. Richards, doesn't like him. He always gets assigned the shit duties and the shit shifts, but it's a job, and he's got to pay the bills somehow. So Jason clenches his teeth and heads out into the dining area, the wooden swinging door creaking behind him.
Just once he'd like to work the cash register, or even make some of the coffee, but after three months, it looks like he's going to be nothing more than a janitor. For a guy who graduated top of his class, it's humiliating. He's got no one to blame but himself. After dismissing his parent's help and moving halfway across the country, Jason's the one who put himself in this predicament. And he's the stubborn ass who refuses to admit that he might have been wrong.
His nose itches, and Jason swipes the back of his arm over it, knowing better than to touch his face with his bare hands. It doesn't matter that he's going to wipe down the tables, it's the principle of the thing. He's had enough Food Safety jammed into his head to last a life time, even if most if it is common sense.
Jason starts at the table in the back, furthest from the counter and the door. It's always the dirtiest and some inattentive mother always lets their dear little one drop all manner of food and refuse to the floor. He ends up sweeping under it, too. From there, he works his way out, first wiping down all the outer tables before starting on the inner ones.
He tries not to grumble under his breath, but it's hard not to. This is not what he imagined when he left home four months ago, taking a bus across the country to the college of his dreams. He had managed to earn a partial scholarship, and when it comes to school, banks are practically eager to thrust a loan onto an eighteen-year old. He makes up the rest with a federal work study program, but it's still not enough to cover his eating and living expenses. Thus the search for a job with flexible hours.
He should have realized that in a college town and little experience, the only thing he can do is retail and customer service. A coffeehouse is probably a step up from the local McDonald's, but not by much.
School's not hard, but it's not a cake walk either. Some of his classes aren't interesting; they don't seem necessary. He's pretty sure he's picked the wrong major, and that's only a few months in. He can't seem to connect to his fellow students, but then, high school had been like that, too. He thought things would be different in college.
It turns out that's only one of many things Jason is wrong about.
He can't keep from thinking about Thomas either. How could he? They were best friends before they were lovers, and Jason misses that, misses that companionship and that friendship. He misses their conversations and the meals shared and the way Thomas seemed to be the only one who believed in him.
Of course, that screw up there is all Jason's fault, too. He'd been angry, immature, irrational... he's not spoken to Thomas since that argument. He spent the rest of his senior year studying like there was no tomorrow, buried in books and college applications and pretending like he hadn't ripped his own heart out and tore it to shreds.
Thomas has gone on to stardom and fame, attending a college close to home and quickly being drafted onto their basketball team. If he's bothered by their break up, Jason wouldn't know. He's never had opportunity to ask, and he's too much a coward to contact Thomas again. He's still convinced that Thomas will do better without him.
That doesn't change the fact that Jason misses him.
He switches his dirty rag out for a clean one and returns to wiping down the tables, the smell of coffee thick in the air and on his tongue. There is a low murmur of chatter through the dining room, along with the soft clicking of lap top keys. This is a pretty popular hang out spot for the college students, but this time of day, it's deserted. Jason likes the quiet as much as he hates it.
There's time to think. Sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes, it's not.
The door opens with a jangle as a customer steps through. Jason, near the door, lifts his head to greet the young man – who looks barely old enough to be a college student – with a fully trained smile and “Welcome to Eric's Espresso.” He's a cute kid though, with dark hair and a spatter of freckles across his nose and cheeks.
Jason's barely acknowledged by the dark-eyed customer, who makes a beeline for the counter. He's learned by now not to be offended. It's his job to play nice. It's the customer's prerogative whether or not they care.
He half-listens, always curious about a customer's order, as he continues to clean the tables. Jason's taking longer than he ought, but he knows there's a sinkful of dirty dishes just waiting for him in the kitchens and he's not exactly eager to get started. He passes by a table with a few chattering girls, and passes another one with an older gentleman typing away on his computer, and starts clearing out the empty booths. There's another table that requires the broom and dustpan, so he dutifully retrieves it before exchanging out his cleaning rag once again.
On his way back out to complete his round, he hears the obnoxious noise of a cell phone ringing loudly. It's one of those ring tones that plays part of a song, a loud rock song that happens to be one Jason despises with a passion.
His head swings around, locating the annoying noise in the corner he'd yet to clean. The customer who had just come in had taken that seat and is staring at his phone, which sits on the table and continues to ring. He picks it up, looks at the number on the screen, and sets it back down again. His free hand taps on the table, an agitated rhythm.
He obviously isn't going to answer it.
A bit annoyed himself, Jason turns away from the customer and goes back to cleaning. He is slowly working his way around the room to the cute kid whose phone eventually stops ringing long enough for him to start sipping at the latte he'd ordered. He had also chosen a piece of coffee cake, but he is only prodding at it listlessly with a plastic spork.
Jason manages to clean three more tables before the phone starts ringing again. This time, the customer's had enough sense to turn it to silent, but the sound of it vibrating across the thick fake-wood is just as aggravating. Dark eyes are glaring at the phone as though it is the most hateful thing in the universe. But instead of choosing to hit Ignore, he just lets it ring and ring.
Despite himself, Jason is curious. There's anger in the boy's eye, but also a mixture of other emotion. Regret, disappointment, sadness. Like he can't decide if he's going to answer the phone or not. He could just turn it off, but maybe he's afraid of missing the call.
Jason lingers, cleaning the tables twice around the lone customer, and when the phone rings again, he can't help himself. He pauses, rag idly wiping over the top of the table, and turns to face the kid
“Aren't you going to answer that?”
The customer blinks slowly, as though surprised Jason has spoken to him. “Excuse me?”
Jason gestures to his phone with his head, the cell buzzing it's away across the table before the customer snatches it up and finally shuts it off. “Your phone. It must be important, since it keeps ringing.”
The boy snorts. “I wouldn't be ignoring it if it was important,” he mutters, and stabs his spork into his piece of cinnamon coffee cake. “Not that it's any of your business.”
He makes for a very good point.
Jason shrugs, pretends nonchalance, and focuses intently on wiping down the table. Maybe, if he scrubs hard enough, he can wipe away the ugly color that had been picked for the top.
“You're right. It's not.”
He rearranges the napkin container and the little basket filled with artificial sugars and packets of creamer, and decides he's lingered long enough. The kid obviously doesn't want to talk and Jason probably comes off as a creep, nosing around like he has a right to.
He snags his wet towel with intentions of hitting the last four tables before reluctantly trudging toward dish duty. He forces himself not to look back at the lonely customer, but something in the kid's face lingers in the back of his mind.
“It doesn't take an hour to wipe down tables, Jason,” Mr. Richards reprimands as Jason tosses his dirtied rag into the wash bin and rolls up his sleeves.
“They were messy,” he answers curtly and heads into the back kitchen where sure enough, a mound of dirtied mixing cups, pitchers, and dishware awaits his already pruny fingers. Luckily, Jason is a pro-dishwasher. It was his main chore at home.
Home. Now that's a place he hasn't thought of in awhile. He hasn't gone back since coming to this town for school. He's talked to his mom on the phone a couple of times, and his siblings have sent him letters. But he doesn't miss it. Not really. In fact, he likes his family a heck of a lot more now that they are not all under the same roof.
Mr. Richards' lips twist into a dissatisfied sneer. “You're not impressing me, Mr. Edwards. If you'd like to spend the next four years, washing dishes, keep it up.” He whirls on his heel and stalks out of the kitchens, leaving Jason with an enormous stack and a chip on his shoulder.
Blowing his hair out of his eyes – he's been letting it grow for some stupid reason – Jason plunges his hands into the steaming water and gets to work. This is far from glamorous, not exactly where he thought he'd be right about now. But then, a sophomore back in high school doesn't really know much about reality.
Back then, he and Thomas had just gotten together. It was like a secret, like a game at first. How to hide it from other people. Shared handjobs in the dark. Stolen kisses in the shadowed corners when no one was looking. Cornering Thomas in the locker room when all the other players had left. Staying over on the weekends because to their parents, it wasn't anything unusual.
Jason remembers being old enough to realize that there wasn't something entirely normal in their relationship. Normal guys liked girls and wanted to have sex with them. They didn't fantasize about their best friend being naked, about putting their mouth on their best friend's cock. They didn't ignore the phone numbers girls pressed into their fingers over hanging out with pizza and an all night horror-movie fest.
He remembers spending a lot of time chewing his nails, fretting over being caught, over what might happen. There were already rumors about himself. He'd been a loner – Thomas excluded – even before they started fucking each other. He'd been useless around girls before that, too, and since he was thin, gangly, no good at sports, and a complete book worm, of course there were rumors. Jason had always denied them, until he realized how useless it was to do so, but he never thought they'd actually prove true.
He'd heard stories, too. He'd seen things on the news. He paid attention to that sort of thing, attention where Thomas just seemed to brush reality aside. Jason knew about the boys – gay boys he always whispered to himself – that were beaten and mocked and bullied because of their preference. He didn't want to be one of those boys.
It didn't help that Thomas was more normal than he was. That he could look at the girls in the porn magazines they'd stolen from his father's closet and get hard over them. Jason couldn't. He didn't like women, didn't care to see them naked, and the one time he'd kissed a girl had been a disaster he didn't want to repeat. Maybe that should have been his first clue.
Fighting back a sigh, Jason finishes off the last of the dishes and wipes his hands on an already damp rag. The sink is empty, but he knows by the time his shift is close to ending, it will be full again, thereby ensuring he stays ten to fifteen minutes longer. Rolling his neck to ease the kinks, Jason heads out of the back kitchen and toward the front, wondering what menial task Mr. Richards will set him to next.
His gaze swings over the serving area, where Gina and Lizette are wandering around bored. Mr. Richards must be in his office then, otherwise he wouldn't abide by all this idleness. Jason surveys the dining room, too, just to see if there's anything that needs his immediate attention.
Huh. That kid is still here. He's been sitting at that table for almost thirty minutes now. The coffee cake is a mangled mess, Jason doubts he's even eaten one bite of it. But the coffee cup is gone. He's probably drank it all.
He still looks miserable, too, though now his attention seems to be directed out the window. He sits half-turned in the cushioned seat, one hand tapping a nonsense rhythm on the table as he watches the people pass.
Jason frowns.
“Hey, Gina?”
His co-worker, the best coffee maker according to Mr. Richards, leans toward him from where she is fiddling with the espresso machine. “Yeah?”
Jason jerks a thumb in the kid's direction. “Do you remember what he ordered?”
She grins, winking at him. “Of course I do. He's a cute one,” Gina sighs, a girlish sigh that doesn't seem to match her punk-goth exterior. “A girl's gotta love those freckles.”
“Good. Make another one.”
Gina blinks. “Why?”
Honestly, Jason's not sure himself. But there's something about the kid he can't let alone. Maybe it's because he reminds Jason of himself in a way. He remembers being that lost after ending things with Thomas, remembers staring at his cell phone, wanting it to ring and wishing that it wouldn't. He didn't know what he wanted at the time.
“I'm going to give it to him.”
“But--”
Jason rolls his eyes, sliding past her to put the supplies into the requisite rack. “I'm going to pay for it of course. I didn't mean for free.”
Her eyebrow arches, ring glinting in the fluorescent lighting. “O-kay, Jason. Whatever you say.” She turns away from Jason and obediently starts to make the latte. Lucky that they have no customers that might otherwise distract her.
While she mixes and shakes and brews, Jason restocks the supplies and eyes the young man over the counter. He hasn't moved from his position, seemingly fixated on the window. The cell phone still sits on the table, but it's dark and silent. He hasn't looked at it once since Jason started watching him.
“Here,” Gina says, plopping the cup in front of him. “I even up-sized it for you. 'Cause I'm sweet like that.”
Jason reaches for the latter. “Thanks--”
It slides out from under him, Gina's fingers carefully holding the rim. “Care to share why you're treating Mr. Freckles to a crème brulee frappuchino?”
He holds her gaze, sliding his hand around the base of the cup, which has been thoughtfully wrapped by one of those cardboard warmers. “He looks like he needs it,” Jason answers evenly. He's not told anyone that he's... inclined toward men, and frankly, Jason would like to keep it that way.
But sometimes, Gina looks at him with this glint in her eye that makes Jason a little nervous. It's like she knows, not like he's given her any clues. But he swears she must think something. And whatever it is, it amuses her too much for his comfort.
“It can't be that simple,” Gina insists.
The door bell jangles as customers come in, a group of six or seven college students who look in serious need of a hot drink. They make straight for the counter and Jason sees a chance for escape.
“It is,” he repeats, and slides the cup out from under her hand, twisting to smoothly push past her before she can protest. She can't even demand more because their new customers are at the counter, wanting to be served and that's her job, not Jason's.
He pauses by the office, where Mr. Richards is bent over his desk and computer, phone pressed to his ear. No doubt sucking up to the district manager. He likes to put on an arrogant asshole front, but let the DM walk in the door and suddenly he's an ass-kisser. It's pathetic.
“Break,” Jason mouths at him, and ducks out before Mr. Richards can protest. It'll be at least ten minutes before he'll be able to extract himself from the phone call anyway, and by then, it won't matter if Jason's on break or not.
Mr. Richards will emerge breathing hellfire and brimstone, nothing they do will suffice, and nothing will be clean enough. He always gets like that after talking with the district manager. Both Gina and Jason, along with all their other co-workers, have learned to deal with it.
Jason steps out from behind the counter, wooden door creaking noisily, and makes a beeline for the nameless customer who has somehow completely captivated him. He wonders if it would be too pushy of himself to sit across the table, and decides it's better to be invited first.
He clears his throat, gets no reaction, and instead sets the cup on the table with a loud enough thump that it almost echoes through the coffeehouse.
This gets the young man's attention and he turns, eyes flicking from Jason to the cup to Jason and back again. “... I didn't order that,” he says.
“I know,” Jason replies, and he pushes it toward the kid. “It's on the house.”
He looks suspicious, and rightly so. Jason quickly holds up his hands, gesturing over his shoulder to Gina. “I promise it's not spiked or anything. Gina made it. You can ask her if you don't believe me.”
Dark eyes narrow briefly before he reaches out – he's got large hands, thick knuckles, strong fingers, why is this important? – cupping his hand around the cup. “I believe you,” he says, and after taking a sip, inclines his head. “Thanks.”
“No problem. You look like you needed it.” Jason lingers, shifting from foot to foot. What the hell is he doing? What the hell is he thinking? This isn't him, approaching strangers, making an ass of himself. He doesn't do stuff like this.
The young man arches a brow and then clears his throat. “Do you want to sit or something?”
An invitation. Now Jason feels a bit less like a creep.
“Yeah, thanks.” He slides into the seat across from the young man and sighs out of relief. His back had been killing him.
The other man makes a noncommittal noise in his throat, watching over the lid of his cup as he sips carefully, the hot coffee demanding caution.
Jason sits back, drums his fingers on the table, tries to look casual while feeling squirming butterflies take flight in his belly. “So...”
“Kale,” the young man supplies.
Jason nods. “Kale, right. I'm Jason.”
There's a curve of lips, a hint of humor. “I figured that from the name tag,” Kale replies, and a brief sparkle lights his eyes, chasing away some of the shadows.
He's not blushing, he's not, Jason tells himself firmly. “I forgot I was wearing it,” he says honestly, and runs a hand through his head. “So... do you go to the university, too?”
Kale shakes his head. “No, I live around here. This is the first time I've been to this place though. It's new.”
“Yeah, by a few months,” Jason replies, and it's probably one of the reasons he managed to get the job. He applied the very moment they announced they were hiring and he got lucky.
“Do you attend the university?”
Jason nods, wishing he'd brought his own drink just to give his hands something to do. He can feel Gina shooting him death glares from across the counter, but right now, he couldn't care less. “Yeah. I'm an Architecture major.”
Both of Kale's brows rose. “Isn't that hard?”
“A little.” Jason shrugs and leans forward, placing his elbow on the table and his palm on his chin. “I'm thinking of changing majors but to what, I don't know.”
“Indecisive?”
“Something like that. I just don't know what I want to do.”
Kale laughs, but it's a bitter sound and not really humored. “Yeah, I know what that feels like.”
There's more in his voice, in his tone, than just his words, and Jason looks at him, at the dark circles under his eyes that prove he hasn't slept very well recently. “The unwanted phone call, I take it?”
“Nosy, aren't you?”
Jason shrugs, tries to pull it off as uninterested now matter how it seems the opposite. “You could call it that.” He makes a vague gesture with his free hand. “Think of me like a bartender. You can pour out your woes and I won't tell a soul.”
Kale's lips quirk into a smirk. “And a crème brulee frappuchino is your idea of 'gimme another one, bartender?'”
“I'll have to cut you off at three though, that's the limit of my paycheck,” Jason replies with a small chuckle of his own.
Kale snorts, but it's less bitter this time. “Are you always this friendly?”
“Actually, this is a first for me,” Jason admits, and no, he doesn't even want to ask himself why. He's not sure he'll like the answer.
Kale looks at him, as though he's trying to peer beneath the surface of Jason's face, and then his brow furrows. “Then why now?”
“I know that look,” Jason answers honestly, and while Kale's expression might not match his drama wrinkle for angsty wrinkle, it's similar enough that Jason understands. His fingers tap on the table, Thomas floating at the forefront of his mind. “Letting go is the hardest part.”
“Yeah, it is,” Kale says, and his voice is soft, just as thoughtful.
“Jason!”
He starts when Mr. Richards hisses his name – too professional to yell it across the dining room – and glances to the side. His manager is turning a very familiar crimson, one of sheer irritation, and Jason sighs. Time's up.
“Work calls,” he says with a grimace, and slides out of the booth, rising to his feet. He adjusts his apron, reties the loosened strings, and looks back at Kale. He feels he should say something, but all he can manage is, “It gets better.”
“That's what they say,” Kale replies, but there's a lightness to his tone, like he really believes it. He salutes Jason with his cup, a smile curling his lips that suits him much better than the mournful frown. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Anytime,” Jason says, and he means it.
He excuses himself and returns to the service counter, already anticipating Mr. Richards' inevitable tongue lashing. But it's worth it, Jason thinks, just to see that smile.
And a week later, when he looks up from Gina trying to patiently explain to him how to work the espresso machine when Mr. Richards back is turned, Jason sees Kale come through the door again, and he doesn't bother to fight his own smile. Not even when Kale comes up to the counter, orders his usual, and asks when Jason's next break is.
“I got a new phone,” Kale says over a couple of lattes and slices of lemon cake. “Want the number?”
Jason grins like an idiot and pulls out his own cell. “Yeah, I do.”
* * *
a/n: This particular fic can be considered the prequel to my Charity Sip Four Years On which was recently published by Torquere Press with all proceeds benefiting the It Gets Better project. Check out this post for more information.
I'm contemplating writing five more short stories (two of them related to the stories already present in this series, one a piece of AU fanfiction of my original works, and two more completely unrelated) as well as revising and adding on to these ten. I've thought about packaging them up in an anthology. I wonder if anyone would be interested in purchasing this sort of thing?
Oh! And don't forget to go make your flash fiction request. You have until Monday morning!
Title: What's Left of Me
Series: A Thousand Words
Rating: T
Warning: language, light slash
Pairing: Jason+Kale
Description: For once, the first step is Jason's to make.
“Jason! Wipe down the tables!”
Working his jaw in irritation, Jason inclines his head. “Okay,” he replies, inwardly seething, and grabs a clean wet cloth from the steaming water, wringing it out carefully.
He swears that the manager, Mr. Richards, doesn't like him. He always gets assigned the shit duties and the shit shifts, but it's a job, and he's got to pay the bills somehow. So Jason clenches his teeth and heads out into the dining area, the wooden swinging door creaking behind him.
Just once he'd like to work the cash register, or even make some of the coffee, but after three months, it looks like he's going to be nothing more than a janitor. For a guy who graduated top of his class, it's humiliating. He's got no one to blame but himself. After dismissing his parent's help and moving halfway across the country, Jason's the one who put himself in this predicament. And he's the stubborn ass who refuses to admit that he might have been wrong.
His nose itches, and Jason swipes the back of his arm over it, knowing better than to touch his face with his bare hands. It doesn't matter that he's going to wipe down the tables, it's the principle of the thing. He's had enough Food Safety jammed into his head to last a life time, even if most if it is common sense.
Jason starts at the table in the back, furthest from the counter and the door. It's always the dirtiest and some inattentive mother always lets their dear little one drop all manner of food and refuse to the floor. He ends up sweeping under it, too. From there, he works his way out, first wiping down all the outer tables before starting on the inner ones.
He tries not to grumble under his breath, but it's hard not to. This is not what he imagined when he left home four months ago, taking a bus across the country to the college of his dreams. He had managed to earn a partial scholarship, and when it comes to school, banks are practically eager to thrust a loan onto an eighteen-year old. He makes up the rest with a federal work study program, but it's still not enough to cover his eating and living expenses. Thus the search for a job with flexible hours.
He should have realized that in a college town and little experience, the only thing he can do is retail and customer service. A coffeehouse is probably a step up from the local McDonald's, but not by much.
School's not hard, but it's not a cake walk either. Some of his classes aren't interesting; they don't seem necessary. He's pretty sure he's picked the wrong major, and that's only a few months in. He can't seem to connect to his fellow students, but then, high school had been like that, too. He thought things would be different in college.
It turns out that's only one of many things Jason is wrong about.
He can't keep from thinking about Thomas either. How could he? They were best friends before they were lovers, and Jason misses that, misses that companionship and that friendship. He misses their conversations and the meals shared and the way Thomas seemed to be the only one who believed in him.
Of course, that screw up there is all Jason's fault, too. He'd been angry, immature, irrational... he's not spoken to Thomas since that argument. He spent the rest of his senior year studying like there was no tomorrow, buried in books and college applications and pretending like he hadn't ripped his own heart out and tore it to shreds.
Thomas has gone on to stardom and fame, attending a college close to home and quickly being drafted onto their basketball team. If he's bothered by their break up, Jason wouldn't know. He's never had opportunity to ask, and he's too much a coward to contact Thomas again. He's still convinced that Thomas will do better without him.
That doesn't change the fact that Jason misses him.
He switches his dirty rag out for a clean one and returns to wiping down the tables, the smell of coffee thick in the air and on his tongue. There is a low murmur of chatter through the dining room, along with the soft clicking of lap top keys. This is a pretty popular hang out spot for the college students, but this time of day, it's deserted. Jason likes the quiet as much as he hates it.
There's time to think. Sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes, it's not.
The door opens with a jangle as a customer steps through. Jason, near the door, lifts his head to greet the young man – who looks barely old enough to be a college student – with a fully trained smile and “Welcome to Eric's Espresso.” He's a cute kid though, with dark hair and a spatter of freckles across his nose and cheeks.
Jason's barely acknowledged by the dark-eyed customer, who makes a beeline for the counter. He's learned by now not to be offended. It's his job to play nice. It's the customer's prerogative whether or not they care.
He half-listens, always curious about a customer's order, as he continues to clean the tables. Jason's taking longer than he ought, but he knows there's a sinkful of dirty dishes just waiting for him in the kitchens and he's not exactly eager to get started. He passes by a table with a few chattering girls, and passes another one with an older gentleman typing away on his computer, and starts clearing out the empty booths. There's another table that requires the broom and dustpan, so he dutifully retrieves it before exchanging out his cleaning rag once again.
On his way back out to complete his round, he hears the obnoxious noise of a cell phone ringing loudly. It's one of those ring tones that plays part of a song, a loud rock song that happens to be one Jason despises with a passion.
His head swings around, locating the annoying noise in the corner he'd yet to clean. The customer who had just come in had taken that seat and is staring at his phone, which sits on the table and continues to ring. He picks it up, looks at the number on the screen, and sets it back down again. His free hand taps on the table, an agitated rhythm.
He obviously isn't going to answer it.
A bit annoyed himself, Jason turns away from the customer and goes back to cleaning. He is slowly working his way around the room to the cute kid whose phone eventually stops ringing long enough for him to start sipping at the latte he'd ordered. He had also chosen a piece of coffee cake, but he is only prodding at it listlessly with a plastic spork.
Jason manages to clean three more tables before the phone starts ringing again. This time, the customer's had enough sense to turn it to silent, but the sound of it vibrating across the thick fake-wood is just as aggravating. Dark eyes are glaring at the phone as though it is the most hateful thing in the universe. But instead of choosing to hit Ignore, he just lets it ring and ring.
Despite himself, Jason is curious. There's anger in the boy's eye, but also a mixture of other emotion. Regret, disappointment, sadness. Like he can't decide if he's going to answer the phone or not. He could just turn it off, but maybe he's afraid of missing the call.
Jason lingers, cleaning the tables twice around the lone customer, and when the phone rings again, he can't help himself. He pauses, rag idly wiping over the top of the table, and turns to face the kid
“Aren't you going to answer that?”
The customer blinks slowly, as though surprised Jason has spoken to him. “Excuse me?”
Jason gestures to his phone with his head, the cell buzzing it's away across the table before the customer snatches it up and finally shuts it off. “Your phone. It must be important, since it keeps ringing.”
The boy snorts. “I wouldn't be ignoring it if it was important,” he mutters, and stabs his spork into his piece of cinnamon coffee cake. “Not that it's any of your business.”
He makes for a very good point.
Jason shrugs, pretends nonchalance, and focuses intently on wiping down the table. Maybe, if he scrubs hard enough, he can wipe away the ugly color that had been picked for the top.
“You're right. It's not.”
He rearranges the napkin container and the little basket filled with artificial sugars and packets of creamer, and decides he's lingered long enough. The kid obviously doesn't want to talk and Jason probably comes off as a creep, nosing around like he has a right to.
He snags his wet towel with intentions of hitting the last four tables before reluctantly trudging toward dish duty. He forces himself not to look back at the lonely customer, but something in the kid's face lingers in the back of his mind.
“It doesn't take an hour to wipe down tables, Jason,” Mr. Richards reprimands as Jason tosses his dirtied rag into the wash bin and rolls up his sleeves.
“They were messy,” he answers curtly and heads into the back kitchen where sure enough, a mound of dirtied mixing cups, pitchers, and dishware awaits his already pruny fingers. Luckily, Jason is a pro-dishwasher. It was his main chore at home.
Home. Now that's a place he hasn't thought of in awhile. He hasn't gone back since coming to this town for school. He's talked to his mom on the phone a couple of times, and his siblings have sent him letters. But he doesn't miss it. Not really. In fact, he likes his family a heck of a lot more now that they are not all under the same roof.
Mr. Richards' lips twist into a dissatisfied sneer. “You're not impressing me, Mr. Edwards. If you'd like to spend the next four years, washing dishes, keep it up.” He whirls on his heel and stalks out of the kitchens, leaving Jason with an enormous stack and a chip on his shoulder.
Blowing his hair out of his eyes – he's been letting it grow for some stupid reason – Jason plunges his hands into the steaming water and gets to work. This is far from glamorous, not exactly where he thought he'd be right about now. But then, a sophomore back in high school doesn't really know much about reality.
Back then, he and Thomas had just gotten together. It was like a secret, like a game at first. How to hide it from other people. Shared handjobs in the dark. Stolen kisses in the shadowed corners when no one was looking. Cornering Thomas in the locker room when all the other players had left. Staying over on the weekends because to their parents, it wasn't anything unusual.
Jason remembers being old enough to realize that there wasn't something entirely normal in their relationship. Normal guys liked girls and wanted to have sex with them. They didn't fantasize about their best friend being naked, about putting their mouth on their best friend's cock. They didn't ignore the phone numbers girls pressed into their fingers over hanging out with pizza and an all night horror-movie fest.
He remembers spending a lot of time chewing his nails, fretting over being caught, over what might happen. There were already rumors about himself. He'd been a loner – Thomas excluded – even before they started fucking each other. He'd been useless around girls before that, too, and since he was thin, gangly, no good at sports, and a complete book worm, of course there were rumors. Jason had always denied them, until he realized how useless it was to do so, but he never thought they'd actually prove true.
He'd heard stories, too. He'd seen things on the news. He paid attention to that sort of thing, attention where Thomas just seemed to brush reality aside. Jason knew about the boys – gay boys he always whispered to himself – that were beaten and mocked and bullied because of their preference. He didn't want to be one of those boys.
It didn't help that Thomas was more normal than he was. That he could look at the girls in the porn magazines they'd stolen from his father's closet and get hard over them. Jason couldn't. He didn't like women, didn't care to see them naked, and the one time he'd kissed a girl had been a disaster he didn't want to repeat. Maybe that should have been his first clue.
Fighting back a sigh, Jason finishes off the last of the dishes and wipes his hands on an already damp rag. The sink is empty, but he knows by the time his shift is close to ending, it will be full again, thereby ensuring he stays ten to fifteen minutes longer. Rolling his neck to ease the kinks, Jason heads out of the back kitchen and toward the front, wondering what menial task Mr. Richards will set him to next.
His gaze swings over the serving area, where Gina and Lizette are wandering around bored. Mr. Richards must be in his office then, otherwise he wouldn't abide by all this idleness. Jason surveys the dining room, too, just to see if there's anything that needs his immediate attention.
Huh. That kid is still here. He's been sitting at that table for almost thirty minutes now. The coffee cake is a mangled mess, Jason doubts he's even eaten one bite of it. But the coffee cup is gone. He's probably drank it all.
He still looks miserable, too, though now his attention seems to be directed out the window. He sits half-turned in the cushioned seat, one hand tapping a nonsense rhythm on the table as he watches the people pass.
Jason frowns.
“Hey, Gina?”
His co-worker, the best coffee maker according to Mr. Richards, leans toward him from where she is fiddling with the espresso machine. “Yeah?”
Jason jerks a thumb in the kid's direction. “Do you remember what he ordered?”
She grins, winking at him. “Of course I do. He's a cute one,” Gina sighs, a girlish sigh that doesn't seem to match her punk-goth exterior. “A girl's gotta love those freckles.”
“Good. Make another one.”
Gina blinks. “Why?”
Honestly, Jason's not sure himself. But there's something about the kid he can't let alone. Maybe it's because he reminds Jason of himself in a way. He remembers being that lost after ending things with Thomas, remembers staring at his cell phone, wanting it to ring and wishing that it wouldn't. He didn't know what he wanted at the time.
“I'm going to give it to him.”
“But--”
Jason rolls his eyes, sliding past her to put the supplies into the requisite rack. “I'm going to pay for it of course. I didn't mean for free.”
Her eyebrow arches, ring glinting in the fluorescent lighting. “O-kay, Jason. Whatever you say.” She turns away from Jason and obediently starts to make the latte. Lucky that they have no customers that might otherwise distract her.
While she mixes and shakes and brews, Jason restocks the supplies and eyes the young man over the counter. He hasn't moved from his position, seemingly fixated on the window. The cell phone still sits on the table, but it's dark and silent. He hasn't looked at it once since Jason started watching him.
“Here,” Gina says, plopping the cup in front of him. “I even up-sized it for you. 'Cause I'm sweet like that.”
Jason reaches for the latter. “Thanks--”
It slides out from under him, Gina's fingers carefully holding the rim. “Care to share why you're treating Mr. Freckles to a crème brulee frappuchino?”
He holds her gaze, sliding his hand around the base of the cup, which has been thoughtfully wrapped by one of those cardboard warmers. “He looks like he needs it,” Jason answers evenly. He's not told anyone that he's... inclined toward men, and frankly, Jason would like to keep it that way.
But sometimes, Gina looks at him with this glint in her eye that makes Jason a little nervous. It's like she knows, not like he's given her any clues. But he swears she must think something. And whatever it is, it amuses her too much for his comfort.
“It can't be that simple,” Gina insists.
The door bell jangles as customers come in, a group of six or seven college students who look in serious need of a hot drink. They make straight for the counter and Jason sees a chance for escape.
“It is,” he repeats, and slides the cup out from under her hand, twisting to smoothly push past her before she can protest. She can't even demand more because their new customers are at the counter, wanting to be served and that's her job, not Jason's.
He pauses by the office, where Mr. Richards is bent over his desk and computer, phone pressed to his ear. No doubt sucking up to the district manager. He likes to put on an arrogant asshole front, but let the DM walk in the door and suddenly he's an ass-kisser. It's pathetic.
“Break,” Jason mouths at him, and ducks out before Mr. Richards can protest. It'll be at least ten minutes before he'll be able to extract himself from the phone call anyway, and by then, it won't matter if Jason's on break or not.
Mr. Richards will emerge breathing hellfire and brimstone, nothing they do will suffice, and nothing will be clean enough. He always gets like that after talking with the district manager. Both Gina and Jason, along with all their other co-workers, have learned to deal with it.
Jason steps out from behind the counter, wooden door creaking noisily, and makes a beeline for the nameless customer who has somehow completely captivated him. He wonders if it would be too pushy of himself to sit across the table, and decides it's better to be invited first.
He clears his throat, gets no reaction, and instead sets the cup on the table with a loud enough thump that it almost echoes through the coffeehouse.
This gets the young man's attention and he turns, eyes flicking from Jason to the cup to Jason and back again. “... I didn't order that,” he says.
“I know,” Jason replies, and he pushes it toward the kid. “It's on the house.”
He looks suspicious, and rightly so. Jason quickly holds up his hands, gesturing over his shoulder to Gina. “I promise it's not spiked or anything. Gina made it. You can ask her if you don't believe me.”
Dark eyes narrow briefly before he reaches out – he's got large hands, thick knuckles, strong fingers, why is this important? – cupping his hand around the cup. “I believe you,” he says, and after taking a sip, inclines his head. “Thanks.”
“No problem. You look like you needed it.” Jason lingers, shifting from foot to foot. What the hell is he doing? What the hell is he thinking? This isn't him, approaching strangers, making an ass of himself. He doesn't do stuff like this.
The young man arches a brow and then clears his throat. “Do you want to sit or something?”
An invitation. Now Jason feels a bit less like a creep.
“Yeah, thanks.” He slides into the seat across from the young man and sighs out of relief. His back had been killing him.
The other man makes a noncommittal noise in his throat, watching over the lid of his cup as he sips carefully, the hot coffee demanding caution.
Jason sits back, drums his fingers on the table, tries to look casual while feeling squirming butterflies take flight in his belly. “So...”
“Kale,” the young man supplies.
Jason nods. “Kale, right. I'm Jason.”
There's a curve of lips, a hint of humor. “I figured that from the name tag,” Kale replies, and a brief sparkle lights his eyes, chasing away some of the shadows.
He's not blushing, he's not, Jason tells himself firmly. “I forgot I was wearing it,” he says honestly, and runs a hand through his head. “So... do you go to the university, too?”
Kale shakes his head. “No, I live around here. This is the first time I've been to this place though. It's new.”
“Yeah, by a few months,” Jason replies, and it's probably one of the reasons he managed to get the job. He applied the very moment they announced they were hiring and he got lucky.
“Do you attend the university?”
Jason nods, wishing he'd brought his own drink just to give his hands something to do. He can feel Gina shooting him death glares from across the counter, but right now, he couldn't care less. “Yeah. I'm an Architecture major.”
Both of Kale's brows rose. “Isn't that hard?”
“A little.” Jason shrugs and leans forward, placing his elbow on the table and his palm on his chin. “I'm thinking of changing majors but to what, I don't know.”
“Indecisive?”
“Something like that. I just don't know what I want to do.”
Kale laughs, but it's a bitter sound and not really humored. “Yeah, I know what that feels like.”
There's more in his voice, in his tone, than just his words, and Jason looks at him, at the dark circles under his eyes that prove he hasn't slept very well recently. “The unwanted phone call, I take it?”
“Nosy, aren't you?”
Jason shrugs, tries to pull it off as uninterested now matter how it seems the opposite. “You could call it that.” He makes a vague gesture with his free hand. “Think of me like a bartender. You can pour out your woes and I won't tell a soul.”
Kale's lips quirk into a smirk. “And a crème brulee frappuchino is your idea of 'gimme another one, bartender?'”
“I'll have to cut you off at three though, that's the limit of my paycheck,” Jason replies with a small chuckle of his own.
Kale snorts, but it's less bitter this time. “Are you always this friendly?”
“Actually, this is a first for me,” Jason admits, and no, he doesn't even want to ask himself why. He's not sure he'll like the answer.
Kale looks at him, as though he's trying to peer beneath the surface of Jason's face, and then his brow furrows. “Then why now?”
“I know that look,” Jason answers honestly, and while Kale's expression might not match his drama wrinkle for angsty wrinkle, it's similar enough that Jason understands. His fingers tap on the table, Thomas floating at the forefront of his mind. “Letting go is the hardest part.”
“Yeah, it is,” Kale says, and his voice is soft, just as thoughtful.
“Jason!”
He starts when Mr. Richards hisses his name – too professional to yell it across the dining room – and glances to the side. His manager is turning a very familiar crimson, one of sheer irritation, and Jason sighs. Time's up.
“Work calls,” he says with a grimace, and slides out of the booth, rising to his feet. He adjusts his apron, reties the loosened strings, and looks back at Kale. He feels he should say something, but all he can manage is, “It gets better.”
“That's what they say,” Kale replies, but there's a lightness to his tone, like he really believes it. He salutes Jason with his cup, a smile curling his lips that suits him much better than the mournful frown. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Anytime,” Jason says, and he means it.
He excuses himself and returns to the service counter, already anticipating Mr. Richards' inevitable tongue lashing. But it's worth it, Jason thinks, just to see that smile.
And a week later, when he looks up from Gina trying to patiently explain to him how to work the espresso machine when Mr. Richards back is turned, Jason sees Kale come through the door again, and he doesn't bother to fight his own smile. Not even when Kale comes up to the counter, orders his usual, and asks when Jason's next break is.
“I got a new phone,” Kale says over a couple of lattes and slices of lemon cake. “Want the number?”
Jason grins like an idiot and pulls out his own cell. “Yeah, I do.”
a/n: This particular fic can be considered the prequel to my Charity Sip Four Years On which was recently published by Torquere Press with all proceeds benefiting the It Gets Better project. Check out this post for more information.
I'm contemplating writing five more short stories (two of them related to the stories already present in this series, one a piece of AU fanfiction of my original works, and two more completely unrelated) as well as revising and adding on to these ten. I've thought about packaging them up in an anthology. I wonder if anyone would be interested in purchasing this sort of thing?
Oh! And don't forget to go make your flash fiction request. You have until Monday morning!
